The academic job market in history is supposed to be booming, thanks to a wave of faculty retirements. And departments are hiring, but a weak economy has meant they're not hiring quite as much as expected.
As of mid-December, the American Historical Association had received 745 job advertisements for its monthly newsletter, a decline of nearly 6 percent from the 790 notices published in Perspectives by this time last year, says Robert B. Townsend, the association's director for research and publications.
"We expected a significant drop-off based on what everyone had been telling us about cutbacks, so in some ways 5.7 percent doesn't seem to measure up to the enormity of what we expected," Mr. Townsend says. "But it is a drop. You can't deny that."
In December, the AHA published a report on last year's academic job market, and found that faculty openings in history had increased 2.9 percent in 2001-2 over the previous academic year. The total number of job listings in Perspectives increased to 982 in 2001-2 (up from 954 in 2000-1) but that number was "inflated" by an increase in openings for senior scholars and in the number of nonacademic positions and fellowships advertised.
Openings for junior faculty members at the instructor or assistant-professor levels fell 5.4 percent -- to 757 in 2001-2 from 800 in 2000-1. However, among the 621 departments listed in both this and last year's editions of the Directory of History Departments, the number of full-time faculty members actually increased slightly, to 9,261 in the fall of 2002 from 9,188 in the fall of 2001.
According to the AHA's report, just over 6 percent of historians at the full- and associate-professor levels left their jobs last year. While just under a third of those left for jobs at other colleges, the vast majority retired from full-time teaching. In the AHA directory, the "emeritus faculty" category has been the fastest-growing segment of historians and now accounts for 14 percent of the professors listed.
On the supply side of the market, good news is on the horizon for job candidates. According to the AHA's report, the number of new graduate students admitted into history Ph.D. programs dropped again last year, falling to 2,388 in the fall of 2001. Admissions peaked 10 years ago when 3,320 students were admitted and has declined every year since.
The enrollment decline, however, has yet to spill over and reduce the pool of history Ph.D.'s on the market. History departments continue to produce more than 900 new Ph.D.'s a year. Since it usually takes more than eight years to complete a history Ph.D., the decline in "the production of new Ph.D.'s has lagged well behind the trend in admissions and enrollments," the report says.
That helps explain why the history department at Washington University in St. Louis has plenty of candidates to choose from. About 85 people have applied for an opening in modern British history (created by a retirement), and nearly 40 for an opening in modern Japanese history (created by a resignation), says Derek M. Hirst, the department's chairman. Both searches are open rank, which means the department could hire someone at the full, associate, or assistant level.
Washington also has a new opening in Latin American history (the history department is sharing the search with the Romance-languages department, which may end up getting the appointment) that has attracted 125 applicants.
The number of applicants for all three positions "is kind of what we'd expect," Mr. Hirst says. Since the candidate for the modern Japan slot must be able to read and speak Japanese, "that necessarily reduces the field," so "40 applicants is, I think, pretty good going."
While Mr. Hirst is thankful that the money is there for this year's hires, he is uncertain how much will be left for hires in the near future. "The dean has told us that if the endowment continues to be constrained by the falling value of the stock market, the next year will be tighter than this year," he says. "But at the moment nothing has been frozen or put on hold."
For now, the history department at Baylor University is growing steadily, as well. About 40 people have applied for an opening there in modern British history and about 20 for a position on the Middle East and Islamic world, says James M. SoRelle, the chairman. Both positions are at the assistant or associate level. His department, which stresses world history at the undergraduate level, "had hoped to get an Africa person, but that was not funded this year," says Mr. SoRelle. He hopes to search for that position next year.
The department usually has 12 to 14 tenured and tenure-track faculty members, and undertakes one search a year. This year, it has two searches under way "to reduce our student-per-instructor ratio," he says. Baylor has a 10-year plan to add more than 300 faculty members to the 600 it has now, he says.
Asked whether it's a good time to be a new historian on the job market, Mr. SoRelle says it still depends on the field. Last year, his department took the unusual step of hiring two assistantprofessors in colonial American history because it liked both candidates too much to choose just one. During that search, he recalls, about 30 other jobs in colonial American history were open at institutions across the country. "We had about 65 applicants in the pool," he says. "So that means roughly half of everyone in our pool was likely able to land a job. That sounds pretty good to me."
Since budget deficits have constrained state financial support for public colleges, hiring at their history departments has typically been far more modest.
Even so, the University of California at Berkeley has three searches under way this year, in medieval history, 20th-century U.S. history, and Spanish American history. Meanwhile, Eastern Illinois University is searching for two assistant professors, in 20th-century U.S. history and in modern German history.
The University of Virginia, however, has only one search under way, because of the state's budget crisis. "Last year, we started five searches," says Charles W. McCurdy, chairman of the history department. "By the end of that year we were only authorized to make one appointment." And that was in Polish 20th-century history. The search for that position, Mr. McCurdy says, was financed with a private endowment. His department cannot afford to fill slots it has open for 20th-century U.S. history, modern British history, West African history, and Jewish history, which arose from a retirement and four resignations.
Mr. McCurdy seems most upset that his department cannot offer British history. "The sun never set on it, but we don't teach it," he says.
At the end of May, the professor who teaches about modern China at Virginia is retiring. In better times, the department would have searched for his replacement this year, but it has no money to do so. "There isn't even enough money to hire temps to teach these courses," he says.
Although Mr. McCurdy's department will not offer British history this year or next, "we have high hopes for the following year" that someone will teach the subject. In fact, "we've already identified a candidate," he says. "We just can't make an offer."
So far, there have been 20 applicants for the modern-Poland position. Before the department pulled the plug on the search in U.S. history -- a subfield that produces more Ph.D.'s than any other -- more than 300 people had applied.
"I told prospective grad students in the '90s that by now it'd be a bumper time for applicants," Mr. McCurdy says, because of faculty retirements. "But these potential opportunities have been overshadowed by budget constraints of state governments in public higher education. The market is not nearly as strong as both student demand and departmental need would suggest."
