PhDinHistory

My Blog Has Moved

2009-01-29T18:51:00.003-07:00

You can now follow my posts at this web site:http://phdinhistory.org/Thanks for being such great readers and commentators.Sterling FluhartyP.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

2009-01-08T08:26:00.012-07:00

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.

Reflections on the AHA

2009-01-04T20:41:00.005-07:00

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

Axia and Adjuncts

2008-12-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

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

Come to a Conversation about the History Job Market

2008-12-08T15:42:00.000-07:00

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

Assessment in History: Standardized or Stifled?

2008-12-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

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

Job Market Update

2008-11-27T22:50:00.003-07:00

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

Are You Ready for Part-Time Teaching?

2008-11-14T14:23:00.000-07:00

By the spring 2009 semester, the majority of all college faculty will be part-time employees. The most recent data for history faculty is not available, but recent trends show that history is not far behind. The recession we are entering will accelerate this move away from full-time faculty. If you are in a history doctoral program, or recently earned your Ph.D., you should be thinking long

Rethinking the GRE

2008-11-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

Are GRE scores the best predictor of success for historians? The answer to this question was probably yes in the early 1980s. William B. Schrader published a study in 1980 that demonstrated a positive correlation between the GRE Verbal and GRE Advanced scores of historians who had earned a doctorate in the mid-1960s and their citation rates in the Social Sciences Citation Index between 1972 and

Who's Afraid of Ranking History Journals?

2008-11-10T11:17:00.006-07:00

About a month ago, there was some discussion at the Chronicle of Higher Education and AHA Today about the new European Reference Index for the Humanities, which is trying to rank journals as is currently done in the sciences. I think fears about this new trend are misplaced.The Web of Science database already provides the tools for ranking history journals. If journals in history of science and

Faculty Falling Behind

2008-11-10T10:53:00.000-07:00

Over the last three decades, according to the 2008 faculty-salary report of the AAUP, the number of full-time administrators and full-time staff in higher education has skyrocketed while the number of full-time faculty has hardly changed. History has by no means been exempt.The Chronicle of Higher Education recently summarized the findings of this report:The AAUP's 2008 faculty-salary report

Historians Helping Obama

2008-09-09T15:10:00.000-07:00

This post is for 79.2 percent of historians. That is the proportion of history faculty who self-identify as Democrats, according to a recent study. Hat tip.Historians are more likely than faculty in any other discipline to identify with Democrats. I think it is time we started making this fact count for something. Obama's poll numbers are down. McCain is pulling ahead. This trend might not

No Humanities Graduate Student Left Behind?

2008-09-09T14:11:00.001-07:00

The Council of Graduate Schools has a new report out on completion rates. Hat tip.Did you know that about only half of the students who entered humanities doctoral programs between 1992-3 and 1994-5 completed their degree within ten years? This was worse than any other field in the academy. What is causing this to happen? And is it just as bad or worse in history? I hope someone will pay the

Becker's Vision in the Digital Age

2008-09-08T12:25:00.001-07:00

I have a proposal that I hope some will consider. It is a project that I can't do by myself.In 1931, Carl Becker delivered a presidential address at the AHA convention entitled "Everyman His Own Historian." I have given some thought recently to how we can adapt his message to the twenty-first century. It seems to me that digital history is our best bet.There is a lot of great work going on

Voting America Web Site

2008-09-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

I thought I would test the “Voting America: United States Politics, 1840-2008” web site before using it for my dissertation research. I looked up New Mexico, which was a swing state during the 2004 presidential election. The results I found surprised me. I decided to compare these with population totals from Census 2000, voter registration statistics, and vote totals--in order to determine

HBCUs and Black PhDs

2008-09-03T04:20:00.000-07:00

History doctoral programs used to enroll a higher proportion of Black students from HBCUs than doctoral programs in Science & Engineering (S&E). (Hat tip for data about S&E.) Between the late 1970s and early 1990s, about 34 percent of Blacks who received S&E PhDs and about 36 percent of Blacks who received History PhDs had attended an HBCU baccalaureate institution. These rates declined in

Spousal/Partner Hiring in History

2008-08-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

A recent survey of 9,043 full-time faculty at 13 leading research universities found that academic couple hiring has been increasing. These days, 10 percent of faculty across the academy obtain their jobs through dual hires. Hat tip.When history professors were asked whether they and their partner teach in the same or related departments, about 26 percent of men and about 40 percent of women

What Does the Future Hold for Community Colleges?

2008-08-11T13:47:00.004-07:00

Last year a full Pell Grant covered just over half of the average expenses at a public two-year college. Starting in Fall 2009, assuming President Bush signs the Higher Education Act into law and that Congress funds the grants to the legislated limit, the maximum amount for a Pell Grant ($6,000) will cover nearly 70 percent of the average costs of attending the fall and spring semesters at a

The Power of the AHA

2008-07-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

Historians hold conflicting views when it comes to the power of the AHA. According to the survey I administered a few months ago, 45 percent of respondents said the AHA has little to no power.A little more than half said University administrators pay little attention to AHA recommendations. At the federal level, only 44 percent thought the AHA could change how the historical profession is

Your Job Applications Are Due in 90 Days

2008-07-20T06:19:00.001-07:00

It looks like an increasing number of history departments with open searches for new faculty are setting their application deadline for October. In the past, the job ads that had appeared by this time of year were mostly last-minute attempts to find instructors before classes started in the fall. This year, though, more than half of the job ads coming out in the summer are asking job seekers to

Survey Results: Part 3

2008-07-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today's feature is the third installment in my ongoing series about the AHA. Below you will find a summary of some responses to the survey I administered:Let's start off with the good news. There is overwhelming agreement that the AHA should be the overarching organization or society for historians. Secondly, there is slightly more agreement than disagreement over the question of whether

The Reality Check for Junior Faculty

2008-07-12T10:37:00.001-07:00

The TIAA-CREF Institute has a new study out. It surveyed junior faculty to find out how prepared they felt for their new jobs as professors. Hat tip.There were several surprising findings. Women felt slightly less prepared than men in most areas. Across the board, respondents said they did not feel "very effectively" prepared for the duties of their new job. Obtaining grants, advising

A Must Read Article

2008-07-08T16:20:00.001-07:00

"Historians' Rocky Job Market" by Anthony Grafton and Robert B. Townsend just appeared on The Chronicle of Higher Education web site. I highly recommend reading it. Hat tip.Questions for Consideration and Discussion:What is normal for the academic job market in history?To what extent did history experience a "golden age" in its job market?How did the job market change between the early 1960s

Survey Results: Part 2

2008-07-03T20:02:00.002-07:00

I know you all have been breathlessly waiting for the second installment of my survey results. This time I have data on what people think about the AHA's goals. Check out the below table:As you can see, there is a great deal of ambivalence or uncertainty about how the AHA is doing with its goals. The AHA may have to do more public relations if it wants its members to recognize the work it is

Teaching Loads Part 2

2008-06-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

Mills had a great comment on my last post. It got me thinking and digging. I found out that the number of students a professor is expected to teach each year is probably a better indication of teaching loads than the sheer number of courses assigned to them. Here is what I found with data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty:Apparently there is a fair amount of equity in teaching

What is an Acceptable Teaching Load?

2008-06-03T08:26:00.001-07:00

A friend forwarded a job ad to me. The community college who sponsored the ad was looking for a history instructor who would teach six to eight courses per semester. This sounded unusual, so she inquired at the college. She was told that the instructors worked "only" 30 hours each week: 5 hours for office hours and 18 to 24 hours in the classroom (three hours per class). This is disingenuous,

Survey Results

2008-05-29T21:50:00.000-07:00

Last month I started a survey. Twenty seven individuals responded. Below is a quick summary of the kinds of the people who filled out the survey.About two thirds have been AHA members for less than 10 years. Around half attended 1 or 2 of the last five AHA conventions. Close to two thirds pay membership dues to two, three, or four scholarly associations. Nearly half are bloggers. Half said

What I Would Like To See in Text Mining for Historians

2008-05-04T18:37:00.004-07:00

The Center for History and New Media is about to embark on a two-year project to adapt the technology of text mining to the work of historians (see here and here). Often, projections of what text mining can do for historians have left readers with the impression that this new technology will create a specialized search engine for historians to find the primary sources that closely match their

The Mainstreaming of AP History?

2008-04-28T21:24:00.002-07:00

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. Once a test for the elite in our society, AP History Exams have boomed in recent years and maybe even become mainstream. For more details, check out the chart

Vanishing Minority Historians

2008-04-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

Inside Higher Ed has a new report out on how the National Science Foundation is suppressing an increasing amount of information about the numbers on PhDs earned by students of color. The NSF says it is making this change to its annual Survey of Earned Doctorates out of privacy concerns. In most cases, this means that the NSF will no longer reveal the number of minorities earning PhDs in

Let Your Voices Be Heard: A Survey about the AHA

2008-04-21T07:23:00.006-07:00

I have followed the discussion and debate about the AHA over the last few months. Over the weekend I put together a survey, using the Survey Manager tool available at the Center for History and New Media web site. The survey consists of a series of statements. I tried to capture the range of opinions and proposals that have appeared. You will find statements that are quite critical of the AHA and

Faculty Salary Alert

2008-04-15T22:45:00.001-07:00

Cross-posted at Progressive Historians:There are now only about half a dozen other disciplines in the academy that pay their faculty less then what history faculty are paid. The pay gap for history faculty has been widening since at least the late 1990s. Back then tenured history faculty earned only 2 to 3 percent less than the average tenured faculty in all other disciplines. As of this

Blogging and the Future of the AHA

2008-04-15T11:53:00.002-07:00

Cross-posted at Revise and Dissent:I think it is a mistake to assume the Working Group on the Future of the AHA is proposing more institutional blogs for the AHA. I believe every member of this working group believes in academic freedom and the importance of allowing individuals to voice their opinions on personal or group blogs. When the working group talks about the AHA serving as "gatekeeper

Recruiting Advanced Placement High School History Teachers into the AHA

2008-04-13T22:58:00.003-07:00

The Working Group on the Future of the AHA has an excellent idea. There may be 190,000 AP history teachers in U.S. high schools. Surely some of these teachers would be interested in joining the AHA. The members of the working group recommend that the AHA come up with "special dues categories and benefits to attract high school teachers." They also say that as much as a quarter of the sessions

Assessing our History Associations

2008-04-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

Bill Chafe's article, titled "Final Report and Recommendations of the Working Group on the Future of the AHA," just appeared in Perspectives. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the future of the history profession. You may not find yourself agreeing with everything the authors say, but the discussion is important nonetheless. I plan to devote several posts over the next few weeks to

A History of the Backlog in the Job Market for Assistant Professors of History

2008-04-01T12:25:00.001-07:00

Sometimes the job market forecasts produced by Robert B. Townsend and the AHA have been criticized for leaving out the "backlog." One of these critiques came from Ted W. Margadant in a Perspectives article in 1999. He observed that "new PhDs face competition from the huge backlog of over 4,000 history PhDs since 1989 who do not yet have tenure-track jobs in history departments." I am not

"We Never Had a Golden Age": Historians and the Public Since World War II

2008-03-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted at ProgressiveHistorians:I think history had a golden age and Richard White disagrees. It guess it all depends on which criteria we use when making this determination. I happen to think historians should be evaluated on how well they connect with the public.Sam Tanenhaus got us thinking about this issue about a year ago with his claim in the New York Times that, after the death of

Retirement and Fair Treatment

2008-03-12T19:55:00.001-07:00

It is a demonstrated fact that female faculty in history face a "leaky pipeline" when it comes to rank advancement. The AHA's 2005 report, "The Status of Women in the Historical Profession," attests to this phenomenon. One of the issues not discussed in the AHA's report, however, is the tendency of some women in history to retire before their male colleagues. According to the 2003 National

More Reasons Why Women Should Major in History

2008-03-03T22:10:00.001-07:00

Cross-posted at ProgressiveHistorians.The last time I wrote about this topic, and pointed out that women who had recently earned a bachelors in history were now making more money than their male counterparts, I received the following anonymous comment:This figure about post-BA salaries is very interesting, since this is NOT the case for women earning PhDs in history, who still make less than

The AHA and the OAH: A Financial Comparison

2008-03-01T11:42:00.004-07:00

Have you seen the recent report of Robert Cherny, the outgoing Treasurer of the OAH (hat tip to History News Network)? He notes that both OAH investments and membership have been down recently. I have not heard the same about the AHA. This got me wondering what a comparison of AHA and OAH finances would reveal. I did some searching online and came up with the following (the AHA FY 2007 fiscal

Engendering History Majors

2008-02-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

History is mostly a male major at the undergraduate level. And this is happening while college campuses across the nation are witnessing declining male enrollments. If you don't believe me about the resilience of the male history major, check out this graph I put together with 2002-2005 data from nearly a thousand different colleges, which was collected by the Baccalaureate and Beyond

Brief/Concise Textbooks for the Post-1865 U.S. History Survey

2008-02-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

One of the community colleges where I have been teaching is thinking of changing textbooks for the American history survey. Since I have been teaching the second half of the survey for them, I am interested in editions that contain fewer pages and cost less money. So I did a little digging and came up with the following list of titles, sorted by Amazon ranking:Here are a few questions I am

African, Asian, and Latin American Specialists: Advantage on the Job Market?

2008-01-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

Robert B. Townsend, in his latest Perspectives article, surveyed the latest data on history PhDs earned in 2006 and job ads in Perspectives during 2007. He offered what sounded like encouraging news when he reported that "the number of openings in Asian and African history were higher than the number of new degrees, and the listings for Latin American history were near parity." I thought

Some More Job Market Ideas and Reforms

2008-01-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

As I have become more acquainted with the AHA over the last year, I have become increasingly convinced that attacks on the AHA are largely misguided. This is the largest problem that I have with the Bowen article. Bowen seems to assume that the AHA is a gerontocracy with entrenched interests that cares little, if any, for the needs and concerns of young and untenured people in the profession.

Interviews at the AHA Convention

2008-01-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

Did you know that only a fourth of the jobs listed in Perspectives, and only about 14 percent of the history job searches advertised on H-Net, make use of the AHA's Job Register facilities for interviews? If you would like to see some discussion of this issue, check out this blog post.If you are interested in a blog post that critiques the Bowen article and recommends the AHA identify

The Wealth Index

2008-01-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

Many of you have seen by now the article by Michael Bowen that criticized the AHA for not doing enough to help job seekers.I have a few ideas for how the AHA could respond to Bowen's criticisms. The AHA could carry out a more complete census by making it easier for departments to afford a listing in the AHA Directory. Right now a history department at a four-year school has to pay $208 to join

Some Myths about the Job Market

2008-01-03T21:59:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the AHA's newly-released job market report? It has already been covered in the media here and here. I want to congratulate Rob Townsend for getting this out in advance of the AHA convention. I think it has some really encouraging data that all historians should be aware of. Still, I found some areas where I disagreed. Below you will find my take on the job market news.Myth:

Update on America: History & Life database

2008-01-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2007, I wrote a post that raised some concerns about the sale of ABC-CLIO's America: History & Life (AHL) database to EBSCO. Here is how I concluded that post:I would also like to know whether EBSCO plans to continue creating abstracts for every history journal article, as ABC-CLIO did for decades, or whether EBSCO will eliminate this feature in one of its cost-cutting moves. I

Interviews at the Annual Meeting of OAH

2007-12-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Did you know that interviews for faculty positions in U.S. history happen at the OAH? I had never heard of this until I clicked on a job listing in my e-mail inbox this morning. So I did a little digging in H-Net to see how common this was. Here is a list of the job postings I found there since January 2000:Arkansas State University - Open Rank, Public History"The Department hopes to conduct

Which University Presses Sell the Most History Books?

2007-12-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered about the pecking order when it comes to university presses? What counts as a best seller for university presses? These questions have crossed my mind, but I have never seen a study that answers them. The fact that sales data for books is unusually difficult to obtain hasn't made it any easier to analyze these kinds of patterns and trends. Today I had an idea for

Getting Ready for the AHA Job Register

2007-12-18T00:08:00.000-07:00

I won't be at the AHA convention this year, but I have some tips for job seekers, for what it is worth. If you are unsure of whether or not you should attend, I have some things I hope you will consider before the preregistration deadline this coming Friday.Rest assured that the job market is as strong as it has been in the last few years. Consider the following stats gathered from H-Net.

Racial and Ethnic Diversity Among Recent History PhDs

2007-12-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

Some new data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, available at the National Opinion Research Center web site, shows that history has made some gains at becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. Just click on the below table for a closer look:When we compare history to the average across all disciplines, this data gives us some idea of how far our field has come and the work that still

Age-Old Myths of History Faculty

2007-12-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

Many of you probably think that the average individual in this profession earns their PhD while in their late-20s, obtains a tenure track position by age of 30, receives tenure by their mid-30s, and then advances to the position of full professor in their mid-40s. Well, I have some news for you. According to the 2005 federal Survey of Earned Doctorates, the average age at which people earned

When It Pays More to Teach More

2007-11-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

If you are teaching three or four courses per semester, and you don't expect that to change in the future, you may want to reconsider where you are working. According to the 2003 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, full-time history faculty who taught five courses per semester had an average base salary that was higher than their counterparts who taught three or four courses per semester.

Women in the West

2007-11-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

As of four years ago, about 45 percent of history faculty in the Far West were women. By contrast, about 78 percent of history faculty in the Great Lakes were men. The national average was that 69.6 percent of history faculty were male and 30.4 percent were female. This means the proportion of history faculty who are women in the Far West is about 50 percent higher than the national average.

Follow the Discussion on Other Blogs

2007-11-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

I thought you might be interested in seeing some more data and discussion of issues I have raised recently on this blog. If so, click on the links below.Over at Progressive Historians, I recently posted "Some Diversity Deficiencies in History PhD Programs, 1973-2005."Over at Revise and Dissent, I recently posted "Differences in the Parents of Male and Female History Faculty."

Social Darwinism or Meritocracy in the History Profession?

2007-11-20T06:57:00.000-07:00

Would you like to know where you will end up in the history profession? I have discovered a formula that can tell you your fortune. All you need in order to figure out how far you will go in this profession is two pieces of information: the number of years that elapsed between your bachelors and doctoral degree and the age at which you earned your PhD. Once you have these numbers ready, click

The Hidden Costs of Tenure

2007-11-17T11:18:00.000-07:00

If you have children, the are odds are increasingly against you obtaining tenure. According to the 2003 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, slightly more than 50 percent of tenured history faculty did not have dependent children. Only a decade earlier, nearly three out of every four tenured history faculty had dependent children. In ten years from now, will only a quarter of tenured

Some More Thoughts on Salaries

2007-11-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

Robert C. Townsend has a new article that should catch the attention of history faculty. According to a study by the College and University Personnel Association–Human Resources, history has been ranked one of the “Disciplines with the Lowest Average Salaries.” This post is intended to thank Townsend for his article as well as to critique it.Townsend deserves credit for showing that the gap

Where History Doctoral Programs Should Recruit Minority Students

2007-11-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

This post is written in response to the recent article "Confronting a Crisis in the Historical Profession" by George J. Sanchez. I used data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates to identify institutions where, for the last three and a half decades, minority students who earned a bachelors degree were likely to go on and earn a doctorate in any field or discipline. History doctoral programs

Chicano/Latino Students and History PhD Programs

2007-10-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

Between 1974 and 2005, according to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, 3.11 percent of all history PhDs went to Chicano/Latinos. During that time period, their annual share started out at a low of 0.87 percent in 1974 and then peaked at 5.26 percent in 2001. Between 2002 and 2005, the average was that Chicano/Latinos earned 4.5 percent of the history PhDs. These partial gains were spread quite

Citation Patterns in the Journal of American History

2007-10-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

I was wondering the other day about good places to publish essays in American history. I think this thought was sparked by the new "Directory of History Journals" on the AHA's web site. I like how this online directory is available freely, how the AHA staff is looking for feedback to improve it, and how nicely it allows users to match their research interests with the right kind of history

Recent Patterns of Elitism in History Departments

2007-09-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

Elitism is an increasing pattern (and some would say problem) in history departments. But before I launch into this discussion, I want to give credit to some of those who have pioneered this field of study. The first work I want to mention is The Education of Historians for the Twenty-first Century, which included this table:As you can see from this table, the percentage of history PhDs whose

Updating Old Posts

2007-09-25T10:02:00.001-07:00

I have noticed that some of the images in my old posts have disappeared or contain broken links. As these problems have come to my attention, I have been fixing the old posts and restoring the images. For instance, I just fixed the visuals in my post about the new discrimination against women and the one about the demographics of bachelor's recipients in history. If there is a particular post

Model for Analyzing Scholarly Associations

2007-09-23T00:22:00.000-07:00

I just published an article in this month's Western Historical Quarterly. It contains my analysis of a membership survey that the Western Historical Association conducted two years ago. You might be interested in this piece since I offer several critiques of the WHA. More than anything, the methodology I used might be useful to individuals in other academic associations. My main focus was on

A Response to flacius1551

2007-09-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

Today's post is dedicated to flacius1551. This anonymous individual has contributed some rather lengthy, interesting, and valuable comments to my recent post on job ads and the job market. You can see these comments from flacius1551 here, here, here, and here.I do not want to discount the wealth of anecdotal evidence cited by flacius1551 in support of his or her arguments. This individual also

What Can We Learn from Recent Trends in Job Ads for History Faculty?

2007-09-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

Over the last six years, the number and percentage of job ads for academic historians whose specializations are U.S. or European history have fallen significantly. One recent study estimates that slightly fewer than half of all job ads are for specialists in U.S. or European history. Meanwhile, the percentage of history PhD students whose dissertation topic is within U.S. or European history

"Teaching Jobs" vs. "Research Jobs"

2007-08-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

Full-time history faculty, on average, spend nearly 64 percent of their time on teaching and 24 percent on research. If you think history faculty at "research institutions" spend most of their time on research, and less than half of their time on teaching, please continue reading.A lot of people in this profession like to draw distinctions between what they call "teaching jobs" and "research

What Happened to the Job Market between 1993 and 2000?

2007-08-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

Today's post is a follow-up to my previous post, "Who Else is Competing to Become History Professors?"With data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, I found a correlation between the oversupply of recent history PhDs and the percentage of history faculty who possess history PhDs. This correlation surprised me at first, but I think I have it figured out now. Let me start with the

The Mismatch Between Public History and PhDs

2007-08-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

This post has been in the works for a while. It was inspired by the comments of my graduate student readers at GMU. I hope it provides some of the data they have been looking for.In the fall of 2002, the AHA's Committee on Graduate Education and the Task Force on Public History surveyed a wide range of governmental, business, and non-profit agencies and institutions (201 in total) that employ

Improving our Undergraduate Programs for History Majors

2007-08-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

I read recently on the AHA Today blog about a new survey of undergraduate history programs, which is being administered by the National History Center. I am glad this is being done and I think it is needed. I have seen too many history departments that do not require their undergraduate majors to take any sort of methods course. When these students enroll in their senior capstone/seminar, is

Why Should We Care if History Textbooks are Expensive?

2007-08-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of teaching a three-week Intersession course at my home university, which is why I have not been publishing very many posts lately. However, this came through my e-mail today and I thought it was impressive enough to share:TO: All OU StudentsDear OU Student,I wanted to share with you a new initiative to help students impacted by textbook costs. Beginning this fall, OU will

Why History PhD Students Should Learn to Think Like Reference Librarians

2007-08-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

I was once ridiculed on my former blog for making this suggestion. I still stand by this recommendation with all seriousness. Let me now try to persuade you to my position.My first recommendation is that you read a recent post from Dan Cohen, "What Do Electronic Resources Mean for the Future of University Libraries?" In that post, Cohen cites a recent article and notes that it discusses a

Who Else is Competing to Become History Professors?

2007-08-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

About two and a half years ago, Robert B. Townsend wrote the following: The listing departments and organizations in the 2004–05 Directory reported employing 5,865 faculty and staff who had received doctorates between 1990 and 2004. Of that number, 4,242 were in our database of PhDs completed at U.S. history departments in those years. The remaining 1,623 came from (in most cases) a

What Happened to the Job Market in the 1990s?

2007-07-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

I have a few more details to add to my last post that will help better illustrate recent trends in the academic job market for history PhDs.According to the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, 36.7 percent of all part-time history faculty in 2003 had PhDs. So 36.7 percent of 10,958 is 4,022 part-time history faculty with PhDs. I also found that 95.5 percent of all part-time history faculty

How Many History PhDs Became Full-Time Faculty?

2007-07-27T16:48:00.000-07:00

Did you know that only half of the individuals who earned a PhD in history over the last three and a half decades were employed as full-time faculty in the fall of 2003?According to the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, 88 percent of all full-time history faculty in 2003 had PhDs. So 88 percent of 18,263 is 16,071 full-time history faculty with PhDs. I also found that 96.8 percent of all

Is There Such a Thing as Second-Class Graduate Students?

2007-07-25T23:34:00.000-07:00

If this question resonates with you, here are a few more questions you might want to consider:Does your department use two or more e-mail lists for graduate students, sending some things only to the students on assistantship and not to ABD students?Does your department promise incoming students to the doctoral program that they can earn their PhD in four years, thus implying that something is

How Long is the History PhD Path?

2007-07-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

I just saw the new report, from the Council of Graduate Schools Ph.D. Completion Project, on how long it takes to complete a PhD in history. Robert Townsend at AHA Today and Mary Dudziak at Legal History have both discussed the new report. I am glad this is getting attention. However, I should point out some things that are not being said. First, only sixteen PhD-granting history departments

What Are the Odds of Tenure for History PhDs?

2007-07-14T19:25:00.002-07:00

Was Robert B. Townsend of the American Historical Association right or wrong when he sounded his "Wake-up Call for the Humanities" in February 2007? Let me remind you of what he wrote: "Only a fraction of the PhDs in fields of English and foreign languages (barely a third) will make it to tenure." Was he comparing apples and oranges when he implied that, as in the humanities fields of English

Equal Pay for Equal Rank?

2007-07-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

Is there such a thing as equal pay for equal rank in the history profession? Has there ever been? The National Study of Postsecondary Faculty offers some data that answers these questions. First of all, here is a breakdown of what salaries were like about a decade ago: Average Base Salaries of History Faculty in 1998 Rank Public Institutions Private Not-for-Profit

The First Job and Assistant Professors

2007-07-13T18:49:00.000-07:00

Did you know that 50.1 percent of all assistant professors, on average and across all disciplines, told the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty in fall 2003 that their current job was their first job in in postsecondary education, not counting teaching and research assistantships? This means half of all assistant professors started their job straight out of graduate school, without spending

Why Anonymous Blogging Might Not Work

2007-07-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

I learned some lessons in this process. One of them was about IP Addresses. Every blogger has a unique one. Wikipedia compares them to street addresses or telephone numbers. This means that, in the wrong hands, an IP address can serve as the key that unlocks someone's identity. The Wikipedia article states that IP addresses are legally defined as "personal data" in the European Union. So it

I Am Sorry

2007-07-12T08:09:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons why I shut down my previous blog was that somebody figured out how to use writing samples, comparing my seminar papers or e-mails with my blog posts, to determine my identity. I used this as an excuse for deleting my blog, since I did not want to leave behind any writing that could be used against me.The person who cracked this code was a friend of mine at my home institution.

Resurrecting My Blog

2007-07-12T00:14:00.000-07:00

I used to have a blog at wordpress. Once I deleted it, however, I was not allowed to reactivate it. So I moved my posts over to this web site. I have kept the same title, PhDinHistory, but I also I decided to stop hiding behind a pseudonym. I know that people wanted to know who I was, and I even encouraged them to try to find out. I should be willing to live with the consequences of what I

The “Eight Things I Wonder About” Meme

2007-07-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

I got tagged by Tenured Radical, who was tagged by Squadratomagico. I mention the genealogy of this particular meme because it is different from the one I participated in last week. There are no rules for this second meme, so, like the person who started it, I am making up my own questions. Question the first:To what extent have PhD-granting history departments implemented the recommendations of

Independence and History PhD Students

2007-07-04T23:54:00.000-07:00

The holiday has got me thinking. I wondered what independence should mean to history PhD students like me. Here are a few questions I came up with that you might want to consider. The quotations come from The Education of Historians for the Twenty-First Century. Are you one of those history PhD students who is “willing to ask hard questions about their own graduate programs”? Do you agree with

Improving Your Odds on the Job Market

2007-07-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

Have you ever considered the fact that just about every history department in this country needs someone to teach their state history classes? To be sure, most of the students taking this class are not history majors, but are instead teaching majors. In fact, my impression is that most states require include a state history class in their requirements for teaching certification. And so history

Simultaneous Searching Across History Blogs

2007-07-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

I have a project that I am hoping the Center for History and New Media is willing to take on. It would be similar to the Syllabus Finder that the CHNM created a few years ago. What I am hoping for is a search engine dedicated solely to blogs in history. This would make it much easier to find what bloggers in history have said about various subjects. You might argue that Google already provides a

From Where Will Full-Timers Retire?

2007-07-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

In 2004, according to the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, one fourth of all full-time history faculty were age 60 or older. (Although the survey was conducted in Fall 2003, the ages were calculated for 2004.) At private doctoral universities, a full 40 percent of the full-time history faculty were age 60 or over. For a closer look at these statistics, see the table below:

Chicago Manual of Style Online

2007-07-01T23:32:00.000-07:00

The AHA announced recently that the University of Chicago Press will start publishing the American Historical Review. I take this as an indication of the reputation of the press. It also got me thinking about another product put out by this press. Most of you are familiar with the Chicago Manual of Style, “the bible of publishing and researching community.” Many of you probably know that the 15th

Humanities vs. Social Sciences

2007-06-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

So which is a better home for history? Does the answer depend on which is the best fit or which has the best resources? The authors of The Education of Historians for the Twenty-First Century have this to say: Since the 1980s, the discipline of history, which has always straddled the humanities and social sciences, has become more identified with the humanities. This is evident in the styles of

8 Random Facts Meme

2007-06-29T23:26:00.000-07:00

I got tagged by Tim Lacy at History and Education: Past and Present. I think this is some sort of bloggers game. At least this is not one of those e-mail hoaxes where I supposedly will receive $50 for forwarding the message to many others. Here are the rules: a. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.b. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.c. Players

Gender, Salaries, Workplaces, Rank, and Status

2007-06-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

This post contains a detailed analysis of history faculty salaries. The data comes from the 2003 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. The analysis in this blog post is much more detailed than anything I have ever seen reported elsewhere. Here are a few highlights: At the full, associate, and assistant professor of history levels, the difference in average base salary for women and men is

Explaining the 1998-99 to 2003-04 Increase

2007-06-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you have been skeptical of my numbers. Today I want to provide additional evidence for the numbers I produced in a previous post titled “How Many History Faculty?” Let me recap briefly. I demonstrated, with the help of data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, that the total number of history faculty increased by nearly 1,700 between 1992 and 1998 and then by a little more

Where Do Female Faculty Work?

2007-06-20T00:10:00.000-07:00

Nearly half of all the history faculty at private doctoral universities are women, according to Fall 2003 data from the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty. Considering that, on average and across all disciplines, women comprise slightly less than a third of all faculty at these elite institutions, female history faculty have made impressive gains. At almost every other type of institution,

Alert: EBSCO and ABC-CLIO

2007-06-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

About four days ago, EBSCO and ABC-CLIO announced (see here and here) that EBSCO had purchased Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life from ABC-CLIO. These two databases, starting in 2008, will be made available exclusively through the ESBCO platform. In all likelihood, these two databases will be bundled with other databases in the EBSCO suite, and made available by subscription to

The Language Requirement

2007-06-19T00:06:00.000-07:00

I received an e-mail from a beginning masters student in history. He wondered if any research had been done on the language requirement in graduate programs and language usage in the historical profession. This post is dedicated to him. The AHA’s Committee on Graduate Education, in their comprehensive report on graduate education, lament how the language requirement has declined in recent years.

When Will That Professor Retire?

2007-06-15T00:09:00.000-07:00

History PhD students: Have you ever hoped to replace a professor at another university when he or she retires? Even better, wouldn’t it be great to know in advance all of the professors in your specialization who would be retiring in the next year or two? I have a method that, almost without fail, will lead you to the age and/or birth year of any professor you are wondering about. And since about

Are You Ready for the Heat?

2007-06-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 14th, 2007 There are some big changes unfolding right now that will change the map of higher education during the next decade. What I mean is that some states will see large population increases and other states will experience declines. This will impact the numbers of students graduating from high school in each state. Public colleges and universities will be especially affected

African American Students and PhD Programs

2007-06-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

Between 1973 and 2005, according to the Survey of Earned Doctorates, 3.99% of all history PhDs went to African Americans. During that time period, their annual share started out at a low of 1.52% in 1973 and peaked at 6.07% in 1987. Over the last three years, the average was that African Americans earned 5.47% of the history PhDs. These partial gains were spread quite unevenly from one university