From Inside Higher Ed:
The original report:
http://www.humanitiesindicators.org/content/indicatorDoc.aspx?i=71
Do you have a point to make?
I think it has been 30+ years since anyone went into a humanities PhD program with the notion that there was an ample supply of jobs in academia waiting for graduates. I’m not certain whether there’s anything of interest here for 99.9% of the people on CC, though. Is anyone suggesting that colleges have stopped teaching freshman composition? Are introductory philosophy courses vanishing from the curriculum?
^ i guess that the point is that now, general ed outside liberal arts colleges is taught not just by TA 's but by adjuncts. And this is really sad.
^^both of my kids recently graduated for Universities, and they did not take a hume class with an adjunct. Actually, the few adjuncts that they had were in the large intro social science classes.
incidentally, I just skimmed the report and didn’t find any such conclusions. Perhaps I missed them.
Well, isn’t it a logical conclusion, if there are way fewer humanities positions while Gen ed classes are still taught that the slack’s been picked up by adjuncts ?
^ bluebayou : Where did your kids attend college?
(would your kids know whether someone is an adjunct, tenure track, or tenured ?)
FWIW, my historian PhD friends aren’t having any problems finding jobs… even though the jobs might not fall nicely into the category of a humanities job.
There are jobs - but fewer tenure track positions. Therefore we should encourage gifted young people not to think linear, and think of their skills and knowledge. Studying history doesn’t mean you should become a historian.
@romanigypsyeyes : can you give examples of these jobs, so as to encourage young people out there?
No need to be rude to the OP because he wants to talk about something that you don’t. There are lots of threads that don’t interest me, I don’t read them.
I edited out the part of the post being talked about here, but I am leaving the message because it is true and important. I would also point out that there are new members all the time. Old threads contain old information, and perhaps more important is that new members would not be able to post their thoughts, since we don’t allow resurrection of old threads. - Fallenchemist
Does the OP want to talk about it? That would be fine.
@MYOS1634 : It’s worse than you think. As I understand it, the report is counting adjunct positions. Certainly there’s substitution of adjunct hours for ladder-faculty hours, but the overall number of any sort of position is shrinking.
I don’t understand the inference being drawn here. When I look at the charts that are linked to in “the original report,” the overall number of faculty has been stable or shrinking more in the natural sciences than in the humanities or any other broad area.
I would also speculate that these trends are partly a result of how different academic positions are classified. For example, where are faculty in “communications” – modern “journalism”?
To me, the most remarkable thing about those charts is the growth in health sciences. That doesn’t surprise me as a faculty member in a large university. This would include principally medicine and nursing, but a lot of faculty are engaged in health communications, health technology, public health, and so on.
I’m not questioning the issue of expanded use of adjuncts. When I was a department chair in social sciences, I always resisted hiring adjuncts because among other things adjuncts didn’t contribute to our research mission, didn’t bring in external money (grants and contracts), and didn’t teach doctoral students.
^^^ post #9 hit on the main takeaway from the report, that…
Good for those looking for a tenure path slot in the health professions, not so good for those looking for a slot in the humanities (or many other fields). This isn’t a knock against the humanities, as it’s a realization of the substantial growth in health sciences, sometimes at the expense of the other fields.
Not only is the baby boom well over, but student interest in some aspects of humanities is down. It changes what variety of classes can successfully be offered . And so one’s academia prospects will vary based on sub specialty. DH opened a generalist position in humanities and 400+ applied. That makes a shot at Stanford look easy.
I don’t generally have an issue with good adjuncts. In many fields, they offer good and current real life perspective. And I know some who weren’t dependent on the income, to live. The thing is, taking on some extra hours, sharing expertise with students, is one thing. Being forced into multiple adjunct jobs because there’s oversupply/under-need in your field is another. Students thinking of college teaching can explore what the reality is today.
The life of adjuncts is often hand-to-mouth. Or a lot of scrambling and a lack of stability.
My daughter works as an adjunct, alongside a consultant role as her “main” job. Her terminal degree is an MBA (on top of a BFA). She really enjoys the work, but realizes there is little possibility of a regular faculty appointment of any kind. She asked me a couple of years ago whether if she were to get a PhD a stable faculty appointment might come. I said “No. The most likely outcome is that you would spend 3-5 years on another degree and you’d still be working as an adjunct. For some purposes, your MBA is a terminal degree.”
There is room for humanities and social science graduates in “applied” fields, including public health, criminal justice, marketing, etc. As a sociologist who had always imagined a career in higher education but who discovered a career in marketing research and consulting instead, I can bear witness to the fact that there are alternatives to academe. At one time, the company that my partner and I ran had a staff roster that included PhD’s in sociology, social psychology, anthropology, linguistics, English, art history, and philosophy. All of us had planned on teaching. None of us did. But that doesn’t mean that we were working at McDonald’s either.
Looking Forward is right in that demographics, and changing student interests/tastes, are part of the change in universities. When I was in college, one of the biggest departments in Letters and Science was English and… French. People were into the dynamic theoretical literary stuff being done by the French. Comparative literature was big too, even though (or maybe in part because!) it required a year of ancient Greek or Latin to be in the honor’s program. At the same school, neither French nor Comp Lit are nearly as big today.
Changing economic realities are also in play. We’re not as rich as we used to be in, say, the 70s, when students flocked to the humanities without worrying too much what kinds of jobs they’d get upon graduation.
The second chart in the link," Number of Postsecondary Faculty Members, by Field" is interesting. It shows engineering growing the least, which surprised me with the high interest in engineering these days.
No, not logical at all. Perhaps there are just fewer Lit/Hume majors; thus, less of a need for hiring. Period.
Not relevant, excpet that it was not a LAC.
[/quote]
Actually yes. (One kiddo worked in the Provost’s office.)
The academic job market in the humanities has been terrible for over 30 years (an entire generation of scholars). Humanities PhDs endure an exceptionally high risk of placement failure compared to other professions (if the goal is a tenure-track academic job). People have known this for a long, long time. However, the college aged population as a share of the overall population is falling. There will be fewer professorial jobs needed in the coming years, regardless of field. Higher ed is starting to undergo a contraction in part because demographics are destiny.
@JHS -
The article might be old news for the CC member with 10,000+ posts, but every single year a new batch of high school seniors or their parents come to CC and posts about how they want to be an English or Sociology major with the goal of becoming a tenured college professor. Articles like the following by Thomas Benton in the Chronicle of Higher Education should be recommended reading for these kids.
Here is the money chart which shows jobs listings in the humanities.
https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/media/Picture1_0.png?width=500&height=500
