A couple of events transpired in the past few weeks on this blog that are worth noting. In April "In the Service of Clio" set a record with 10 postings in one month. That broke the record of seven that was set in December 2010 and then matched in January and November of 2011. In June that record got broken again. This posting is the twelfth in the month.
The second thing worth noting, over the previous two years, the number of postings on the blog waned. Each was a new low: 23 in 2013 and 11 in 2014. This year, though, we published the thirty-fourth post on June 18 with Blog CXCII (192): Sarantakes vs. Canary. In short, in this past month we surpassed the total for all of last year. When combined with the other entries made this year, this month took 2015 over the top for the total of the last two combined. That was the original goal when this year started.
We are not even close to being done, though. There is a lot in the pipeline. It will slow down a bit this summer as I work on my next book project, but more is coming on a lot of different topics, and given what is currently planned we should set a new record for postings in a year.
Stay tuned.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Blog CXCV (195): Hall of Fame
The College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky has a Hall of Fame. My adviser for my MA thesis, George C. Herring, Jr. was inducted into this organization as a faculty member. (The Hall inducts people in two categories: faculty and alumni). "The Chief" is now a professor emeritus, but he has hardly slowed down. The fifth edition of his book America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 was released in 2013. If you are going to read only one book on that war, then it should be this one. I can remember exactly when and where I was when I read the book for the first time: I was shivering under a dinning fly in wet, 50 degree weather in June of 1988 during Ranger training in the Baldy country of the Philmont Scout Ranch, Cimarron, New Mexico. I remember thinking it ironic that I was reading about a jungle war on a wet, clammy day. Needless to say, the book played a huge role in me deciding to become a diplomatic historian.
Herring is the dean of scholars writing on the Vietnam War, but he has many other achievements to his name. He was the president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and was editor of the journal, Diplomatic History. He supervised dozens of graduate students at the MA and Ph.D. levels.
The main focus of this blog is career management, but on this occasion, we will take some time to honor a distinguished scholar. Below is a video that Arts and Sciences made about Herring for his induction:
Herring is the dean of scholars writing on the Vietnam War, but he has many other achievements to his name. He was the president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and was editor of the journal, Diplomatic History. He supervised dozens of graduate students at the MA and Ph.D. levels.
The main focus of this blog is career management, but on this occasion, we will take some time to honor a distinguished scholar. Below is a video that Arts and Sciences made about Herring for his induction:
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Blog CXCIV (194): The SMH White Paper and the Future of Military History
Everyone once in a while—okay, it is probably more than "once in a while"—I have surfed the internet to see how colleagues are reacting to this blog, if they are reacting at all. Most people seem to appreciate the effort, even if they disagree with certain arguments. I chuckled a bit at a comment that went something like: "useful, even if there is too much military history for my taste."
I chuckled because I am not a military historian; I am a diplomatic historian. I understand why people make the mistake, I have worked at three schools in the professional military education system, and of those five books displayed on the right side of this blog, four look like military history at first glance. (Actually only one is military history; three are diplomatic history; and one is film history). More to the point, the comment reflects the low status of military history in the profession.
The Society for Military History is aware of their poor standing with their peers, and is trying to combat that status. To that end, the organization authorized a whitepaper entitled "The Role of Military History in the Contemporary Academy.” The co-authors were Tami Davis Biddle of the U.S. Army War College and Robert M. Citino of the University of North Texas. This project seems designed to reach key decision makers like college and university administrators, journalists, and politicians.
They quickly acknowledge the less than ideal standing of the field. "The phrase 'military history' still stirs conflicted emotions or hostile reactions among those who teach history in the nation’s colleges and universities." There are some reasons for that reaction. "The challenges facing those who study war extend beyond the fact their terrain is challenging, morally-freighted, and emotionally-draining." There is, however, more to it than that. "Part of the problem stems from the way that military history is, and has been, identified and categorized inside American popular culture." It is a very popular topic with the general public. "Anyone walking into a large bookstore will find, in most cases, a sizable section labeled 'military history.' Some of the work located there will be of high quality—serious, deeply researched, and conforming to the highest scholarly standards; but some of it will consist of shallow tales of adventure and conquest, written for an enthusiastic but not terribly discerning audience. Some of it will cover esoteric topics that appeal to those with highly particularized interests, such as military uniforms, weapons types, or aircraft markings." These points are basically correct. A point they did not make is that most military history in the United States is land-centric. The U.S. Army is the most studied institution. In fact, the Confederate States Army has been the subject of more writing than the U.S. Navy, even though the sea service has a much longer record for individuals to examine. Biddle and Citino also note, "Popular military history varies immensely in quality, and there is a great gulf between the best and the worst it has to offer. Outside the subfield, all this work tends to be lumped together, however, and academics with little exposure to serious scholarship in the field may assume that it is a discipline defined by the weaker side of the spectrum."
Despite being less than popular with their colleagues, Biddle and Citino argue that military historians might be the best asset a department has to offer. "Our students’ desire for knowledge creates an important opportunity for Departments of History. The late recession has produced a drop in humanities majors as students seek courses that seem more likely to produce an immediate payoff in terms of jobs and wages. Legislative budget cuts have forced even state schools to conform to a tuition-driven model, and departments that cannot attract a sufficient number of students can expect hard times to get harder." All of that is true, but that fact that students often vote with their feet or their tuition is something that decision makers should consider. "University college administrators, particularly college deans and chairs of History Departments, may find some relief in the appeal of military history. Courses in military history tend to fill, not only with history majors and minors, but also with students from other disciplines who are interested in the field. And because military history intersects regularly with the profession’s other subfields, it can serve as an ideal gateway to the other specializations any given History Department has to offer. It may, as well, lure back some of the students who have been drawn away to political science, international relations, and public policy departments."
Your average faculty member might easily dismiss such considerations as a form of academic pandering or whoring. Administrators—good or bad—cannot. If classes generate heavy enrollments, they make it possible for departments to offer classes that generate smaller numbers; they also make it possible to employ graduate students as graders and teaching assistants.
There are slightly more noble reasons as well to employee military historians. "It is incumbent upon those who train our college and university students—our next generation of civilian leaders—to address the civilian side of the equation. They must teach today’s students about the role of the military in a democracy, the blunt character of military force, and the lasting consequences of the decision to wage war." That argument seems more aimed at the journalists, and politicians, but Biddle and Citino are basically correct. "To ignore the study of such an enterprise is, in the end, corrosive of the Constitutional principles that legitimize choice and action in the American system of government. The strong body of literature produced by contemporary military historians, and the knowledge and pedagogical skills that they bring to the classroom, can surely help in this crucial task."
It is hardly a surprise that the Society for Military History commissioned this essay. The SMH is a good organization full of a lot of academic innovation. The first academic conference I attended in a foreign country was its annual meeting in 2001. It is also one of the few American scholarly organizations to elect a foreign national teaching at a foreign institution of higher education to serve as its president. It is also a well-run and administered. I would guess that over half of the members of the organization have jobs that we currently call "alternative academic." As a result, they are well-run because many of their members have day-to-day work responsibilities unlike your average academic.
Military history has never, ever been popular with the historical profession. That was a lesson I learned when I researched and wrote on Theodore Roosevelt's tenure as president of the AHA. There was no golden time when it was an accepted and respected sub-field.
This paper is a creative attempt to leverage the strengths of the SMH and/or military history. Like it or not administrators make the real decisions on which departments will get the funding to create new faculty positions or replace old ones. Faculty types tend to get angry and personalize decision making when deans fail to act according to how they believe they should; which is the only possibly correct thing to do, period. The thing is, though, that a dean is never going to be able to weight the intellectual merits of one subfield in history against another, or work in history versus sociology versus English literature when they are a political scientist. In the end, it will be administrative issues that will carry the day. It seems likely that outsiders (deans, board of trustee members, etc.) will be swayed more by what Biddle and Citino contend than history faculty, and those decision makers are the ones that are really important in the end. It should be interesting to see what comes of it in the months to follow.
I chuckled because I am not a military historian; I am a diplomatic historian. I understand why people make the mistake, I have worked at three schools in the professional military education system, and of those five books displayed on the right side of this blog, four look like military history at first glance. (Actually only one is military history; three are diplomatic history; and one is film history). More to the point, the comment reflects the low status of military history in the profession.
The Society for Military History is aware of their poor standing with their peers, and is trying to combat that status. To that end, the organization authorized a whitepaper entitled "The Role of Military History in the Contemporary Academy.” The co-authors were Tami Davis Biddle of the U.S. Army War College and Robert M. Citino of the University of North Texas. This project seems designed to reach key decision makers like college and university administrators, journalists, and politicians.
They quickly acknowledge the less than ideal standing of the field. "The phrase 'military history' still stirs conflicted emotions or hostile reactions among those who teach history in the nation’s colleges and universities." There are some reasons for that reaction. "The challenges facing those who study war extend beyond the fact their terrain is challenging, morally-freighted, and emotionally-draining." There is, however, more to it than that. "Part of the problem stems from the way that military history is, and has been, identified and categorized inside American popular culture." It is a very popular topic with the general public. "Anyone walking into a large bookstore will find, in most cases, a sizable section labeled 'military history.' Some of the work located there will be of high quality—serious, deeply researched, and conforming to the highest scholarly standards; but some of it will consist of shallow tales of adventure and conquest, written for an enthusiastic but not terribly discerning audience. Some of it will cover esoteric topics that appeal to those with highly particularized interests, such as military uniforms, weapons types, or aircraft markings." These points are basically correct. A point they did not make is that most military history in the United States is land-centric. The U.S. Army is the most studied institution. In fact, the Confederate States Army has been the subject of more writing than the U.S. Navy, even though the sea service has a much longer record for individuals to examine. Biddle and Citino also note, "Popular military history varies immensely in quality, and there is a great gulf between the best and the worst it has to offer. Outside the subfield, all this work tends to be lumped together, however, and academics with little exposure to serious scholarship in the field may assume that it is a discipline defined by the weaker side of the spectrum."
Despite being less than popular with their colleagues, Biddle and Citino argue that military historians might be the best asset a department has to offer. "Our students’ desire for knowledge creates an important opportunity for Departments of History. The late recession has produced a drop in humanities majors as students seek courses that seem more likely to produce an immediate payoff in terms of jobs and wages. Legislative budget cuts have forced even state schools to conform to a tuition-driven model, and departments that cannot attract a sufficient number of students can expect hard times to get harder." All of that is true, but that fact that students often vote with their feet or their tuition is something that decision makers should consider. "University college administrators, particularly college deans and chairs of History Departments, may find some relief in the appeal of military history. Courses in military history tend to fill, not only with history majors and minors, but also with students from other disciplines who are interested in the field. And because military history intersects regularly with the profession’s other subfields, it can serve as an ideal gateway to the other specializations any given History Department has to offer. It may, as well, lure back some of the students who have been drawn away to political science, international relations, and public policy departments."
Your average faculty member might easily dismiss such considerations as a form of academic pandering or whoring. Administrators—good or bad—cannot. If classes generate heavy enrollments, they make it possible for departments to offer classes that generate smaller numbers; they also make it possible to employ graduate students as graders and teaching assistants.
There are slightly more noble reasons as well to employee military historians. "It is incumbent upon those who train our college and university students—our next generation of civilian leaders—to address the civilian side of the equation. They must teach today’s students about the role of the military in a democracy, the blunt character of military force, and the lasting consequences of the decision to wage war." That argument seems more aimed at the journalists, and politicians, but Biddle and Citino are basically correct. "To ignore the study of such an enterprise is, in the end, corrosive of the Constitutional principles that legitimize choice and action in the American system of government. The strong body of literature produced by contemporary military historians, and the knowledge and pedagogical skills that they bring to the classroom, can surely help in this crucial task."
It is hardly a surprise that the Society for Military History commissioned this essay. The SMH is a good organization full of a lot of academic innovation. The first academic conference I attended in a foreign country was its annual meeting in 2001. It is also one of the few American scholarly organizations to elect a foreign national teaching at a foreign institution of higher education to serve as its president. It is also a well-run and administered. I would guess that over half of the members of the organization have jobs that we currently call "alternative academic." As a result, they are well-run because many of their members have day-to-day work responsibilities unlike your average academic.
Military history has never, ever been popular with the historical profession. That was a lesson I learned when I researched and wrote on Theodore Roosevelt's tenure as president of the AHA. There was no golden time when it was an accepted and respected sub-field.
This paper is a creative attempt to leverage the strengths of the SMH and/or military history. Like it or not administrators make the real decisions on which departments will get the funding to create new faculty positions or replace old ones. Faculty types tend to get angry and personalize decision making when deans fail to act according to how they believe they should; which is the only possibly correct thing to do, period. The thing is, though, that a dean is never going to be able to weight the intellectual merits of one subfield in history against another, or work in history versus sociology versus English literature when they are a political scientist. In the end, it will be administrative issues that will carry the day. It seems likely that outsiders (deans, board of trustee members, etc.) will be swayed more by what Biddle and Citino contend than history faculty, and those decision makers are the ones that are really important in the end. It should be interesting to see what comes of it in the months to follow.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Blog CXCIII (193): What I Do
The American Historical Association started an interview series called "What I Do." Representatives of the Association have interviewed historians that are using their Ph.D.s outside of traditional academic venues. This series is featured on both the organization's web site as well as its YouTube channel. The videos below and their captions are taken directly from these locals and are provided to give readers of this blog some more ideas on how they can use their degrees outside of a traditional academic venue.
Rachel Reinhard talks about her role as the director of the University of California, Berkeley History-Social Science Project, which serves, she says, "as a bridge between the university and K-12 classrooms, and to support the professional development of K-12 instruction."
Carol Geary Schneider speaks about her role as president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and how she uses her background in history to further the AAC&U's mission: advancing and strengthening liberal education.
LuAnn Jones talks about her role as a historian in the Park History Program, and how she uses her background in oral history to train and teach in a variety of interdisciplinary settings.
John A. Lawrence sits down for an interview and talks about his time on Capitol Hill and how a historian's training helped him see what's really important, in any environment.
Lincoln Bramwell, Chief Historian, U.S. Forest Service, discusses his career path, which began as a volunteer firefighter alongside his graduate degree work, never imagining that these two interests would ever combine. He describes his daily work at the Forest Service and the surprising ways in which he was able to bring his training in history and passion for firefighting together at the Forest Service.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Blog CXCII (192): Sarantakes vs. Canary
In January the newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Passport, published an article I wrote proposing a series of initiatives the organization could take to help resolve the job crisis. SHAFR is the main organization for U.S. diplomatic historians. This article was in direct response to another article: Brian C. Etheridge, “SHAFR and the Future of the Profession,”
Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
Review, vol. 43, no. 1 (April 2012), 50-51. Ethridge was the associate provost for academic innovation at the University of Baltimore and is now the director of the Center for
Teaching Excellence at Georgia Gwinnett College. In this article, he proposed that
diplomatic historians adopt Ernest L. Boyer’s four
different categories of scholarship
in the study of U.S. diplomatic
history: the scholarship of discovery;
the scholarship of integration; the
scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching
and learning. I had mixed reactions to the article, but it was a stimulating read. I will not repeat his suggestions in detail. I would recommend a number of people read it, though.
As I wrote at the time, "The problem with Etheridge’s proposal is that it does not really resolve the big problem facing SHAFR—the fact that there are more historians than history jobs. Even if we do change the nature of what we recognize as scholarship, it will not change that fact."
Do not get me wrong. Etheridge’s article offers some good ideas. More importantly, it simulated my own thinking about actions that SHAFR can take to help individual diplomatic historians. My article is: The proper citation is: Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "In Search of a Solution: SHAFR and the Jobs Crisis in the History Profession," Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review, vol. 45, no. 3 (January 2015), 37-38. Unlike most other organizations representing history sub-fields, SHAFR is a well-organized and funded organization. In the article, I argued "These assets can and should be leveraged to help the more junior members of our field find meaningful employment." To that end, I offered the following recommendations, which are abridged from the original article:
 |
| Brian C. Etheridge |
As I wrote at the time, "The problem with Etheridge’s proposal is that it does not really resolve the big problem facing SHAFR—the fact that there are more historians than history jobs. Even if we do change the nature of what we recognize as scholarship, it will not change that fact."
Do not get me wrong. Etheridge’s article offers some good ideas. More importantly, it simulated my own thinking about actions that SHAFR can take to help individual diplomatic historians. My article is: The proper citation is: Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "In Search of a Solution: SHAFR and the Jobs Crisis in the History Profession," Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review, vol. 45, no. 3 (January 2015), 37-38. Unlike most other organizations representing history sub-fields, SHAFR is a well-organized and funded organization. In the article, I argued "These assets can and should be leveraged to help the more junior members of our field find meaningful employment." To that end, I offered the following recommendations, which are abridged from the original article:
1. Create two new committees and/or vice-president positions to oversee them. The first should be for schoolteachers. This committee can offer important advice to SHAFR members who want to go into this field on the requirements for getting teaching jobs, which usually vary from state to state... The second should be for professional practitioners: scholars who are using their degrees in government service or history out in the public sphere... The goal would be to make it easier for individuals to move from one field to another.
2. Diversify and improve the visibility of the SHAFR conference. Most of what SHAFR does at its annual meeting is great and I want to see that continue, but there are certain things that we
can do to offer more services to members. First, we can designate a certain percentage of sessions—perhaps five to ten percent—for discussing the teaching of U.S. diplomatic history... We could also have a series of “The History Ph.D. as . . .” sessions, where several historians who work at institutions other than history departments—think tanks, for example—discuss their experience with and answer questions about these environments. How do you find a job at one of these organizations? How much time do you have to work on your own scholarship? How well does it pay? What unexpected perks or problems are there in this type of work?... Each session should be devoted to a specific field and have several speakers, since experiences differ... The profession would benefit if we promoted the conference systematically. The more attention the organization and the field receive, the better for all concerned. Raising the profile of diplomatic history helps improve its standing with colleagues in other fields who often make the decisions on what positions a department will hire. SHAFR has done well in having C-SPAN show up and record a few sessions, but we need more than one or two sessions airing at 9 p.m. on a Saturday night...
3. Provide access to scholarly databases as part of SHAFR membership. SHAFR should make an arrangement with the likes of JSTOR and Project MUSE to make access to these databases a benefit that comes with SHAFR membership. Most SHAFR members will not need this type of assistance, but it will be a real benefit to graduate students, those that have graduated and have lost their access to university libraries, or are doing adjunct work, which often comes with restricted access to university libraries and their subscriptions to these databases...
4. Write letters. Despite what we like to think about faculty governance, deans rather than faculty committees make the final decisions about the fields in which a department will hire. SHAFR should leverage some of the phenomenal success it has enjoyed of late (three SHAFR members have won the Pulitzer Prize in the last ten years, and another three were finalists) to convince deans to authorize searches for diplomatic historians...
5. Create summer job placement workshops. My final proposal is that SHAFR begin running a summer workshop for newly minted history Ph.D.s to help them find alternative careers. To be effective, this type of program would have to be a multi-week residential program that combines a mini-MBA course with some training in writing résumés and preparing for interviews. This summer institute should also help with networking and bring in corporate and not-for-profit recruiters to meet with the participants....
The objections to this type of program are understandable. Students went to graduate school because they wanted academic careers, and SHAFR is a scholarly organization. Job placement is outside of its mission. These objections are easy to answer. For most people in graduate programs right now, a meaningful academic career is not realistic. The statistics make that clear. The real choice is between a non-academic career (or perhaps it is better describe as an alternative career) or none at all. SHAFR is also in a good position to create such a program...Andrew Johns, the editor of Passport, arranged for Etheridge to respond to my essay, which he did in the same issue. The proper citation is: Brian C. Etheridge, "Canary in a Coal Mine," Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review, vol. 45, no. 3 (January 2015), 38-39. Below is an excerpt from his article:
I agree with many of the helpful suggestions that Sarantakes has offered about potential actions that SHAFR could take to strengthen the profession. I think his best idea is diversifying the program of the annual SHAFR meeting. Sarantakes is right that more time needs to be devoted to teaching the history of American foreign relations. After all, most professors at most institutions spend most of their time teaching, and most of us have had little or no formal preparation in how to teach effectively. He is also on target in encouraging sessions about employment outside of the academy, led by those who have successfully carved out careers for themselves in other related industries. Finally, I strongly endorse his idea of better promoting the conference to outside stakeholders. I believe that all of these actions would make SHAFR, and by extension the profession, stronger.
But I’m afraid that I must continue to differ with Sarantakes on the crux of the matter. In this regard, I don’t disagree so much with his prescriptions as with his diagnosis of the problem. In Sarantakes’s view, the really big issue confronting SHAFR is “that there are more historians than history jobs.” While I agree that the jobs crisis is a very real and difficult challenge confronting far too many young, talented historians, I see it as more symptomatic of larger ills facing the profession and discipline...
In my view, the jobs crisis in diplomatic history, and in the humanities in general, is a product of the larger dilemma facing the liberal arts. States from Virginia to California are in various stages of creating databases that enable them to track student progression through higher education and into the work force. With the growing emphasis in state legislatures on career and workforce development, the liberal arts are often dismissed, as is reflected in the rhetoric of many of the nation’s leaders. “If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education,” Republican Governor Rick Scott of Florida declared, “then I’m going to take that money to create jobs.” He later wondered, “Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists?”... “False [sic] crisis narratives have real effects.” They can lead, for example, to the neglect of the humanities during strategic planning sessions on local campuses.
To help battle the negative stereotypes surrounding a liberal education, we need to expand our own notion, and in turn the understanding of the public, about what we do. Herein lay my original call for expanding our notion of scholarship—our creative contribution to the body of knowledge—and thus redefining our collective worth to society. In addition to the continuing value we provide to society through our research on the history of America’s encounter with the world, we need to broaden our understanding of our creative activity to include innovations in teaching, the application of our historical understanding to contemporary crises, and collaboration with other disciplines to tackle the big issues: what many have called the “wicked problems” plaguing our global society. SHAFR can support such an agenda, not only by providing more time and space on its annual program, but by helping redefine what counts as creative work in our profession and thereby helping rebrand our profession over time for a larger audience.I think the exchange was good. Both of us respected the ideas the other guy was offering. I also believe both of us would have no problem seeing SHAFR adopt the other guy's ideas. The journal of the organization, Diplomatic History, already publishes "the scholarship of discovery," and the organization could easily mandate that it have regular features for the other types of scholarship, or it could change the focus of Passport, or it could even create another publication in print or on-line that would produce the other three types of scholarship that Boyer advocated. As already noted, Ethridge called my suggestions "helplful." SHAFR has some ideas in front of it, hopefully it will respond in one way or another. More importantly, hopefully readers of this blog will take these ideas to their own scholarly organizations.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Blog CXCI (191): Success Stories (4)
Today the "Success Stories" feature returns to "In the Service of Clio." This posting also represents the first time that the blog has had a guest contributor return. When we last saw Douglas
Ford, he contributed to the "Eight Questions" series in Blog CXXVII, which focused on his field of military history. At the time, he
taught at the University of Salford, where he was a lecturer in the School
of English, Sociology, Politics, and Contemporary History. Ford earned a BA in history from Royal Holloway, University of London. He then earned a MA and Ph.D. from the
London School of Economics. Ford's articles have appeared in
the three main journals in military history: The Journal of Military History, War and Society, and War in History.
He has also presented papers at military conferences in France, Japan,
the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has
written three books: Britain's Secret War Against Japan (2006); The Elusive Enemy: U.S. Naval Intelligence and the Imperial Japanese Fleet (2011); and The Pacific War: The Clash of Empires During World War II
(2011). In 2008 the U.S. Navy's Naval History and Heritage Command
awarded him the Ernest M. Eller Prize for the best article written in
naval history the previous year. He is also a Fellow of the Royal
Historical Society. He has taught at a number of colleges in the
United Kingdom and Japan, including the University of Wales, Aberystwyth,
the University of Salford, the University of Birmingham, the
University of Wolverhampton, and Waseda
University in Tokyo.
Since the University of Salford shut down the School of English, Sociology, Politics, and Contemporary History as part of a series of layoffs that hit many British universities, he moved to Japan where he is currently a visiting research fellow at the Japanese Ministry of Defense. In August 2015 he will start a new job as a lecturer in military history and strategic planning at the Baltic Defence College in Tartu, Estonia.The essay that follows describes his experiences following the budget cuts at Salford:
 |
| Douglas Ford |
Since the University of Salford shut down the School of English, Sociology, Politics, and Contemporary History as part of a series of layoffs that hit many British universities, he moved to Japan where he is currently a visiting research fellow at the Japanese Ministry of Defense. In August 2015 he will start a new job as a lecturer in military history and strategic planning at the Baltic Defence College in Tartu, Estonia.The essay that follows describes his experiences following the budget cuts at Salford:
In today’s climate of financial austerity, long-term employment as a university professor can no longer be taken for granted. Even for us mid-career academics with over a decade of teaching experience and a respectable list of publications and research activities, the prospect of being denied tenure, and even having our employment terminated has become more real than ever. And for those who face the axe, it is often game over – they end up having to make a fresh start in a new profession, oftentimes in a line of work that has little or no relation to their education and qualification.
But things don’t have to end on such a grim note. The following essay is intended to provide guidance and inspiration for academics who either face the prospect of losing their jobs, or have recently lost their jobs and are trying to get their foot back into the profession.
In the spring of 2012, my academic career faced a potential cataclysm. After months of hearing speculation and rumors that the university’s ever-worsening financial difficulties would eventually result in staff cutbacks, we heard the Vice Chancellor confirm that there would be lay-offs in several sectors, including the humanities. The next day, my colleagues and I were summoned to a consultation meeting, where our head of department announced that almost one-third of the historians would be made redundant. No decisions had been made on who was to face the axe, but we were all to reapply for our jobs. We were to be assessed on a points-based merit system, and the ones whose scores fell in the bottom one-third were to have their employment terminated.
For many of us, the announcement had not come as a surprise, given that our department had been languishing in deficit for well over a year.
But many of us could not help but to consider the possibility that the writing was on the wall for our academic career. And while there was the option of seeking employment at other universities, all of us knew that our quest was not guaranteed to succeed in the highly competitive market of the present day, where higher education institutions face a regime of austerity, and can only afford to only the stellar candidates.
Fortunately for myself, in the following September, I was able to secure a new job at one of the most prestigious universities in the U.K., where the history department ran a well-developed war studies program, and the faculty seemed to value my skills and expertise.
Unfortunately, it was not a permanent solution. The post was a two-year fixed-term contract with no guarantee of extension. And all hopes of extension vanished in the spring of 2013, when my head of department called me in for a special meeting, to inform that my publications would not be submitted for the upcoming national research audit, after the committee decided that my work was not of sufficient quality. To this day, the reasoning behind the decision remains confidential, but no matter how I added the numbers, there could be only one logical conclusion – once again, I was working at an institution where senior management was not prepared to retain me on a long-term basis.
The 2013-14 academic year was spent frantically looking for a job that could tide me over after my contract expired. By spring, I was faced with the scenario I had feared all along. I had not been even shortlisted for any of the positions which I had applied for, but instead, received a raft of politely-worded emails to the effect that I had not been deemed to be one of the ideal candidates. Short of a miracle, I needed to prepare an emergency lifeboat that could navigate me through the stormy waters of unemployment.
By July, I had accepted the fact that I would not be employed at a university for the coming academic year. But I could not help but to hold deep reservations about my long-term prospects. Does this signify the end of my career as an academic? What went wrong? Did I fail to work to a standard that is deemed adequate within the profession? Where did I fall short where many of my colleagues had succeeded? And most importantly, am I still employable? What chances do I have of reentering the profession as a full-time employee? And if I was to leave academia, what other lines of work can I try out? Life did seem daunting indeed.
Fortunately again, my story ended happily. After applying for dozens of jobs, I was invited to an interview at the Baltic Defence College in Estonia last month, where they were looking for a civilian academic who could teach courses on military history and strategic planning for their officer training programs. A few days later, I received the call which all applicants hope to hear, informing that they were prepared to offer me the position. At long last, the breakthrough which I had been seeking for over three years has materialized.
I cannot claim to have any magic solution to the problem of academic unemployment, and because everyone’s dilemma is different, there is no set formula. But the following steps should enhance one’s prospects of getting back on their feet:
1. Stay positive – life as you know it may appear to be over, but it need not be that way: brooding over your misfortune and questioning your own skills is often the first reaction for those of us who fall off the conveyor belt, but it is in fact the least productive way to cope with your dilemma. As difficult as it may seem, you need to forget about the unfavorable turn of events that got you to where you are now, and think clearly about how you are going to turn things around in the long run.
2. Tap into your professional network: you may also feel like the academic profession has ostracized you, and deemed you inadequate. Again, such attitudes are bound to be self-destructive.
Identify the colleagues at your former workplace, and within the wider profession, who respect your abilities. Ask them for feedback on how you can forge ahead in your particular area of expertise. They may not know of job openings that are up in the market, but they can be an valuable source of information on vacancies that come up somewhere along the road. Some of them can probably even recommend your name to that judicious selection committee when the hiring process begins.
Make sure that you have enough reasonably high-profile friends who can write a reference on your behalf. Every job advert these days demands at least two letters, quite often, three are needed. And, instead of burdening the same ones over and over again, have a list of around six (6) referees who you can approach on a rotating basis. Send updated versions of your CV regularly, along with copies of your publications and course syllabi. That way, your referees will be able to write a letter that is based on a sound knowledge of what you have to offer.
Before waiting for vacancies to arise, you may even want to send speculative letters, detailing your qualifications and experience, to the Head of Department or the Dean at a selection of universities that offer programs in your area of expertise. You may not receive an enthusiastic ‘so when can you start working for us?’ response, but by being proactive, you are letting people know that you are on the market, and willing to offer your skills to prospective employers.
Maintaining your professional network will immeasurably enhance your prospects of getting back on the academic ladder.
3. Plan your finances: Virtually all have adopted the practice of placing aside a part of our monthly wages to fund our retirement pensions. Fewer people, however, take the precaution of taking out any type of ‘unemployment insurance’. Of course, when one has an endless list of financial obligations ranging from mortgages, student loan repayments, childcare, etc., it is not easy to find surplus funds that can be used to prepare for contingencies whereby we may lose our jobs.
But investing a modest amount every month, into a savings account or a mutual fund, can pay handsome dividends. It means that once the monthly paychecks stop coming in, you do not need to read through the classified ads to see if your local gas stations or fast food franchises are hiring.
4. Make good use of your period of unemployment – it actually offers opportunities to do things which you do not have time for when you are burdened with a busy work schedule: Not having a full teaching load, with administrative duties to boot, means that in effect, you get an unpaid sabbatical, where you can catch up on your research and writing. This is actually a rare opportunity to write a few chapters for that book project which you had been holding off for years, or submitting those journal articles which you have been trying to complete.
Spending extra time with friends and family, or pursuing your hobbies, is priceless. Depending on your financial situation, this is also your chance to go on that vacation you had been yearning for. Being unemployed can actually feel quite liberating, and provide a rare opportunity to get your life back. Take advantage of it in whatever way you can.
5. Stay active in the profession: in addition to forging ahead with your research, you also need to stay in practice in the realm of teaching. If you know some academics at your local university or community college, ask them if they need an adjunct instructor to teach one of their survey courses. Oftentimes, universities will offer a part-time, one-semester contract to experienced academics – they are reliable, and likely to offer students a rewarding experience.
And in this era of online courses, you do not have to physically be at a particular institution in order to teach for them. If you know colleagues at a department which offers a distance-learning program, let them know that you are available to offer a course or two. Online teaching is the new cutting edge of higher education, and gaining experience in this growing field can only enhance your employability.
In terms of research, make sure that you can present yourself as someone who is connected with the wider profession. If you hold a position on the editorial board of a journal or the executive committee of a professional organization, let them know well in advance of your situation, and try to negotiate a set-up whereby you can remain onboard an active member. This not only helps your CV, but it also helps your morale. You will feel like you are still an asset to your profession. You can also use your period of unemployment as an opportunity to take up a short-term research fellowship. This will further deepen your connections with the academic profession.
6. Be flexible on where you end up: in regard to the most pressing issue, namely finding long-term and full-time employment, there is only one rule – do not limit your choices.
This does not mean that you should apply for every vacancy that appears – everyone knows that is time-consuming, with few tangible benefits likely to emerge.
But you can enhance your prospects by broadening your search to include regions of the world which may seem alien and unfamiliar. This is especially important in the current climate, where universities in the developed world (including the US, Great Britain, and western Europe) face mounting financial obstacles to hiring new staff.
Consider the possibility of relocating to one of the emerging economies, including Asia or the Middle East. To provide just one of many examples of good opportunities, many western universities are now opening up campuses in countries like China and India. They are seeking English-speaking staff to teach and administer their degree programs, and oftentimes the pay and benefits are considerably more generous than they are for similar jobs in the West. Why not take advantage of this opportunity to start a new and exciting life in a foreign land?Readers who wish to seek further professional advice on the issues raised in the essay are welcome to contact Ford via e-mail, drdeford at aol dot com.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Administrative Post 39
Even more additions to Blog CLXXXII. The number of promotional videos listed in this post now stands at 45. These videos represent some of the leading departments in the profession (Harvard, Princeton) and some are at lessor known schools (Ohio, Wisconsin—Milwaukee). All in all, it makes for interesting comparative viewing.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Blog CXC (190): The History Ph.D. as Archivist
Today's entry is the return (again) of "The History Ph.D. as..." series. This entry comes from the blog of the U.S. National Archives. On Wednesdays, the National Archives blog runs a feature called "What Are You Working On Wednesdays." This feature profiles various individuals working for the National Achives. This series is worth visiting, because NARA archivists do a lot of different work, come from a number of different academic fields, several have Ph.D.s, and are spread out all over the country. NARA might be a real option for the history Ph.D.
This profile is of Mitch Yockleson who holds a Ph.D. from the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Borrowed Soldiers, Americans Under British Command, 1918. (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008) and a biography of Douglas MacArthur and another on Ulysses S. Grant. He also is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and has his own web site. (The photo and youtube video below are from the original post on the NARA blog.)
This profile is of Mitch Yockleson who holds a Ph.D. from the Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Borrowed Soldiers, Americans Under British Command, 1918. (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008) and a biography of Douglas MacArthur and another on Ulysses S. Grant. He also is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and has his own web site. (The photo and youtube video below are from the original post on the NARA blog.)
What is your name and title?
Mitch Yockelson, Investigative Archivist with the Archival Recovery Team.
Yockelson at his desk in College Park, MD.
Where is your job located?
Primarily at Archives II, but I do a lot of work at Archives I and even in the field at the presidential libraries and the regions as well.
What is your job in a nutshell?
I look into NARA’s lost or theft of historical items, things such as documents and artifacts from presidential libraries or regions. This can include everything from films to acetate recordings, documents, photographs, anything that we hold that we know is missing. They perhaps never came to the National Archives because some agency never gave it to us, or things that are reported as being stolen that we know we had.
Its tough recognizing a document that we may not have realized was missing, but luckily with the government being the bureaucracy that it is, agencies usually marked most documents with some type of unique filing system. For example, the War Department would register pretty much every document that came in up to a certain period and give it a unique marking that included the year. So we can go and look at registers that will tell us that the document was indeed in the custody of the government, but it doesn’t necessarily tell us that NARA had it at some point.
We also do a lot of outreach for these items. Besides having a Facebook page, and a Missing Documents page, we go to a lot of collector’s shows and set up tables with facsimiles of things we know have been taken, and we talk to the public and try to generate their help. Mostly Civil War shows, we’ve been to Gettysburg, PA and Richmond, VA; we’ve even been to Tennessee and Ohio.
(To view a transcript of the video, click here.)
What are you working on right now?
There are a lot of things we’re working on right now, the big one broke recently in the news. One of the other things I’m working on right now is an Abraham Lincoln signed document. It’s a neat document because it’s from the Civil War period, and shortly after the Battle of Antietam, and it’s the president trying to get an endorsement for a surgeon general to help with one of the Union Army hospitals that’s overwhelmed with casualties.
What makes this interesting is that we have no proof that it actually came to NARA, but we do have the remainder of the files that are a part of the War Department records that are downtown in DC. The document has file markings on it that match up to file markings for a collection of documents that we already have. So we know that it was in the collection at one point, but we don’t know when it became alienated, which could have been as early as 1864. We are trying to work to get this document back and marry it up with the rest of the records. It could have been stolen; we don’t really know. But we would like to get it back.
How long have you been at NARA? Have you worked at any other NARA location?
I’ve been with NARA since 1988 (22 years!), but I’ve only worked in the DC area at Archives I, Archives II and Suitland.
What has changed since you started at NARA?
I think the biggest frustration with my job is that we don’t have the subject area specialists that we used to. NARA used to be more compartmentalized as far as our holdings went. It was kind of like a university setting where if you wanted to do research in diplomatic records, you had a whole team of people where that’s all they did was diplomatic records. Because of cutback and how we go about handling our records and how we reference them, we don’t have the subject are specialists anymore. Sadly, this makes things difficult not only from a researcher’s aspect, but also from someone who looks into the investigations that needs the help of our subject area specialists who are now far and few between.
Do you have a favorite day at NARA, or a favorite discovery or accomplishment?
My favorite day was when I transferred from the reference branch and started working here in this new exciting world of investigative work. That was coming up on my four year anniversary, in November of 2006. I’ve taken up golf in the past few years, and I love music; I have satellite radio, which I listen to all the time. I also really just enjoy the passion of history: visiting historical places, traveling, and writing books and articles about history. I’ve written a book about the First World War, which is based on my PhD.
What is the last book you read, or the last book you loved?One final note, the case that Yockelson referred to in this interview ended up with a retired NARA employee going to jail and got a lot of national media attention:
The last book I finished was written by a guy named Robert Wittman, and it’s a memoir called Priceless. The author worked for the FBI and recounts his work on finding stolen art and their related cases.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Blog CLXXXIX (189): To Have and Have Not
One of the things that people did not like about the "Systematic Inequality" study that ranked history departments was that it shined a bight light on the fact that there are some big divides withing the profession between the "haves" and the "have not so muchs" and that very, very few people qualify as the "haves."
This video is an excerpt from a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians on April 17, 2015 that focuses on the divide where it really matters: $$. (That is pronounced as "ka-ching.")
The video begins with a question posed by Patty Limerick of the University of Colorado, Boulder and the president of the OAH. In the video, the comments of Donald W. Rogers of Central Connecticut State University and Katherine Ott of the Smithsonian Institute focus on income disparities between tenure track and adjunct faculty. Basically, tenure track types make a solid, middle class income, and adjuncts make much less despite their education.
There is a lot that could be said on income disparity. This video is hardly the last word, but it is a good place to start.
This video is an excerpt from a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians on April 17, 2015 that focuses on the divide where it really matters: $$. (That is pronounced as "ka-ching.")
There is a lot that could be said on income disparity. This video is hardly the last word, but it is a good place to start.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Administrative Post 38
Made an addition to Blog CLXXXV. Added a link to the page on the website of the Department of History, University of New Mexico that holds their videos.
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Administrative Post 37
Keep finding more additions to make to Blog CLXXXII.
The number of promotional videos listed in this post now stands at 35. These department are at schools in Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Blog CLXXXVIII (188): Some Other Channels
Many scholarly organizations have a presence on youtube.com. In fact, looking in the channel search engine using the term "history" produces thousands of results. Many of these institutions and associations are organizations that regular viewers of this blog might find useful. They range from museums and archives to the History channel and publishers. Blocking off an hour or two to look at the various offerings might be time well spent for a good historian.
Given the diverse interests of the people that follow this blog and the fact that "In the Service of Clio" has the mission of focusing on career management, only three of the channels are listed here. All three seem to do basically the same thing, present videos of history conference sessions. There are differences, though, and all three are worth a serious and sustained look:
Given the diverse interests of the people that follow this blog and the fact that "In the Service of Clio" has the mission of focusing on career management, only three of the channels are listed here. All three seem to do basically the same thing, present videos of history conference sessions. There are differences, though, and all three are worth a serious and sustained look:
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