Job openings for assistant professors in history rose for the fifth year in a row in 2000-1, according to a report in the January issue of Perspectives, the monthly magazine of the American Historical Association.
Entry-level job openings for faculty members jumped by 11.3 percent in 2000-1 (the most recent year for which statistics were available) over the previous academic year, to 800 from 719. The total number of academic job openings in history rose to 955 in 2000-1, up from 897.
"We're now listing more job ads than at any point in our history," says Robert B. Townsend, assistant director of research at the association, which held its annual meeting this month in San Francisco. Lately, he says, there's been a noticeable improvement in the number of applicants who are getting interviews: "A few years ago there were a number of people who said they'd come to our conference and weren't able to get a single interview. I didn't hear anybody say that this year."
While the job prospects for historians have improved drastically, the outlook is not entirely sunny. "There are still a lot more Ph.D.'s than there are job openings," says Edward Berkowitz, chairman of the history department at George Washington University.
And for many people, "it's a two-year process to find a job," adds Peter Fritzsche, head of the history department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "so it's still pretty competitive."
The association report shows that while the number of tenure-track jobs has increased over the past five years -- to 597 in 2000-1, up from 466 in 1996-97 -- the proportion of faculty positions in history departments that are on the tenure track has shrunk to 74.6 percent from 84.5 percent.
Still, graduate students were abuzz at this month's meeting about the improved job prospects. Joseph Key, who obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville last August, had five interviews compared with only two last year. Mr. Key is optimistic about his chances of landing a job, although his odds just worsened. One of the positions he interviewed for was withdrawn because of state budget cuts. He says he's worried that "jobs that I have a good chance at could suddenly go by the wayside if universities lose funding" because of the recession.
Mr. Key's fears may be well-founded. At the University of Iowa, for example, all three searches in the history department have been put on hold because of state budget woes. Other universities are hiring fewer people than they had originally anticipated. The University of Maryland at College Park suspended one of three history searches after it was ordered to return part of its budget, while Michigan State University cut one of two searches for similar reasons.
Still, most departments aren't suffering. The Universities of Arkansas and Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say they will proceed with their hiring as planned. Peter Fritzsche, head of the department at Illinois, says he has three openings to fill -- in African-American, modern European, and medieval history. Jeannie Whayne, chairwoman at Arkansas, says she will go forward with her two hires -- for a distinguished professor in early 20th-century American history and an assistant professor in diplomatic history.
The hottest Ph.D.'s in the discipline are those who specialize in ancient history and in Asian history because "this past year there were actually fewer new Ph.D.'s in those fields than there were jobs," says Mr. Townsend. There's also a high demand for specialists in African and African-American history, and recent events seem to have generated a greater interest in Middle Eastern history.
"We don't have the same disparity between Ph.D.'s and jobs as they do in English," Mr. Townsend says, "with the one possible exception of 20th-century U.S. history." Americanists may have a harder time finding academic employment because there are many more job seekers than job listings in that area, but the upside is that many of those people find jobs outside the academy.
State budget woes may weaken next year's market, observers say, but the long-term forecast is positive. Says Mr. Townsend, "Next year -- when we see another new group of retirements leading to another crop of new potential line openings -- the rubber will hit the road, and we'll see whether universities cancel those lines or let their departments continue them." But he adds: "At least a third of the profession says they're going to retire within the next 10 years, and if the number of undergraduates is going up, it's hard to imagine that they'll be able to leave these jobs unfilled."
