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November 24, 2008
Just what we need - MORE Ph.d. holders
Yes, even in this year of aborted searches and hiring freezes people can stand up with a straight face and be pleased with rising rates of Ph.d. completion. I'm pleased that Inside Higher Ed uses the headline Doctorate Production Continues to Grow, as though we're talking about an industrial process rather than the individual accomplishment of scholars. Since the story admits that "the overall gains continued to be driven by significant numbers of Ph.D.s and other doctorates awarded to non-Americans," perhaps they're right. We import an increasing number of graduate students to keep the doctoral programs churning.
Our provost said aloud in the monthly faculty meeting last year that there was a coming shortage of doctorate holders on the market. The room burst into laughter.* And that was before this year created another cohort of the accidentally unhired. Ah, to own a taxi company in New York City!
Luckily, though, the story has this hopeful bit: "...the number of Ph.D.s awarded in the humanities dropped by 4.6 percent, to their lowest point since 1994."
*to be fair to the provost, perhaps she was thinking of the disproportion of PhDs being awarded in the sciences to non-citizens and the difficulty in making a hire under those circumstances. Surely, though, in a world with more than 250 complete applications for a position in the English department (hearsay, but from a member of the search committee) it's not disastrous if the number of degrees in the humanities drops by 5 or 6 percent?
Further - Oh, I should add: no hiring freeze here; we're going ahead with our searches, though there may be less ready replacement for people on leave and such next year.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at November 24, 2008 7:32 AM
Comments
I wonder this about my industry as well -- how, in good conscience, can the J-schools keep churning out grads into an industry that can't employ them? And how can they take their money and their time and specifically refuse to teach them the tech skills that will make them employable?
Thousands people with years of experience have been laid off this year and are thus on the job market. And yet the schools keep churning out more.
Posted by: Girl Flip at November 24, 2008 11:10 PM