Fixing the Humanities Ph.D.

An anonymous reader writes "A new report from the Modern Language Association focuses on the decline of Ph.D. programs in the humanities over the past several years. "These programs have gotten both more difficult and less rewarding: today, it can take almost a decade to get a doctorate, and, at the end of your program, you're unlikely to find a tenure-track job." According to the report, 40% of new Ph.D.s won't be able to find tenure-track jobs, and many of the rest won't manage to receive tenure at all. "Different people will tell you different stories about where all the jobs went. Some critics think that the humanities have gotten too weird—that undergrads, turned off by an overly theoretical approach, don't want to participate anymore, and that teaching opportunities have disappeared as a result. ... Others point to the corporatization of universities, which are increasingly inclined to hire part-time, 'adjunct' professors, rather than full-time, tenure-track ones, to teach undergrads. Adjuncts are cheaper; perhaps more importantly, they are easier to hire." The MLA doesn't want to reduce enrollments, but they think the grad school programs should be quicker to complete and dissertations should be shorter and less complex."

Comments

Are they taking advice from law schools?

[damn_registrars]

Based on the summary it appears that the solution to humanities PhDs not finding work is to graduate more people with humanities PhD degrees. Law schools around the country have been trying that approach and it doesn't seem to be working out very well. Considering the lawyers have government buildings full of lawyer advocates (such buildings are often called "congress"), which the humanities decidedly do not, it is hard to see how the humanities could possibly bode better from this approach.

Re:Are they taking advice from law schools?

[erikscott]

The MLA's principal source of revenue is... wait for it... humanities PhD.s and their annual dues. So hell no they aren't going to call for a reduction in output.

Historically, the sink for all those graduates was Law School. University education basically was Law School until individual "majors" started being created in the mid nineteenth century and the J.D. became a degree in its own right. Lawyers are in something of a unbalanced predator/prey relationship now, and it'll take a while to swing around. Meanwhile, your humanities PhD plus two semesters of organic chem will get you into any Medical School in the country. They like people with the demonstrated perseverance of a PhD in basically anything. The Great Doctor Famine is a good 25-30 years away (the GenX bunch, well, there just aren't enough of us to fill all those beds, and it'll be a while before the millenials get there to fill 'em back up).

Re:Good scholarship - tenure

[Arakageeta]

There is a new problem that comes with reliance on adjuncts. Departments rarely monitor the performance of instruction themselves. Departments make decisions on re-hiring or firing an adjunct based upon student reviews and evaluations. Left without recourse, adjuncts are perversely incentivized to teach easy classes and give out high marks---this helps ensure good reviews. (It also continues the trend in grade inflation.) Adjunct professors cannot challenge their students without risking being fired.

Re:Good scholarship - tenure

[sdinfoserv]

If you think moving up the corporate ladder is about competencies, you don't know a thing about business. Getting a corner office is about politics and schmoozing and ass-kissing.

Re:Cultural issues

[sandytaru]

I majored in English for my undergrad. I quickly found that all literature was carefully supported BS, all my lit classes were teaching me was how to produce more carefully supported BS, and while I was good at the BS production I despised it and myself for doing it. I couldn't stomach it. It's a hot mess of group think.

So I focused on technical writing instead, which was a good decision. There are not a lot of ways to BS in a software manual, nor do you really need to.