Unless you happen to be a historian of China (at least this year), the odds are not in your favor to get a tenure-track job in the humanities. Typing those words reminds me of "Hunger Games," in which two dozen teenagers are thrown into an arena and expected to fight one another to the death (with one-in-24 odds of surviving... or one-in-12 if you are named "Katniss" or "Peeta"). Indeed, it seems like the odds are worse than being selected as a "tribute" in Panem; 100+ applicants per job in American history, ~20 first-round interview candidates, ~3 on-campus finalists = less than a 3% chance of receiving a job offer per job applied for. Fortunately, someone else wrote a knock-down-drag-out article about how fighting your way through the humanities job market to a tenure-track future is rather like surviving "Hunger Games." Even if you win your way through the carnage, many state universities are actively culling humanities departments' faculty tenure-lines in favor of increased spending on dorms or sports (or basic cutbacks in higher education spending). And if one wants to get rid of tenured faculty, get rid of the department entirely.
Here are some of my thoughts about how to solve some of these issues (for any prospective deans or university presidents who want to be consciously pro-faculty):
1) Cut back on some of those "vice provosts" and "associate deans." Not my idea. Thank (or blame) political scientist Benjamin Ginsberg and his Fall of the Faculty book. For each of those high-paid administrators - and the support staff that make them feel powerful - one could pay for two (or three) junior, tenure-track faculty. N.B. If I am ever one of those high-paid administrators, my apologies in advance. I promise I will be doing my best to implement the above.
2) Understand that critical thinking skills are important. Certain highly-populated nations produce far more mathematically- and scientifically-inclined students (and grad students) than the United States (with its deeply problematic public school system) is likely to be able to do anytime soon. Yet the U.S. still attracts thousands of talented people seeking graduate degrees in the sciences and engineering (who often have a sense of plagiarism/independent research that does not fly with American doctoral research standards). Along the same lines, what the U.S. (or "the West," if you prefer) can still offer is training (education, if you will) in critical thinking. Such independent thinking is crucial to - if not solely the property of - immersion in humanities disciplines, as well as (arguably) for a healthy democratic society. In other words, I want to argue that majoring in a humanities discipline is more than about learning to appreciate "the meaning(s) of life" as an intrinsic value. But it remains to someone more witty and persuasive than I to "weaponize" a sense of how to apply the humanities (at least at the undergraduate level) to the workplace. It does not of course help that newspapers (that great employer of people who think critically, track down sources, question witnesses, and know how to turn a phrase in a succinct fashion) seem to be going the way of the dodo in favor of blogs (which anyway can type, regardless of the effectiveness of the spellchecker on their computer).
3) Faculty: Lest administrators claim I am dumping on them unnecessarily to the exclusion of the professoriate, here is some medicine for you (ok, us). One of the ways that we - particularly those of us who are tenured "deadwood" who have not produced a book in a decade or an article in years - can help out with this situation is to consider accepting - slightly - lower salaries in favor of hiring another assistant professor or two. I'm not asking you to sacrifice alone... even at a teaching school four or five full professors who "tithe" academically can enable the funding of a tenure-track assistant professor. Yes, I agree that the bigwig sports coaches and provosts can afford to tighten their belts far easier than you, we need to put our money where our mouths are.
4) Point two for faculty. Consider (at least for a little while) ways to make your discipline more "applied" in the classroom. No, I am not asking you to capitulate to the semi-washed, backwards sports cap wearing masses and only offer classes in say sports or military history. However, in this era of hyper-practicality among undergraduates afraid to graduate into their parents' basement if they take the wrong courses or the commit to the wrong major, many college students are leaving the humanities courses (and majors). If your department needs to fill the seats each semester (and your college's core curriculum does not require enough world history courses) or the faculty tenure-lines get cut, think of ways to fill those seats.
Parting Shot
May you find ways to influence the odds ever more in your favor.
Your obedient servant,
The History Major
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