OK, let’s imagine the impossible of total supply-side control. Clamp off admissions to every doctoral program in history immediately and what happens?
They all keep pumping out new Ph.D.’s at contemporary levels for 10 years. Scratch that. They actually pump out higher levels, because fewer of those enrolled will drop out, believing that they have better chances. So that keeps the “supply” at status quo rates for, say, 13 to 15 years. Then of course there’s all the underemployed circling the drain. They’re good for at least another five years’ supply.
Another thing. Young people being so clever, they’ll find ways around that job czar and the gerontocracy, enrolling — as so many already do — in American Studies, cultural studies, women’s and ethnic studies. So while history is choking off “supply,” the “competition” will continue merrily.
So even after total lockdown on admissions, this “oversupply” will continue for two decades at minimum. When could “production” start again? After a decade? At what level?
One more thing. Since we’re still staying hands-off on the demand side — what administrators want is what administrators want, and what can us chickens do about that? — that “demand” will continue to be restructured downward on a dozen fronts: dumping humanities from curricula, more casualization, automated courseware, etc.
So I remain confused, if not downright skeptical. To those of you scoffing at how impractical it is to try and attack the problem where it lives — on the demand side, with aggressive administrator restructuring of demand, I want to say this: Really? You think this is the practical alternative?
Here are some demand-side questions, all of them far more practical, doable, and approachable than the Wiley E. Coyote-style fantasy of clambering atop a giant people pipeline and shutting ‘er down.
1. How much teaching should graduate students do per year, for how many years en route to a degree? At what rate should they be paid?
2. On what basis should teaching-intensive faculty in history earn tenure? If monograph publication isn’t the gold standard for professional activity, what forms of “doing history” should count? What size should their classes be? How many should they teach in relation to participation in governance and “doing history”? What degrees should they hold?
3. What’s the limit to standardization, automation, and “scaling up” schemes? Historians and many other faculty, especially academostars, are susceptible to the idea that the nation really only needs a handful of doctorally degreed specialist stars in each field, and we can “scale up” their teaching infinitely by streaming their lectures (plus enlarging the army of cheap teachers/volunteers leading discussion sections).
4. When faculty are employed on a “temporary” basis, when is temporary an honest descriptor and when is it a loincloth for exploitation? Shouldn’t “temporary” faculty be paid more than nontemporary faculty (to contribute to self-funding of benefits, inconvenience, etc.) What are the academic rights, including academic freedom in the classroom, and to teaching their own syllabi, of “temporary” faculty when they’re truly temporary? What are their rights in that respect when they’re really permanent but being treated as temporary?
Since we’re all so fond of imaginary “basic economics” at one stroke, wouldn’t removing the incentive for exploitation (super-cheap wages for grads and contingent faculty) solve the problem now masquerading as an “oversupply”?
Part 1 At the AHA: Huh?
Part 2 Who’s a ‘Historian’ to the AHA?
Part 3 History ‘Job Czar’ Shuts Down PhD Production
(Oversupply Continues for Two Decades)
x-posted: howtheuniversityworks.com
7 Responses to History Job Czar Shuts Down Ph.D. Production
newsoffice - January 8, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Here’s your basic problem: Fewer and fewer TT jobs, more and more adjuncts. This will never change as long as very cheap labor exists – of which there is apparently no endless supply. Grown ups, very well-educated, will, it turns out, work for less (in terms of hourly wage) than teenage sales assistants at the Gap. Universities essentially employ the quivelant of migrant workers to teach courses — low wages, no benefits, no job security and basically its seasonal.Unfortunately, tenured faculty, in their own rush to avoid teaching freshmen and more students (as well as the classes they were actually hired to teach), welcomed these new arrangements – we can get grad students and adjuncts to do lots of the work — rather than uphold standards (and protect our profession’s jobs). Now if jobs exist then having grad students teach is a great way to get them ready for their professional lives (sort of like an apprentice). But huge numbers of them never will never teach or they will be academic migrant workers, so basically they aren’t honing skills, they are just saving the departments and colleges lots of $ by working for free. Education is a BUSINESS! When will faculty realize this? What’s happening to tenured faculty is that their jobs are baically being sent overseas. Cheaper labor always wins. How many faculty fought for higher adjunct salaries? How many departmental chairs hired desperate people to work for pennies? You were complicit in allowing your market value to tumble. Yes, remove the incentives for exploitation, but how are you going to do that when talented people will work for free just to have a foot in the door of an academic career. Supply IS the problem.
marcbousquet - January 8, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Bonk, bonk, bonk. (Head against wall.) Newsoffice, “more and more adjuncts” isn’t a question of supply, it’s one of demand: rather than “demanding” PhD holders, campus employers are “demanding” M.A. holders and students.The fact that undergraduates and m.a. students, or m.a. holders are willing to do work on temporary appointments formerly done by holders of doctorates in secure positions isn’t in itself surprising or news. It’s interesting and pleasant work, for the most part–why wouldn’t they want to do it? The question is whether they should be allowed to do so with that much preparation, on those terms, etc, etc. What is important for this conversation is this: what should DISCIPLINARY ASSOCIATIONS be doing about this restructuring of “demand” so that undergraduates and near-volunteers are doing faculty work? Should they say, “oh well, no problem, guess that’s what the demand is these days?” Of course not. That’s why supply-side pseudo-analysis is so pernicious. It enables the self-defeating posture of passivity.
ex_ag - January 8, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Bousquet,After chastising the AHA for ignoring community colleges, you seem over-eager to ignore any institution that is not like yours. Most of these questions (e.g. who would do the work now done by grad students?) are SO FAR beyond the concerns of most faculty working at community colleges, private liberal arts colleges, and smaller public colleges that we can’t care. It’s like worrying about a speck of dust in one’s eye while in the middle of an F4 tornado.I know you really want to feel like you’re involved in fighting for the general welfare of academia, but you’re WAY out of the loop. If you want to know what you should be worrying about, trade your job in for a small-school job.
marcbousquet - January 8, 2010 at 8:30 pm
@ex_ag: huh?
jffoster - January 9, 2010 at 6:51 am
A couple of observations: First. “huh?” is not an argument. It’s sort of like the feminist “Excuse me?.” or “Hello?” They aren’t arguments either. Second, the post original has the following:”Another thing. Young people being so clever, they’ll find ways around that job czar and the gerontocracy, enrolling — as so many already do — in American Studies, cultural studies, women’s and ethnic studies. So while history is choking off “supply,” the “competition” will continue merrily.”Well, smart (as opposed to merely “clever”) students will be leary of the vapidity, lack of disciplined investigation, and general amorphosness and eclecticism of most of these “studies” majors as sole majors and will find something substantive as their primary major. Bousquet may be right here though — it may be a case of Gresham’s Law — bac degrees in not very good things driving degrees in good things out of circulation. But I don’t think so. In any event, a number of these “studies” things seem to be fairly high on reduction lists in budgetary down periods. Third: why does one need “discussion / quiz” sections at all? I have known very good, nay outstanding, History Departments which gave very good survey courses (let alone advanced & intermediate courses) with leading scholars and GAs doing the administrative scut work but no “discussion” sections. The students often mounted their own impromptu discussions — which are usually the most effective (though not always the most efficient) kind.
newsoffice - January 11, 2010 at 8:47 am
“Newsoffice, ‘more and more adjuncts’ isn’t a question of supply, it’s one of demand: rather than “demanding” PhD holders, campus employers are “demanding” M.A. holders and students.No, you’ve already lost the demand problem. The demand is clear. MAs wanted; PhDs neeed not apply or they can apply, they can even publish books and be great teachers, but they will only be paid $2500 per course. Again, education is a business. Business always goes with cheaper labor (hello overseas manufacturing jobs). Tenured PhDs were happy to oursource their jobs to adjuncts and complicit in making themselves obsolete. There is a demand but not for what you are offering. This is terrible but true. Thus it is not a demand problem. The demand has moved to a different model of educator-scholars: educational migrant workers. Good luck trying to upend that model. It is already too firmly entrenched. I agree with you that it is a terrible model – terrible for higher education, terrible for faculty and terrible for students. But until you can fix it — stop churning out PhDs who work essentially full time for about $12,000 a year.
newsoffice - January 11, 2010 at 8:54 am
One more thing, you write “The fact that undergraduates and m.a. students, or m.a. holders are willing to do work on temporary appointments formerly done by holders of doctorates in secure positions isn’t in itself surprising or news. It’s interesting and pleasant work, for the most part–why wouldn’t they want to do it? The question is whether they should be allowed to do so with that much preparation, on those terms, etc, etc.”I’ve never ever encountered a happy adjunct. What adjuncts do you know? They are all bitter. I am not sure they find the work intersting and pleasurable — they are seasonal help and treated and paid as such. They tend to be desparate people — PhDs desperate to work in the profession they have spent years preparing. There are some happy MAs for whom it offers a little prestige. You are right that in theory they shouldn’t be doing the work of faculty for that kind of $ and terms, but again, it is a model that was embraced by administrations and academic departments/fauclty — too late to shut the barn door now.