A reader writes in with a rather depressing scenario and a question [editor’s note: what follows has been edited to protect the innocent/add a sex scene for SEK]:
There are a number of folks here, young scholars and aging grad students like myself who are trying to figure out the ramifications of a difficult situation so I thought I’d ask.
Here’s the deal: our American Studies [editor’s note: at a venerable and outstanding public institution located in the center of the country, “the heartland”] department has been recommended for closure by an “independent task force”. We’re appealing of course, but in a climate where they’ve already added student fees and slashed TA positions right and left, I’m dubious about our prospects. Part of the reason I’m dubious is that some of the problems cited in the evaluation are indeed real problems [editor’s note: including declining applications, lack of diversity, limited funding, high attrition, lengthy time to degree, and an iffy placement record].
Our situation, especially as it relates to similar situations in other disciplines, departments, and programs, raises questions about the rationalization of eduction in the humanities and, not to be too dramatic, the future of American Studies as a significant presence in US colleges and universities.
But for many of us here, the more pressing question is practical: how much is this going to devalue my degree in an already depressed and depressing academic job market? How will it play out in the committees evaluating my applications?
I am curious about what the people who manage and comment at EOTAW — which I value as a forum for the intertwined realistic and idealistic imperatives in academic life — have to say about any of this. Thanks in advance for your time.
My two cents? There’s a lot going on here, issues that have implications for graduate programs throughout the humanities and parts of the social sciences. But I’m going to limit myself to the reader’s core question: what will this mean for recent graduates of the program and for those students still in the pipeline there?
My guess, and it’s only a guess, because I don’t know enough about the job market in American Studies, is that closure of the program, on its own, won’t necessarily mean much for these people — at least for those who can get clear of the wreckage. Hiring committees, assuming the program currently has a good reputation, will still look at applicants from this program as serious contenders for jobs. Some hiring committee members might even feel extra sympathy for these applicants. But as ever, the work will be the thing*. Graduates of this program who have written good or hot (or both) dissertations will probably do just fine — relatively speaking.
Still, there’s another issue that troubles me. What’s going to become of the faculty currently affiliated with this program? Will they be around after the program is defunct? Will they still be willing to write letters of recommendation for their students? These seem like important questions to me, as a disinterested or disappeared mentor or recommender can certainly scuttle a job-seeker’s candidacy.
So? What do you think? What does the future hold for the students trapped in this lousy situation? Will they be okay? And do these pants make me look fat?
* Plus luck. And all the other variables that determine success on the market.
20 comments
January 20, 2010 at 12:50 am
dave
Where’s my sex scene? You promised a sex scene. Anyhoo, isn’t Rate Your Students here for this kind of thing?
Moreover, disinterest is good; uninterest is bad. Jesus, can’t you Yanks speak English?
January 20, 2010 at 2:59 am
TonaHangen
If the discipline of the department is not a pseudonym and it really is an American Studies program on the block, then I’m reminded of Vine Deloria Jr’s keynote at the ASA in Albuquerque last year. I’m a historian but have taught in an AS dept also. In his talk, Deloria pled with AS departments to hire their own and not to fill the faculty with folks from Literature, History, and other related fields. I was rather surprised, but on reflection, I shouldn’t have been – I think it’s fairly common that AS depts hire faculty from related fields rather than people trained in AS, and it’s much harder for AS PhDs to be hired into English or History depts.
It just raised my eyebrows that the president of the ASA felt he had to beg programs to hire people trained in their own field.
January 20, 2010 at 4:06 am
dana
Look, this is how it stands now:
This is not going to improve. The American Studies job market sucks. The economy imploded, and that means it might not matter how hot your dissertation is at all. If it were me, I would be considering a couple of things:
1) how close am I to finishing my degree? If I’m going to be defending this spring, or shortly after the projected date that it will close, might as well stick it out. If it’s going to be longer, the problem isn’t going to be getting letters of recommendation; it’s going to be finishing a PhD while advisers are hunting around for other jobs themselves, without a home department.
2) If I were not close to finishing, I’d be using the faculty contacts I have now to find a new home in another grad program, if that were feasible. Perhaps if your adviser moves to a new program you can follow along.
3) If you’re not ABD, take the master’s and go do something that makes money before the academy breaks your heart.
January 20, 2010 at 5:25 am
Anderson
More sex scenes might help avoid closure.
… The problem is, as usual, humanities scholarship in a county that fears and despises the humanities.
I suppose they could mount a nauseating campaign for the alumni about how the pointy-headed administrators have conspired to close the ONE department devoted to studying AMERICA.
January 20, 2010 at 6:12 am
snart
What dana said, and add to that: it’s the work that matters.
Reputation of the department is less important than a record of accomplishments. Publish or parish, at least in my discipline (sociology) really is the name of the game, and graduate students who know this up front and start playing it early and well will win the best positions.
On a hiring committee, an applicant who has published a solid paper or two (not encyclopedia annual review articles-don’t waste your time) will stand out more than one who comes from a brand-name institution. In fact,the applicant from the less well known department who has published looks especially impressive compared to a student from a top tier department who has not published. Finally, reputation and visibility of advisor is more important than reputation of department. Pragmatically, if your advisor is plugged in and productive, she or he can help once you are on the job market by providing a strong recommendation and by introducing you to people.
January 20, 2010 at 6:14 am
snart
uh, perish.
January 20, 2010 at 6:19 am
Tona
Parish is funnier. Publish or join the clergy…
January 20, 2010 at 7:40 am
Mr. Sidetable
The question is a bit confusing, as what I have heard is going on with this department [Iowa’s] is that they are considering doing away with the Ph.D. program, not the entire department (presumably they would still offer the undergraduate major and an M.A., which is probably a money-maker). I don’t know that anything in particular would happen to the faculty in this department, since almost all their core faculty have appointments in other departments as well (most in English). There are only two assistant professors whose lines seem to be solely in American Studies.
I don’t know that the closure of the department will devalue the degree any more than it already has been (and I say this as someone who has an Am. Studies Ph.D.). It will put more pressure on advisors to go to bat for their students when they go on the market.
Penn did the same thing with its American Studies graduate program back in the 90s. I think there were a few people who felt a bit adrift, but they had a pretty long lead time to figure out what to do.
January 20, 2010 at 7:52 am
ari
dave: a) I wanted “disinterested” and “disappeared” side by side, as I’m sure you could guess. b) You’re wrong about what “disinterested” means. Or, more accurately, we’re both right. But that makes you wrong in this case.
January 20, 2010 at 8:10 am
Kieran
In his talk, Deloria pled with AS departments to hire their own and not to fill the faculty with folks from Literature, History, and other related fields. I was rather surprised, but on reflection, I shouldn’t have been – I think it’s fairly common that AS depts hire faculty from related fields rather than people trained in AS, and it’s much harder for AS PhDs to be hired into English or History depts.
This is a common pattern in non-disciplinary fields. Business Schools, for instance, train Ph.Ds who go on the Business School job market. But the high status schools will in general not hire people with B-school qualifications, preferring instead to hire Ph.Ds in Economics, Psychology, Sociology, etc.
January 20, 2010 at 8:31 am
ajay
“Publish or parish” sounds like advice to 19th century Oxford academics deciding whether to continue as scholars or seek a comfortable living somewhere…
I suppose they could mount a nauseating campaign for the alumni about how the pointy-headed administrators have conspired to close the ONE department devoted to studying AMERICA.
This is great. Perhaps with an immense pie chart showing the very small proportion of the budget given to AMERICAN STUDIES and the very large part given to biology, astrophysics, literature, medicine, civil engineering and so on, collectively labelled “UN-AMERICAN STUDIES”.
January 20, 2010 at 9:47 am
dana
To add to Kieran’s point, a further problem with American Studies is that at some places it’s a wing of Literature, at other places of History, at others, of both, and at others, it’s its own thing. This means that a candidate has to satisfy potentially the needs of two different departments at once, which makes for.. agony, really.
Or so I am told by some PhDs.
January 20, 2010 at 11:08 am
Ahistoricality
a further problem with American Studies
This could be a long comment thread.
I’d add, in terms of job market, that a lot of history position descriptions are specific about looking for a “Ph.D. in History”, which a lot of committees interpret to mean “from a department of History,” and AmStud degrees end up out on the first cut. Even if the committees are open to AmStud Ph.D.s, they’re usually suspicious about disciplinary loyalty issues.
January 20, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Mr. Sidetable
Apparently the same panel has recommended that they close their graduate programs in Cinema Studies and Comp Lit.
January 20, 2010 at 12:53 pm
ima Nottellingmyname
Mr. Sidetable is mostly correct, but: the only MAs we’ve given out in the x>6 years i’ve been here were to PhD students exiting early. We don’t actually have an MA program that I know of. and, in that same span of years I’ve taught the intro/general population AMS class for approx. 9 semesters and had exactly 2 AMS undergrad majors. IMHO, the lack of attention paid to undergrads has been part fo the problem here.
January 20, 2010 at 12:55 pm
ima Nottellingmyname
And yeah, cinema/comp lit, already a combined department due to a previous bloodbath, seems to be on the chopping block as well.
January 20, 2010 at 1:12 pm
ima Nottellingmyname
And, let just add that there are two different things going on here: a set of longstanding internal complaints that, if addressed previously could have made the dept. less vulnerable, AND, an external review led by a dean and a chemistry professor which has recommended closure of at least two departments in the humanities. Those things are not totally discrete and separate, but B isn’t necessarily the only or even a reasonable outcome of A. Or it wouldn’t be in a better economic climate or at a school willing to cut highly paid administrators before faculty and TA positions.
January 20, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Anderson
at some places it’s a wing of Literature, at other places of History
Aren’t a great many lit majors really doing history, just not very well?
January 21, 2010 at 12:40 am
dave
ari, I suppose it is an American Studies thread… But I still want the sex scene.
Meanwhile, Anderson, FTW! [Though, of course, many history majors are also doing history, just not very well.]
January 21, 2010 at 10:58 am
ima Nottellingmyname
Ari, and everybody who offered or offers advice, thanks. The gist of what most people are saying–that it’s the work, who’s on your committee, and having your adviser go to bat for you that really counts–is really, rationally what I many folks have figured. But those rational calculations can be quite shaky in the face of the kind of massive uncertainty that news like this raises. The current job market makes it easy for an American Studies degree to seem fairly worthless (economically) anyway, and then finding out that the department awarding your degree is likely to cease to exist, well, that’s a hard pill to swallow. Having people who are experienced and sympathetic weigh in, even if the reassurances mostly add up to the dept. closing not making a bad situation much worse, that’s still very helpful.