My Blog Has Moved

You can now follow my posts at this web site:

http://phdinhistory.org/

Thanks for being such great readers and commentators.

Sterling Fluharty

P.S. If you are interested in following my thoughts on digital history, I will be posting them on a separate blog:

http://cliomachine.org/

My AHA Paper

This is the paper I delivered last Sunday. I am posting it here since the AHA will be taking down precirculated conference papers from their web site in the future.

"Reconsidering the Job Market from the Entry Level"

Let's talk first about the goal of most graduates from history doctoral programs. It should go without saying that the vast majority want to become tenure-track history faculty. Let me describe how difficult this process is before I tell you why the overall goal is impossible. Did you know that only half of the students who entered humanities doctoral programs between 1992-3 and 1994-5 completed their degree within ten years? By comparison, the dropout rate is 10 to 15 percent in business, law, and medicine professional programs. Now let's focus on those who survive their history doctoral program. According to the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), nearly half of the assistant professors who were hired between 1999 and 2003 had earned their PhD in history five to nine years previous. The average time between graduation and the time they landed their current tenure-track position was 3.3 years. Academic job seekers in history now have to prove themselves worthy to job search committees by spending several years after graduation teaching and publishing. Furthermore, my analysis of NSOPF data shows that only 31 percent of all the individuals who earned a PhD in history between 1966 and 1992 were tenured faculty as of 2003. Some of these doctoral recipients may have left academia by that time, but even the AHA agrees that only about one third of history PhDs will ever achieve tenure. One reason why this is happening is that the overall proportion of college faculty who work without any chance of tenure is now at 65 percent and keeps rising. The academic system is rigged against PhDs in history, and the rest of the humanities for that matter.

The erosion of tenure for history faculty is our next topic. The below chart illustrates, by institution type, changes over time in the proportion of history faculty who work without any chance of tenure. While the overall proportion of non-tenure positions in history has fallen since the 1990s, two-year and private colleges have continued to decrease the proportion of history faculty positions that are eligible for tenure.

If most history PhDs will have no chance to obtain tenure, then full-time academic employment would probably be a nice consolation prize. However, even this possibility is slowly vanishing. According to the NSOPF data, the proportion of history faculty who were part-time employees has mostly increased over time: 34.9 percent in 1992, 43.8 percent in 1998, and then 37.5 percent in 2003. For more details, consult the below chart:

You can see that the proportion of all college faculty who are employed part-time has been increasing a little less than one percent per year on average. Although this change has happened slowly since the early to mid-1980s, the accumulated results appear to be irreversible and unmistakable. Within the next decade, perhaps 55 percent of all college faculty will be in part-time positions. If our field continues to follow these trends, we can expect that by about 2015 or 2020 around half of all history faculty will be part-time employees. Already, colleges are hiring three adjuncts for every one tenure-track professor.

Many of you are likely thinking by this point that history doctoral programs should have produced fewer PhDs over the last few decades. According to this school of thought, we have created an oversupply of history PhDs that has outstripped the demand in colleges and universities for new history faculty. I am no longer certain that this is what happened. During the 1949-50 school year, 4.28 percent of all the doctoral degrees awarded were in history. This proportion dropped considerably in the 1970s and 1980s, rebounded slightly in the 1990s, and then has fallen again since the turn of the century. For a closer look at these numbers, consult the below chart:

The proportion of college faculty who teach history has also fallen over time, from about 2.5 percent in the 1990s (according to NSOPF data) to about 1.5 percent between 2004 and 2006 (according to Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] data). What this means is that structural changes are afoot, marginalizing the humanities within most colleges and universities, and hand wringing over the number of PhDs produced annually by history doctoral programs will do little to stop this transformation.

There is a wide disparity in the United States between where most college students enroll and where most history majors earn their bachelors degrees. Consider the following statistics from the 2006-07 school year. Research universities with very high research activity (like UCLA), which enrolled 11 percent of all undergraduates, awarded 35 percent of all history bachelors degrees. Research universities with high research activity (like BYU), which enrolled 8 percent of all undergraduates, awarded 16 percent of all history bachelors degrees. Doctoral/Research Universities (like Illinois State University), which enrolled 4 percent of all undergraduates, awarded 5 percent of all history bachelors degrees. Master's Colleges and Universities with large programs (like CSU-Fullerton), which enrolled 14 percent of all undergraduates, awarded 24 percent of all history bachelors degrees. Baccalaureate colleges that emphasize the arts & sciences (like Metropolitan State College of Denver), which enrolled 14 percent of all undergraduates, awarded 24 percent of all history bachelors degrees. And this gap has grown over time. During the 1984-85 school year, these five institution types enrolled 47 percent of all undergraduates and awarded 88 percent of all history bachelors degrees. Twenty-two years later, these same schools enrolled only 40 percent of all undergraduates and yet awarded 93 percent of all history bachelors degrees. Another way of looking at this situation is that less-selective schools (i.e., masters colleges and universities with medium programs, masters colleges and universities with small programs, baccalaureate colleges that emphasize diverse fields, associates colleges, and specialized colleges), which enrolled a whopping 60 percent of all undergraduates during 2006-07, awarded a mere 7 percent of all history bachelors degrees. For an illustration of these trends, take a look at the below chart:

If these trends continue, by the 2028-29 school year, these five most-selective institution types will enroll only 34 percent of all undergraduates and award 98 percent of all history bachelors degrees. The slice of the academic pie that belongs to history departments is irreversibly becoming smaller.

Some readers of this essay may feel that recent increases in the proportion of bachelors degrees awarded annually in history will create more jobs for history faculty. There may be some truth to this theory, but the recent increases are actually quite modest when placed in historical perspective:

I believe history was a popular major back in the Sixties because many college students felt like they were living through and making history. The economic prosperity of those years made it even more possible for students to imagine that majoring in history would lead them to gainful employment. This democratic impulse within history was largely lost in the Seventies, especially during the recession of those years. During the Reagan years, Americans regained their faith in traditional national narratives and the proportion of history bachelors degrees increased by almost fifty percent. But there was another factor at work also. The history major became increasingly a favorite of students raised in upper-income families. The spread of this trend can be seen in changes to the college admissions game. Between the early 1960s and early 1980s, less than 2 percent of high school graduates took either AP U.S. History or AP European History. Last year, one out of every six high school students who graduated had taken an AP history exam. In addition to this massive prepping of students for college, the movement towards early admissions at selective colleges since the turn of the century made it easier for students from wealthy families to gain entry to the elite college of their choice. The preference of these students from privileged backgrounds for the history major can be seen in the below chart:

The bottom line is that increasing numbers of history majors at liberal arts college and the most elite universities has provided a temporary boost to the demand for history faculty, but the long-term trend is that American college students at other institutions are vocationally oriented and generally do not much see much value in a history or humanities degree.

You may think that I am overestimating the effects of elitism on the history profession and undergraduate students. If you are in this category, you should consider a few examples from the most elite institutions in this country. At Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, more students major in history than in any other subject. At Yale, one out of every six or seven undergraduates earns a bachelors degree in history. History majors are usually the most white and wealthy students. At these three schools, 46 percent of the students who received bachelors degrees last year were members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Yet only 35 percent of students who earned history bachelors degrees at these schools were minorities. A recent sample of twenty colleges and universities (with extremely large endowments) who have waived tuition for students from low- to moderate-income families supports this picture. Between the 2003-04 and 2006-07 school years, while the number of bachelors degrees earned in history across the nation increased at least 15 percent, these twenty elite schools saw their number of history bachelors recipients decrease by an average of 6 percent. Apparently most of these new students from lower income brackets were raised believing that history was an impractical major. At Harvard, where 25 percent of the student body is now eligible for Pell Grants, the number of history bachelors degrees awarded annually has fallen more than a quarter, from 221 in 2003-04 to 161 in 2006-07. I can't help but wonder whether the plan of incoming presidential administration to make college more affordable and accessible, which with the new G.I. bill will further democratize college campuses, will ultimately increase or decrease the proportion of bachelors degrees awarded annually in history.

If we intend to recover the democratic impulse that gave life to history in the Sixties, we need to stop ignoring structural changes in higher education and taking other history degrees for granted. Consider the follow statistics. During the 1969-70 school year, colleges and universities awarded nearly four bachelors degrees for every one associates degrees they handed out. By the late 1990s, this ratio had shrunk, with only two bachelors degrees being earned for each associates degrees. Because of this shift that has taken place, we can no longer afford to overlook this sector for two-year degrees. For instance, few historians realize that about 75 public two-year colleges in the American West (and almost nowhere else) offer an associates degree in history. If we want to create more full-time history faculty positions, we should be trying to export these programs to other junior colleges across the nation, particularly in the Southeast. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, colleges and universities were awarding around 5,000 masters degrees in history each year. Altogether, about 35,000 individuals earned a masters in history during those tumultuous years. This represented between 2% and 3% of all masters degrees awarded by colleges and universities. Since the turn of the century, the masters degree in history has comprised only 0.5% of the masters degrees awarded annually. What has happened over the last four decades is regrettable. Students used to obtain a masters in history because it was seen as a valuable degree in its own right. These days, almost the only people who earn a masters in history are those who intend to enter doctoral programs. The only institution type that has witnessed an increase in the proportion of masters degrees being awarded in history over the last couple decades are masters colleges and universities with large programs, like the CSU system. Unfortunately, less than a third of these 343 schools currently offer both a bachelors and masters in history. We should be working to convince institutions like Grand Valley State University, which already awards over 100 bachelors degrees in history each year and operates 27 graduate programs, that there is a market for masters degrees in history.

Now that we have officially entered a recession, job seekers in history need to think more about their employment prospects in non-academic fields. An unrealistically high percentage of history PhD students are planning on become college professors. A recent survey found that only 5 to 6 percent of history PhD students believed they would end up working in public history. A survey of history PhDs in the 1990s found that 17 percent were employed by governmental, business, or non-profit agencies or institutions. So we need a paradigm shift. The good news is there are some financial rewards for switching to public history and often a doctorate is not needed. According to the latest reports from the AHA, the median salary for full-time history faculty is between $60,000 and $62,000, depending on whether they work at public or private colleges. The most recent data from the BLS provides an interesting counterpoint. The median salary for the more than 700 historians who are employed within the executive branch of the federal government is $80,000 annually. The median salary for the more than 500 historians who are employed by Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services is $69,000 annually. Apparently working outside of the academy can be more profitable than teaching college classes. And the historians with digital skills who can cross over into computer and research fields will likely receive the most pay. See the below table for more details:

Some Occupations of Interest to Historians	2006-07 Salary
computer and information systems managers	$102,000
computer and information scientists, research	$94,000
labor relations managers	$89,000
computer software engineers, systems	$85,000
training and development managers	$80,000
computer software engineers, applications	$80,000
operations research analysts	$72,000
computer systems analysts	$70,000
computer programmers	$66,000
database administrators	$65,000
instructional coordinators	$53,000
high school teachers	$49,000
information professionals (librarians)	$49,000
writers and editors	$49,000
news analysts	$47,000
curators	$46,000
R&D in the social sciences and humanities	$43,000
archivists	$41,000
self-enrichment teachers	$40,000
graphic designers	$40,000
book publishing	$35,000
private detectives and investigators	$34,000
museum technicians and conservators	$34,000
workers in advocacy, grantmaking, and civic organizations	$33,000

As you can imagine, the jobs that require doctorates generally pay more than those that only require a masters or bachelors degree. I would like to see the AHA collaborate with federal agencies in Washington, D.C. to put on a seminar seminar for recent graduates from history graduate programs who want to retool as public historians. The AHA has already posted some great resources on their web site about careers in public history. I just hope they will do more.

I have another proposal that I hope the AHA will consider as job market for historians becomes more diverse and competitive. The AHA could create a template on their website where members looking for jobs could upload the elements of their CV. Job seekers could also create an online portfolio of things like teaching philosophy, course evaluations, research projects, budget oversight, non-profit service, management experience, and government work on the AHA web site. Lastly, the AHA could make arrangements with a testing center whereby job seekers take a new test that measured things like intellectual curiosity, artistic appreciation, multicultural tolerance, leadership, interpersonal skills, civic engagement, psychological well-being, career goals, life skills, perseverance, and integrity--the kinds of non-cognitive qualities that make a historian successful in the world of work. (This would be the right-brain test that would complement the left-brain GRE test we already use.) Once all of this information was available on the AHA web site, job search committees could look through the CVs and portfolios if their institutions were members of the AHA. A search interface on the AHA web site could allow the search committees to customize their search for job candidates, by selecting a range of weights for the different variables in the CV and portfolios. For instance, junior colleges could place greater emphasis on teaching experience and philosophy, a university could privilege publications, a museum could focus primarily on service and work with the public, and a government agency could look for experience with managing workers and overseeing budgets. Once a search committee developed a list of potential candidates, the AHA could e-mail the selected job seekers to see if they are willing to release their non-cognitive test scores to the search committee. Once this data was assembled, the search committee could decide how much weight to give to the test scores, publications, teaching, research, funding, public service, and so forth. The result would be an impartial ranking of candidates by computer for the search committee. At this point, the search committee could then send out requests for letters of recommendations to the top dozen or so candidates.

Let me conclude with some words about the future. I think many historians will have to embrace digital methods to survive in the job market of the future. Not only is digital humanities becoming a hot topic in academia, but many of the jobs in the coming years will require the ability to find meaningful needles in digital haystacks. Recent articles in the media have predicted that the people with these skills will be called data technologists. Industry will also need parallel programmers who can write code whose work can be divided over multiple computers. These kinds of programmers are almost non-existent right now. With the increase in computing power, full-immersion virtual simulations will become more affordable and commonplace. Historians with digital skills in animation and gaming will be well situated to take advantage of this trend with life-size virtual recreations of past events and places. Lastly, I will mention that semantic engineers are an emerging job category to which historians should be paying attention. These are the individuals who are building the semantic web, which will allow people to search the Internet for concepts rather than just phrases and keywords. This will have direct application to the text mining programs that historians will increasingly use as they work with Google Books and other large textual databases. For more information, see the below table:

Future Occupations of Interest to Historians	2012 Salary
data technologists	$90,000 to $102,000
semantic engineers	?
parallel programmers	$79,000 to $88,000
simulation engineers	$91,000 to $114,000

For those who are new to digital history, I recommend you read the interchange that was published in the September 2008 issue of the Journal of American History. The text is now freely available on the JAH web site.

Here are the concluding questions that I hope our profession will try to answer: How long will we continue to blame students in and graduates of history graduate programs if they don't succeed? Are we denial about the structural changes that have happened in higher education over the last several decades? How long will be persist in doing history that brings us prestige rather creating history that has value in the eyes of undergraduates and the public? Are we content to teach an ever decreasing proportion of college undergraduates? Do we believe that we can expand our associates and masters programs? Are we willing to let tenure-track positions disappear? Will we fight back against the for-profit colleges that started this trend of hiring the cheapest teachers they could find? What will it take to learn the skills of public and digital history? Can we make our type of history relevant to the American public once again?

A Note on Sources: The data for this paper comes from several sources. I drew most of it from the National Center for Education Statistics at nces.ed.gov, particularly the Digest of Education Statistics and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Some of it came from my blog, phdinhistory.blogspot.com. The BLS data came from www.bls.gov. Frank Donoghue's book, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities, influenced some of my thinking.

Reflections on the AHA

I have really enjoyed myself at this conference. In case you missed it, I twittered during several of the sessions. You can find and follow me at twitter through my blog name. My own session was exciting. I think I wasn't the best presenter, seeing how I switched from reading my paper to summarizing it half way through. But there were some good questions. What was disappointing, though, was that only about two people out of a room of more than a hundred read the precirculated papers for our session. And of course Rob Townsend was ever the gentleman, never criticizing my points that conflicted with his own views.

Townsend was not the only AHA leader or employee that I met over the last couple of days. Almost without exception they struck me as very sincere and fair-minded individuals. And I think they deserve a fair amount of credit for pulling off this conference with hardly a hitch. I was impressed also by their oppenness to suggestions. I think it would be great if the AHA could inspire more members to make recommendations. One model they might want to consider is the ask a question feature at change.gov that allows users to submit and vote on questions.

It seems to me that one of the things that draws so many historians to the AHA conference is that it gives them a chance to feel like stakeholders in the profession. I saw this in action at the business meeting as members joined in the democratic process and voted on whether to change the hotel for next year's conference. This same spirit of getting involved and looking to the AHA for leadership was also evident in the meeting for graduate students and early career professionals. But maybe I am just being overly optimistic. There was probably than a hundred individuals at each of these meetings.

There are some other things that could have gotten me down at this meeting. None of the open searches I put in for yielded any positive results. The one tenure track position I applied for at George Mason never materialized. In fact it almost seems like the search has dropped off the face of the earth. I heard from several people that search committees were informing their candidates that hiring freezes could be in the pipeline and the search could be canceled at any time. I really feel for those historians who are facing economic hard times and possible unemployment during 2009. I really hope we can start fixing some of the problems in the job market that I talked about in my paper today. In case you missed it, Townsend and I may be combining our papers and coauthoring an article in the near future.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I have sometimes been a fierce critic of the AHA. But I hope I have been a loyal one too. The AHA will have several opportunities to prove itself in the months and years ahead. It could be lobbying Obama's transition team about selecting new leaders for the NEH, NSF, Department of Education, NPS, Library of Congress, and so forth. It should be talking to congressional leaders about the role historians will play when millions of jobs are created in this country for digital and physical infrastructure projects. It will be important to promote the study of history as federal officials overhaul NCLB and make college more accessible and affordable for millions of new and returning students. These are just a few of the ways that the AHA might be able to make the case for its continuing relevance, especially when large numbers of younger historians seem to be questioning why they should belong to the AHA.

Axia and Adjuncts

About a week ago, Inside Higher Education ran an eye-opening article titled "Breadth of Adjunct Use and Abuse." The article summarized the findings of a new report, which broke new ground by including graduate student teachers in their totals of part-time instructors. One of the most surprising findings, in my estimation, was that full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty comprised only 41 percent of instructional staff at public research institutions. The study also showed that part-time faculty at community colleges and public four-year colleges earn an average of $2,500 for each course they teach.

I think the report should have included private for-profit colleges in their analysis. These institutions have seen their student enrollment rise nearly ten fold in the last quarter century. I recently went through the application process for Axia College to gain some insight into how their instructors are treated. This college, in case you haven't heard, is an entirely online institution that employs 20,000 instructors and enrolls 100,000 students. What I found will probably shock you. Before Axia College will hire you, they require that you spend about 80 hours in unpaid training on their web site. If you pass the training and are hired, you will be paid $1,200 per course. Instructors have no control over the content of their courses; the texts are pre-selected and they cannot deviate from the curriculum. After three years, instructors are eligible to start earning $1,500 per course. And after ten years, instructors can earn a whopping $1,700 per course. At no point are instructors paid more if they receive good teaching evaluations; seniority and conformity are what apparently yield instructors pay raises.

I am not sure if it is possible for a college to treat instructors with less respect. There are no office facilities at Axia and very little benefits. It seems like instructors are incredibly expendable. In fact, the only reason why Axia does not hire online instructors from Asia (who can communicate reasonably well in written English and would presumably work for even less money) is probably because accrediting agencies would revoke the college's status and Axia would lose its lucrative access to federal student loans. I really have to wonder if there is any end to this kind of corporatization of higher education. If case you are wondering about the rest of the story, Axia told me via email that that I would probably be a good fit for two of their history courses, interviewed me by phone for 45 minutes, and then wrote back that they would not need me because of their "current course needs." My best guess is that I scared them off.

Come to a Conversation about the History Job Market

The papers for the precirculated sessions at the 2009 AHA convention are now available online. You will find my paper listed under Session 133. Although I was supposed to provide critiques of the AHA, I decided to make these more implicit in my paper. I have a challenge for regular readers of my blog and of Robert Townsend's articles. I will provide a free meal at the conference to whoever comes up with the best list of the differences and debates between the three papers in my session. This online discussion can get us ready for all of the talking you and others will do during my session. Don't forget that almost all of the two hours in my session will be devoted to audience participation since the papers are being precirculated. I look forward to what you have to say.

Assessment in History: Standardized or Stifled?

I really don't like how humanists are so resistant to assessment. I was reminded of this attitude in our field by a recent article in Inside Higher Education. This strikes me a form of mathematical innumeracy. Related to this fear is the extreme distrust by historians of statistics. I wish we could get over ourselves and embrace new ways of thinking.

Let's consider how ludicrous this situation has become. Do the same historians who reject standardized methods of assessment lobby against the use of AP history exams in our nation's schools? Have historians organized any protests against the use of SAT and GRE exams by university admissions offices? Did large numbers of historians join the movement against the adoption of national history standards in the 1990s? Did I miss the boycott started by historians who opposed how tenure and review committees have awarded points to tenure candidates based on their levels of teaching, service, and publication? Are any job search committees ready to renounce the process of ranking candidates?

Historians can join the movement for standardized assessment or be left behind. The people Obama wants working on national education policy are proponents of improving assessment. They also believe that teachers should be rewarded if they excel in the classroom and at fostering student learning. These kinds of good teachers will have some idea of what kinds of assessments are necessary for improving student learning. In addition, over the next few years, digital historians will become better at helping computers to acquire the skills of historical research and practice. As digital historians refine the algorithms for these skills, they will provide a model for assessing teaching and learning in our history classrooms.

Job Market Update

Have any of you heard the latest news about the market for academic history jobs this school year? I noticed that the AHA web site lists only 570 jobs in its database. In the last few years, there has been about 1,000 jobs in its database. Over at H-Net, I could only find 212 U.S. history jobs and 126 European history jobs. In recent years, there has been 300 U.S. history jobs and 180 to 200 European history jobs. My impression is that the number of jobs is down 30 to 40 percent from the levels of the last few years.

The signs look troubling. The house of cards has fallen for university endowments. Public and private colleges around the country are announcing hiring freezes. By mid-November last year, the AHA had released its numbers on job searches that would be conducted at its annual convention. I have not noticed a similar kind of report on the AHA blog this time around. Maybe the AHA does not want to discourage anyone from still registering for the conference. The new series on the AHA blog--Jobs and Careers in History--raised my curiosity, since it appears that it will be focused on "jobs outside of academia." And the curious pattern of reservations at the Hilton has me wondering how many people are planning on attending only the first half of the conference. Does this mean that search committees will not be conducting interviews on Sunday?

I am still taking all of this in as I finish writing my conference paper for the AHA convention. I will be talking about the job market. If you have any suggestions for me, or things you would like to see addressed in my paper, please comment on this post in the next day or two.