> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • The Evolution of Race in Admissions
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Data
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
Backgrounder
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

What the Numbers Can Tell Us About Humanities Ph.D. Careers

By  Emma Pettit
January 6, 2019
Chicago

Imagine, Maureen McCarthy asked a room full of faculty members, if you could know where all of the Ph.D. graduates from your program are working, right now.

Not only that, she told a packed session at the annual Modern Language Association conference here in Chicago. Imagine if you could know how satisfied they are with the training they’d received in their Ph.D. program. Imagine if you could know if they’d do it again, and why.

mla0106
Tero Vesalainen, iStock

Until recently, that type of data was hard to come by, said McCarthy, director of best practices at the Council of Graduate Schools. The council conducted two surveys last year — one geared toward current Ph.D. students and their career aspirations, one geared toward Ph.D.-program graduates — to fill in those gaps.

We’re sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network. Please make sure your computer, VPN, or network allows javascript and allows content to be delivered from c950.chronicle.com and chronicle.blueconic.net.

Once javascript and access to those URLs are allowed, please refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

Imagine, Maureen McCarthy asked a room full of faculty members, if you could know where all of the Ph.D. graduates from your program are working, right now.

Not only that, she told a packed session at the annual Modern Language Association conference here in Chicago. Imagine if you could know how satisfied they are with the training they’d received in their Ph.D. program. Imagine if you could know if they’d do it again, and why.

mla0106
Tero Vesalainen, iStock

Until recently, that type of data was hard to come by, said McCarthy, director of best practices at the Council of Graduate Schools. The council conducted two surveys last year — one geared toward current Ph.D. students and their career aspirations, one geared toward Ph.D.-program graduates — to fill in those gaps.

But holes still exist. For instance, there isn’t much information about what happens to the people who drop out of Ph.D. programs, said Robert B. Townsend, who directs the Humanities Indicators project for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We don’t have much data about the admissions process, he said, or what happens to people as they go through their doctoral programs.

ADVERTISEMENT

Townsend and McCarthy both presented during a session called “Diving Into the Data: What the Numbers Tell Us About the Careers of Humanities Ph.D.s.” Those in attendance were well acquainted with the death knell often sounded about the academic job market in the humanities. Since the Great Recession, there’s been a steep drop-off in academic jobs advertised, while the number of Ph.D.s continues to increase.

In previous years, the MLA conference was synonymous with “flop sweat” as anxious graduate students interviewed in the cattle-call room for positions they probably wouldn’t get. (Paula M. Krebs, executive director of the MLA, told me the organization is now discouraging departments from treating the conference as a hiring convention: “We are no longer the place full of sweaty job seekers,” she said.)

But much of the conference’s talk is still about jobs. Here are a few takeaways from the data presented:

  • 56 percent of employed humanities Ph.D.s were teaching at the postsecondary level as their principal job. That’s a substantially higher percentage than in other Ph.D. fields, Townsend said, a fact he keeps in mind when he gives talks across academe. The humanities are anomalous in their focus on academe as being “the one true career path” for students, Townsend said, which is why he feels he has to defend the importance of career diversity.
  • About 70 percent of humanities Ph.D.s who work in academe are working full time, Townsend said, though he cautioned that the data set he was presenting masked some of the nuances in the contingent-faculty job market. For example, he said, it looked at peoples’ hourly workloads, separating those who worked at least 35 hours a week. That doesn’t take into account adjuncts who work lots of hours because they have partial loads at multiple colleges.
  • A majority of humanities Ph.D. graduates at 65 universities told the Council of Graduate Schools they’d do it again, McCarthy said, though people who were three years out from their degree were less likely to say yes if they were working outside of academe. That discrepancy “is a function of the shame that people feel when they’re first starting out in their careers and not going into academia,” McCarthy said. “There’s still that stigma.”
  • About 66 percent of people who have completed Ph.D.s in history are teaching at postsecondary institutions, as either contingent or tenure-track faculty members, said Dylan Ruediger, a panelist and a coordinator at the American Historical Association. That finding came from a data project, called Where Historians Work, that tracked the career outcomes for 8,523 historians who completed their degrees from 2004 to 2013.
  • Very few of the historians who work in academe are teaching at universities that resemble the R1 institutions where they got their advanced degrees. Just 19 percent of them, said Ruediger, are employed at R1 institutions.
  • It’s not all roses outside the humanities. The academic job market is challenging for the biosciences, for example, said Chris M. Golde, a panelist and a career counselor at Stanford University. Only about 12 percent of those Ph.D.s end up with a tenure-track job, she said, and that’s after a five-year postdoc. “I’m not trying to minimize the crisis in the humanities, but there are fellow travelers who are dealing with the same questions, and there are partnerships to be made across unlikely alliances on campus to help address these issues,” Golde said.

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.

ADVERTISEMENT

A version of this article appeared in the January 18, 2019, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Teaching & LearningAdmissions & EnrollmentGraduate Education
Emma Pettit
Emma Pettit is a senior reporter at The Chronicle who covers all things faculty. She writes mostly about professors and the strange, funny, sometimes harmful and sometimes hopeful ways they work and live. Follow her on Twitter at @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

  • These Ph.D. Programs Pay More Than Lip Service to Alternative Careers
  • Jobs Will Save the Humanities
  • There Is No Case for the Humanities
  • Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
    Explore
    • Get Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Blogs
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Find a Job
  • The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
    The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Write for Us
    • Talk to Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • User Agreement
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Site Map
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Customer Assistance
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Post a Job
    • Advertising Terms and Conditions
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
  • Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
    Subscribe
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Manage Your Account
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin