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This book came out just a couple of years before I began work at the Ph.D. level in history, and most of its concerns seem to match my own experience, although it seems to me that by 2006, there was more deliberate training with electronic research sources and pedagogical tools than at the time the survey was taken (1999-2000) that led to this report. I hope that, now almost a generation later, the academic history profession has taken more of it concerns, especially regarding the job market and training of historians for non-traditional positions, to heart. The book is written by a committee, and at times it was interesting to guess which committee members had influenced this or that section, or to recognize a citation from a particularly prominent member, but the overall tone is decidedly impersonal and distant.
Among the major problems identified by this study was the fact that a boom in graduate studies in the mid-twentieth century had not led to an expansion of tenure track positions, nor a new understanding of professional opportunities for history Ph.D.’s outside of the academy, that history remains slow to pick up new teaching techniques, that the emphasis in most programs is on pure research, even though most existing positions split that with teaching, or even place teaching as the more important duty, and that history programs fail to keep pace with new technologies such as online database research. Graduate professors perpetuate this through a kind of snobbishness that suggests that successful historians by definition work at research Universities, preferably instructing new Ph.D.’s for a market that doesn’t need them. Students accrue massive debts or work for minimal compensation as TA’s and only the very few are lucky enough to “succeed” by the definition of their advisors. Meanwhile, the emphasis on STEM at the undergrad level means that history programs are cut or limited, so even fewer professors are hired.
Based on the survey, given to heads of Graduate Studies departments, it seems that this situation was not being addressed effectively at this time, and that both students and professors under-rated the seriousness of the situation. It was surprising how often it seemed to me that respondents re-affirmed the very beliefs that got them into the situation, or expressed a bizarre optimism that “their” grad students were fine, the problem was “out there” somewhere. The apparent lack of interest in attrition rates and exit interviews are only two examples. More surprisingly, from a current point of view, was that fully 82% of the respondents to the survey did not or could not answer the question about the prevalence of sexual harassment within their department, and that the majority-female committee allowed this fact to pass unmentioned in the narrative section.
Interestingly, reading the book gave me pangs of nostalgia, even acknowledging that my own graduate experience in history was mixed at best. Researching history truly is a joyful process, and should be celebrated and taught joyfully, but the history field needs to address its shortcomings if this is to continue to be a viable option for students with a passion for this work.
Among the major problems identified by this study was the fact that a boom in graduate studies in the mid-twentieth century had not led to an expansion of tenure track positions, nor a new understanding of professional opportunities for history Ph.D.’s outside of the academy, that history remains slow to pick up new teaching techniques, that the emphasis in most programs is on pure research, even though most existing positions split that with teaching, or even place teaching as the more important duty, and that history programs fail to keep pace with new technologies such as online database research. Graduate professors perpetuate this through a kind of snobbishness that suggests that successful historians by definition work at research Universities, preferably instructing new Ph.D.’s for a market that doesn’t need them. Students accrue massive debts or work for minimal compensation as TA’s and only the very few are lucky enough to “succeed” by the definition of their advisors. Meanwhile, the emphasis on STEM at the undergrad level means that history programs are cut or limited, so even fewer professors are hired.
Based on the survey, given to heads of Graduate Studies departments, it seems that this situation was not being addressed effectively at this time, and that both students and professors under-rated the seriousness of the situation. It was surprising how often it seemed to me that respondents re-affirmed the very beliefs that got them into the situation, or expressed a bizarre optimism that “their” grad students were fine, the problem was “out there” somewhere. The apparent lack of interest in attrition rates and exit interviews are only two examples. More surprisingly, from a current point of view, was that fully 82% of the respondents to the survey did not or could not answer the question about the prevalence of sexual harassment within their department, and that the majority-female committee allowed this fact to pass unmentioned in the narrative section.
Interestingly, reading the book gave me pangs of nostalgia, even acknowledging that my own graduate experience in history was mixed at best. Researching history truly is a joyful process, and should be celebrated and taught joyfully, but the history field needs to address its shortcomings if this is to continue to be a viable option for students with a passion for this work.