Blog CLII (152): Looking for a Home

My article in the AHA newsletter has gotten some interesting reactions. At a conference, one person came up to me and said I was brave for writing it. Not sure why. But I think it had something to do with my suggestion that a number of Ph.D. programs shut down. I think that we need on average only one history Ph.D. program per state. Even then, fifty would be more than enough to service our social needs for history.

Until that happens--and it probably won't--students looking for a Ph.D. program need to be very careful and selective in where they apply. Below is a list of the 61 of the 62 American and Canadian universities that are members of the Association of American Universities. (Cal Tech does not have a history department).  If you are looking for a Ph.D. program, I would limit it to these schools (for those of you who want to work and live in North America). If they do not have people doing the topics you want to explore or you are unable to get in, I think you should reconsider your plans to be a historian. (Ignore this advice if you are already in a program).  Here they are:

• Boston University
• Brandeis University
• Brown University
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Case Western Reserve University
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Duke University
• Emory University
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Harvard University
• Indiana University
• Iowa State University
• The Johns Hopkins University
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• McGill University
• Michigan State University
• New York University
• Northwestern University
• The Ohio State University
• The Pennsylvania State University
• Princeton University
• Purdue University
• Rice University
• Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
• Stanford University
• Stony Brook University-State University of New York
• Texas A&M University
• Tulane University
• The University of Arizona
• University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Davis
• University of California, Irvine
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, San Diego
• University of California, Santa Barbara
• The University of Chicago
• University of Colorado Boulder
• University of Florida
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• The University of Iowa
• The University of Kansas
• University of Maryland, College Park
• University of Michigan
• University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
• University of Missouri-Columbia
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Oregon
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of Rochester
• University of Southern California
• The University of Texas at Austin
• University of Toronto
• University of Virginia
• University of Washington
• The University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Vanderbilt University
• Washington University in St. Louis
• Yale University