Tips for (humanities?) grad students: IHE article

[Wahoo Redux]

Are books are requirement for tenure at non-research universities?

No.  We've worked at two of these.  Both had a tenure requirement of two peer-reviewed articles. 

The teaching load is generally twice what a book-required school is.  And there is very limited release time for scholarship at our teaching schools.  We have seen people not achieve even this low bar, however, as scholarship is not a priority at all.

[RatGuy]

Also my experience. In my grad program, there were two tracks to degree. One could be finished in three years: 5 semesters of coursework, standard written comprehensive in 5th semester, 6th semester was formatting the dissertation. The dissertation was a portfolio of previous term papers with an introduction. No oral defense.

Is your 3 year track an Ed.D or a Ph.D?

PhD. That degree program was created to compete with similar MFA programs nearby.

[mleok]

It was as though we had a division among grad students between the anointed ones who would receive full support in their studies and apprenticeship, and those of us who were largely left to fend for ourselves.  I've always suspected that we lower-caste students were just there to be cheap labor.

Also my experience. In my grad program, there were two tracks to degree. One could be finished in three years: 5 semesters of coursework, standard written comprehensive in 5th semester, 6th semester was formatting the dissertation. The dissertation was a portfolio of previous term papers with an introduction. No oral defense.

Track #2 was normally finished in 5-6 years, as it contained oral and written comps, prospectus defense, dissertation (entirely new material), oral defense. But the department marketed itself as "the PhD you can get in 3 years," so normally students in track 2 were left unfunded after year 3.

It created a nasty atmosphere among the different cohorts for apparent discrepancies in rigor, funding, professional opportunities. This also meant that the faculty were at odds with each other, offering preferential treatment to the students in the faculty member's chosen track.

There was a time where the mathematics department at Berkeley had a reputation for admitting far more graduate students than it truly wanted to mentor, just so that it could use them as TAs, and then a substantial fraction would fail the qualifying examinations, and therefore be forced to leave with a Master's degree. Apparently, word got around, and this eventually affected their yield on students they did want, and they then got rid of this two-tiered policy.

I recall receiving an offer of admission from the Courant Institute (NYU), and it included a first-year fellowship, and they made a big deal when I visited that it would include office space. Apparently, those admitted without funding, were not allocated office space...

[jerseyjay]

Are books are requirement for tenure at non-research universities?

No.  We've worked at two of these.  Both had a tenure requirement of two peer-reviewed articles. 

The teaching load is generally twice what a book-required school is.  And there is very limited release time for scholarship at our teaching schools.  We have seen people not achieve even this low bar, however, as scholarship is not a priority at all.

I teach history (a book field) at an open-admission public university that until the 1990s was a teaching college. My colleagues who started up through the 1990s--when it changed its name to university--generally do not have books. Many do not have articles. However, everybody who has been hired since 2000 has written at least one book (usually a revision of the dissertation) and some articles to get tenure. I am on the tenure track and while I have not been told a book is an absolute requirement, I am writing a book (my second) along with about an article a year to assure tenure.

It is clear that at my school the expectations of research have gone up, while things that might make writing easier (course releases, funds for travel, database subscriptions at the library) have been cut for budget reasons. I do not think that we would hire anybody in our department who did not already have some publications and a research plan--and the ability to teach a 4:4 load with at least 3 preps a term. (Of course, we haven't hired anybody at all for a while and probably won't get another line for a while.) I get the sense that my university is not unique in this.

[Wahoo Redux]

I teach history (a book field) at an open-admission public university that until the 1990s was a teaching college. My colleagues who started up through the 1990s--when it changed its name to university--generally do not have books. Many do not have articles. However, everybody who has been hired since 2000 has written at least one book (usually a revision of the dissertation) and some articles to get tenure. I am on the tenure track and while I have not been told a book is an absolute requirement, I am writing a book (my second) along with about an article a year to assure tenure.

It is clear that at my school the expectations of research have gone up, while things that might make writing easier (course releases, funds for travel, database subscriptions at the library) have been cut for budget reasons. I do not think that we would hire anybody in our department who did not already have some publications and a research plan--and the ability to teach a 4:4 load with at least 3 preps a term. (Of course, we haven't hired anybody at all for a while and probably won't get another line for a while.) I get the sense that my university is not unique in this.

Wow.  Is this because history is so competitive right now?

[apl68]

I teach history (a book field) at an open-admission public university that until the 1990s was a teaching college. My colleagues who started up through the 1990s--when it changed its name to university--generally do not have books. Many do not have articles. However, everybody who has been hired since 2000 has written at least one book (usually a revision of the dissertation) and some articles to get tenure. I am on the tenure track and while I have not been told a book is an absolute requirement, I am writing a book (my second) along with about an article a year to assure tenure.

It is clear that at my school the expectations of research have gone up, while things that might make writing easier (course releases, funds for travel, database subscriptions at the library) have been cut for budget reasons. I do not think that we would hire anybody in our department who did not already have some publications and a research plan--and the ability to teach a 4:4 load with at least 3 preps a term. (Of course, we haven't hired anybody at all for a while and probably won't get another line for a while.) I get the sense that my university is not unique in this.

Wow.  Is this because history is so competitive right now?

To give you some idea of just how crowded the field is--I applied, ABD, for a history teaching job at a tiny two-year college in my home state that few people out of state had probably ever even heard of.  I didn't even get called back, because they got multiple applicants for the position with PhDs already in hand.  That was the very, very last straw that made me abandon my PhD studies once and for all and start looking to turn my library work into a Plan B career.

[Wahoo Redux]

I teach history (a book field) at an open-admission public university that until the 1990s was a teaching college. My colleagues who started up through the 1990s--when it changed its name to university--generally do not have books. Many do not have articles. However, everybody who has been hired since 2000 has written at least one book (usually a revision of the dissertation) and some articles to get tenure. I am on the tenure track and while I have not been told a book is an absolute requirement, I am writing a book (my second) along with about an article a year to assure tenure.

It is clear that at my school the expectations of research have gone up, while things that might make writing easier (course releases, funds for travel, database subscriptions at the library) have been cut for budget reasons. I do not think that we would hire anybody in our department who did not already have some publications and a research plan--and the ability to teach a 4:4 load with at least 3 preps a term. (Of course, we haven't hired anybody at all for a while and probably won't get another line for a while.) I get the sense that my university is not unique in this.

Wow.  Is this because history is so competitive right now?

To give you some idea of just how crowded the field is--I applied, ABD, for a history teaching job at a tiny two-year college in my home state that few people out of state had probably ever even heard of.  I didn't even get called back, because they got multiple applicants for the position with PhDs already in hand.  That was the very, very last straw that made me abandon my PhD studies once and for all and start looking to turn my library work into a Plan B career.

I interviewed at a 2 year satellite campus circling a large regional teaching R2.  While walking back to the final interview (which I blew spectacularly) after lunch, the chair, apropos of nothing, "We are only hiring Ph.Ds.  I finally just started sending reject emails to people who only have a masters" or something along those lines.  This was an okay job, high teaching load, all lower div, on a tiny two-building campus in the country.  None of the faculty had any real achievements outside of teaching. 

[kaysixteen]

Caracal certainly is correct to assert that many humanities PhDs can indeed look  back to their grad school experience and confidently claim that they did in fact get more than adequate advising, assistance from advisors, etc.   But this may well have something to do with the fact that those who can look back to their grad school days like that are probably appreciably more likely to have obtained ft academic employment, as such advising assistance would doubtless have greatly increased the chances of making that occurrence come to pass.

[dr_codex]

Caracal certainly is correct to assert that many humanities PhDs can indeed look  back to their grad school experience and confidently claim that they did in fact get more than adequate advising, assistance from advisors, etc.   But this may well have something to do with the fact that those who can look back to their grad school days like that are probably appreciably more likely to have obtained ft academic employment, as such advising assistance would doubtless have greatly increased the chances of making that occurrence come to pass.

Sure. There's some self-selection going on. Moreover, the folks who currently are PhD advisors are unlikely to come onto the Fora and detail all the ways in which they short-change their students.

There's going to be a lot of variability.

I've told the story before on these boards, but one of the reasons that I became a founding member of a graduate student union was that some people were really, really getting shafted. That wasn't my experience, but I wasn't blind to it. It was partly about pay, but it was more generally concern about programs with institutional exploitation. Unionization did not, I'm sure, solve the problem of crappy advisors -- who will be with us forever -- but it did address some of the macro issues.

[apl68]

Caracal certainly is correct to assert that many humanities PhDs can indeed look  back to their grad school experience and confidently claim that they did in fact get more than adequate advising, assistance from advisors, etc.   But this may well have something to do with the fact that those who can look back to their grad school days like that are probably appreciably more likely to have obtained ft academic employment, as such advising assistance would doubtless have greatly increased the chances of making that occurrence come to pass.

Sure. There's some self-selection going on. Moreover, the folks who currently are PhD advisors are unlikely to come onto the Fora and detail all the ways in which they short-change their students.

There's going to be a lot of variability.

I've told the story before on these boards, but one of the reasons that I became a founding member of a graduate student union was that some people were really, really getting shafted. That wasn't my experience, but I wasn't blind to it. It was partly about pay, but it was more generally concern about programs with institutional exploitation. Unionization did not, I'm sure, solve the problem of crappy advisors -- who will be with us forever -- but it did address some of the macro issues.

Several years after I left our program, one of my former profs told me that there had been some macro changes there as well, in part to address experiences like mine.  I'd like to think that things got better there.

[Caracal]

Caracal certainly is correct to assert that many humanities PhDs can indeed look  back to their grad school experience and confidently claim that they did in fact get more than adequate advising, assistance from advisors, etc.   But this may well have something to do with the fact that those who can look back to their grad school days like that are probably appreciably more likely to have obtained ft academic employment, as such advising assistance would doubtless have greatly increased the chances of making that occurrence come to pass.

Sure. There's some self-selection going on. Moreover, the folks who currently are PhD advisors are unlikely to come onto the Fora and detail all the ways in which they short-change their students.

There's going to be a lot of variability.

I've told the story before on these boards, but one of the reasons that I became a founding member of a graduate student union was that some people were really, really getting shafted. That wasn't my experience, but I wasn't blind to it. It was partly about pay, but it was more generally concern about programs with institutional exploitation. Unionization did not, I'm sure, solve the problem of crappy advisors -- who will be with us forever -- but it did address some of the macro issues.

Right, I wouldn't want my comments to be read as a claim that there aren't institutional problems at some places. I think my own department was mostly decent, but I knew people in other departments who were treated very unfairly. I was just disagreeing with the claim that humanities programs in general have a problem with advising because of the way the discipline operates. I don't really see any evidence of that.

[kaysixteen]

Thought question for the fora-- what, if anything, ought to be the proper level of assistance in terms of employment-obtaining, that an advisor, AND also a department, owes to a successful PhD grad student?

[marshwiggle]

Thought question for the fora-- what, if anything, ought to be the proper level of assistance in terms of employment-obtaining, that an advisor, AND also a department, owes to a successful PhD grad student?

It should, at the very least, include a realistic, statistically valid understanding (and explanation to the student) of the graduate's likely job outcomes.  Starting from there, rather from magical thinking, should allow all kinds of other things to follow.

[polly_mer]

Thought question for the fora-- what, if anything, ought to be the proper level of assistance in terms of employment-obtaining, that an advisor, AND also a department, owes to a successful PhD grad student?

It should, at the very least, include a realistic, statistically valid understanding (and explanation to the student) of the graduate's likely job outcomes.  Starting from there, rather from magical thinking, should allow all kinds of other things to follow.

The department should make public (e.g., a webpage) outcomes for the past five to ten years in sufficient detail to let aspiring students do research.

It's very telling to have a much larger incoming cohort than graduating cohort.  Having all five graduates get paying jobs worthy of their years invested in the PhD looks less rosy when the cohort started with twenty.  Why did only five graduate?

It's very telling to have within rounding of the entire cohort graduate in six years and only one of the fifteen has a job that needed the PhD or is in any way better than the job they would have obtained right after the bachelor's degree.

In the graduate programs I would recommend to students, the focus is on networking to be part of the relevant community where jobs are as well as acquiring the skills for which the employers are seeking.  The mentoring is far more than just advising the dissertation.

Success for the mentor/department includes students who graduate with a job lined up that is on a professional career path.  Professors whose students tend not to get jobs face consequences for failing at mentoring and can be banned from having students.

[spork]

I teach history (a book field) at an open-admission public university that until the 1990s was a teaching college. My colleagues who started up through the 1990s--when it changed its name to university--generally do not have books. Many do not have articles. However, everybody who has been hired since 2000 has written at least one book (usually a revision of the dissertation) and some articles to get tenure. I am on the tenure track and while I have not been told a book is an absolute requirement, I am writing a book (my second) along with about an article a year to assure tenure.

It is clear that at my school the expectations of research have gone up, while things that might make writing easier (course releases, funds for travel, database subscriptions at the library) have been cut for budget reasons. I do not think that we would hire anybody in our department who did not already have some publications and a research plan--and the ability to teach a 4:4 load with at least 3 preps a term. (Of course, we haven't hired anybody at all for a while and probably won't get another line for a while.) I get the sense that my university is not unique in this.

Wow.  Is this because history is so competitive right now?

It is not just history. Humanities faculty regardless of discipline at four-year institutions with teaching loads ranging from 3-3 to 4-4 (or higher) often need a book and/or peer-reviewed journal publications to have a strong tenure case. As support for research has gone down, expectations have gone up. You can always hire someone else because so many are looking for work.