Blog CCX (210): People News

A couple of new developments in the history business have transpired of late that are worth taking note of.  Here they are:

Benjamin H. Irvin

The Journal of American History has a new editor.  Benjamin H. Irvin, associate professor at the University of Arizona, is taking over the journal and will also serve as associate professor in the department of history at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors (2011).   His next book, which is in the works, focuses on veterans of the American Revolution in the early republic period.

Alex Lichtenstien

The American Historical Association is also changing editors. Alex Lichtenstein, professor of history at Indiana University, will take over as editor of the American Historical Review in August of 2017.  Unlike Irvin, Lichtenstein is already a member of the Indiana faculty.  His research focuses on labor history and the struggle for racial justice against the forces of white supremacy.  He is no stranger to the journal.  He served as associate editor of the AHR in 2014–15 and interim editor in 2015–16. He has also been the editor of another academic publication, Safundi: The Journal of South African & American Studies.

Angela Lahr

The blog of the American Historical Association has a feature called "Member Spotlight."  This feature is a series of interviews with individual members of the AHA.  On May 5, the series focused on a friend of the blog: Angela Lahr of Westminster College.  Lahr wrote one of the first entries in the "Eight Questions" series.  To be specific, she wrote Blog CX (110): Eight Questions: Religious History.

Edwin J. Perkins

A few months before, the "Member Spotlight" series focused on another friend of the blog, Edwin J. Perkins, a professor emeritus at the University of Southern California.  We were both at USC at the same time in the mid 1990s.  I never took any classes from him, but he gave me a good deal of professional advice--he was the associate editor of Pacific Historical Review at the time.  He took a look at the first academic article I ever published.  Much of his input  has percolated into this blog in many ways. 

Blog XCVII (97): The Departmental Response to the Plan B Debate

In Blog XCVI, I addressed the Plan B debate that Anthony Grafton, the President of the American Historical Association and Jim Grossman, the executive director of the AHA, initiated. In my contribution to this discussion I argued that the organization is not as weak as it thinks it is when it comes to responding to the job crisis in the history profession. There are things that the AHA can do to change the employment situation. Now, it is time to turn our attention to individual history departments.

What can they do to change employment patterns? The answer is again a lot more than they think. The faculty in departments of history have a lot of influence on the Ph.D. glut. One solution that many people writing higher education newspaper columns and blogs have suggested is that these programs stop admitting students that they know will never find academic employment once they finish their Ph.D. That would indeed solve the problem, but it runs against the institutional interests of the departments. They need and want grad students. These junior scholars are necessary for the operation of large lecture classes that tenure track faculty teach and they can also be used as instructors of record to make up the difference between the tenured faculty’s work loads and the teaching obligations of a department to meet degree requirements.

So that idea is a non-starter, but there are several other things that a department can and probably should do if it continues to admit students that will not find academic careers. These suggestions will help students, but increasing the viable career options for Ph.D.s also services the institutional interest of history departments that want to maintain or increase graduate-student enrollments. I have four main proposals:

1. Develop an Alumni Speaker Series: bring recent graduates back to campus and have them give talks about their careers. They can provide useful information about a number of issues: where did they find job ads? What did they learn about the application process that they did not know before? What issues (expected and unexpected) did they face once they started the job? How well did their training prepare them for their new positions? What would they do different if they had it to do over again? What are they glad that they did? This type of program is good feedback for the faculty, but it can also be an inspiration for currently enrolled students. It helps to let them know what others that have been where they are now have been able to do with the degree they are earning. In Blog XV I said that alumni networking was an important consideration that historians need to do more of; this is one of the reasons why and a way to do it.
2. Develop a Non-Academic Career Speaker Series: bring historians to campus that are doing something other than teaching in a history department. These speakers do not have to be alumni of your school. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people in history Ph.D. programs are going to be doing something other than becoming an assistant professor of history after they graduate. History faculty need to start preparing their students for non-academic careers and that will be difficult for individuals who went from grad school to faculty positions. There is no reason to have them reinvent the wheel. Have people who have already done trailblazing work in finding non-academic utility for their degrees explain those efforts. They can answer important questions like: What can I do with a history Ph.D.? Where did they find job ads? Is it possible for me to do research, publish, or teach in this type of job? Can I move into a tenure-track position later if I do something else for the time being?
3. Profile These Guest Speakers: departmental web sites and newsletters are great forums for biographical portraits or question and answer sessions with these historians. Developing a sense of community among the alumni is also important. This type of published product bolsters the reputation of a department as an institution, which is something different than the individual publishing efforts of their faculty members. This effort can have untold second and third order effects: enhancing the reputation of the department as a place to study for students because it makes real, creative efforts to help their students find jobs; it also makes a department look creative, which is always a good environment that makesit easier to recruit new faculty.
4.  Develop the Resources of the Career Office: Each university has a placement office(s). These centers are usually designed for undergraduates, but graduate students in history would be within their rights to ask that they develop programs to help them pursue employment opportunities in which they can use the skills they developed in their Ph.D. studies. These programs would include workshops that will help students decide what career paths are available to them; that conduct practice job interviews; and explain the nuances of writing a impressive resumes.

In closing, I should note that if any of these ideas sound good and are things that your home institutions are not offering, you should ask the department, college, or university that it begin to do so. It is an entirely reasonable request. Part of a faculty member’s job description is to help prepare their students for using their Ph.D. after they graduate.

Blog LXXXVI (86): Summer Seminars

WEST POINT, NEW YORK—Many different institutions around the country sponsor Summer programs for scholars and writers. One of the best of these programs is the West Point Summer Seminar in Military History. It is a hidden gem and I cannot recommend it enough.

The Seminar was at one time a program that the U.S. Army official sponsored to help faculty at other institutions to develop enough expertise to teach the military history that was required for ROTC programs. That requirement was phased out and the department of history at West Point decided to run the program with private money as a way of bolstering professional interest in military history. I participated in the first Seminar with this new focus back in 1999 and returned to West Point to give a talk to on June 30, 2011.

The Summer Seminar is wonderful in that it is a number of things all at the same time: it is a graduate seminar in military history, it is a research seminar, it is a teaching workshop, it is a distinguished speakers series, and it is an opportunity to develop a professional network of like-minded peers. For me it was like taking a new Ph.D. field in military history two years after I graduated.

I found the teaching workshop element to be the most unexpected reward. I have to admit in my arrogance, I expected that the civilian academics would do far better in this regard than the military officers. The history department at West Point has a mix of civilian and military faculty. The military officers were fantastic at sharing their approaches towards teaching. They were far better teachers than the civilians. They had many ideas that I incorporated immediately afterwards and others that I still plan to use. (Like having students take the same exam twice; once on their own and once with a partner. The higher grade is the one they keep. Taking the exam a second time forces a student to figure out what they got wrong the first time and they usually learn a bit in the process.) I could go on, but there point is there is a lot of teaching ideas the Seminar offers.

One of the major features of the seminar was a series of “staff rides” that the group takes. (A staff ride is an educational tool that the Royal Prussian Army developed in the 1830s-1850s. It is basically a tour of the battlefield itself, supplemented with a series of historical readings before hand and a discussion of ethics and decision making at the location itself). The east coast of the United States is littered with battlefields from the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the U.S. Civil War. (The seminar mixes up which battlefields it visits from year to year.) When I was a Fellow the seminar visited spent eight days on the road visiting mostly Civil War sites; this year the group had fewer but were more mixed.

A difference between my Seminar and this year’s version is that the 2011 group had several panels of experts discuss and/or debate the historiographical nature of the field. I sat in on one on the Vietnam War before giving my talk about the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The panel was quite informative, entertaining and drew a small group of visitors—faculty from other West Point departments and historians at a few other universities in the nearby area. (I am afraid my talk based on a chapter from my book on the boycott of the 1980 Olympics kept in line with the tradition of military officers doing better than the civilians; my contribution was part of a speakers series rather than a distinguished speakers series.) The Seminar also spent a day at the Roosevelt Presidential Library touring the museum part of the complex and learning about the archives.

The cadre for the program are very good about looking at major military developments across the globe. In this sense, the military history they teach is world history. A shortcoming of the West Point program when I attended and that still remains ten years later is that it focuses on ground power. The program pretty much ignores naval and air power. Of course, that omission reflects the major focus of military history. Few historians in the United States or in any other country focus on the other mediums in which militaries project force. The majority write about armies rather than navies or air forces.

Another unexpected benefit of the Seminar was that I developed a network of friends and peers that I have relied on time and time again. More than 10 years later the group as a whole is still in touch with one another. Having a group of friends and peers in your area of expertise is an amazing asset. To give you just one example, since 1999 I have attended a number of conferences and at least one other person from my seminar has been there; a number of us have put together conference panels. I should add that I dedicated my third book to the Fellows in my year group.)

I would strongly recommend people consider attending a summer program be it the West Point Summer Seminar or another one while they can. These modules are often three to six weeks in length and it is difficult to take that much time if you are married or have children of a certain age. A number of different institutions sponsor them. The best known are the Summer Seminars and Summer Institutes that the National Endowment for the Humanities sponsor. (Every year the number, topics, and locations change. Go to the NEH website to see if they are sponsoring a program you would like to participate in). These types of endeavors often provide house and/or stipends for their participants.

I would also recommend that you attend a program that allows you to build on your expertise but also stretch a little. For example, if you are a historian of Victorian England attending a seminar that focuses on the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century is not going to give much, nor is attending a program on modern Latin America, but perhaps one that focuses on British Imperial history in the 19th and 20th Centuries would be right. I attended three other summer institutes: one that examined security studies and was geared more towards political science, a weekend long program that focused on teaching security studies, and a six week long NEH seminar on sport history. These all helped this diplomatic historian develop expertise in strategy—which I know teach—and military and sport history, which was very important in helping him write a book about the 1980 Olympic boycott.

Blog XV (15): The Ties that Bind

A few years back I wrote an article on Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure as president of the American Historical Association. I learned a lot about the profession (then and now) from working on that article, and I will probably make reference to these lessons in another essay or two, but for now I want to concentrate on how the profession has become divided into smaller and smaller fields. Back in 1912, when Roosevelt was president, many history departments at what are now major, research universities had three and four members. These scholars often had extremely general teaching duties. One individual might have been “the Europeanist,” “the Americanist,” and so forth. Many of these institutions did not award the Ph.D. degree. Today, these same departments might have fifty members. At many other schools back then “the historian” might have been a member of the general liberal arts faculty.

In the years since, historians in the United States have become more specialized in their research and teaching duties as whole new fields have opened up. Many, many schools now award Ph.D.s in history. This growth has been for the good of historical inquiry, but it has created a good deal of balkanization within the profession. Diplomatic historians of American foreign relations do not read much about the Punic Wars, and scholars writing about the Roman Republic do not read much about U.S. foreign policy. You might be at some departmental Christmas party and hear someone going on about learning from all fields, but that is generic academic rhetoric. There is only so much that you can read, especially if you are trying to keep up with new research in your own field. I do not know about you, but I only have 24 hours in a day. Historians might read a little outside of their field here and there, but if they are serious about staying abreast of their own topics and have a research agenda of their own, then the key words are “a little.” The result is that most historians know little about historiographical developments in fields that are significantly different from their own.

Yet, historians will often be in a position to pass judgment on scholars working in areas about which they know little. Sometimes they will not even know the title of the main journal in the field. The most common manifestation of this trend is in job searches. (I will have another essay or two devoted solely to that topic). Another symptom of this trend comes in the running of big scholarly organizations like the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, or foundations that award grants and fellowships. Committees make all the important decisions that these organizations and institutions make in selecting book and article prize winners, choosing those that will present at their annual meetings, picking grant recipients, and nominating candidates for the leadership positions of these organizations.

These two facts require that a smart scholar develop some understanding of the ties that bind them to others. What does that mean? Well, a rising tide raises all boats. Put in other terms, the success of one sport historian is good for the field of sport history and the success of the field is good for all sport historians. Or the success of one Michigan State Ph.D. alum is good for all other Spartans working in the field of history.

How does this collective approach manifest itself? Well, one way is in voting for candidates for leadership positions in various scholarly organizations. I will give my vote to an alum of one of my three alma matters over another candidate. I also prioritize: the school where I took the higher degree takes precedence over the others. I also support diplomatic historians over nominees in other fields, just because they are diplomatic historians.

Another manifestation of this collective approach comes in making donations. I would love to give money to all three of my schools, but where I got my Ph.D. takes priority over my MA, and BA alma matters. I have also donated rare and difficult to find books to the libraries at the University of Southern California, because it is where I got my Ph.D. There are other ways this approach comes into play, but you get the general idea—reputation building is a team sport.

Now, this gets us to another related issue: academic jealousy. There is often a lot of backstabbing and bitter resentment among academics when one of their colleagues achieves a major professional success; be it an award, a grant, or a job. Sadly this phenomenon is a fact of life, but it is the wrong approach to take. First, it makes you look petty, because—well—you are. Second, it runs counter to your own interests. A better attitude is that their success is my success; yes, I would prefer the Pulitzer or the fellowship or the job for myself, but if not me, then it is better that one of my USC or diplomatic history peers get it rather than a UCLA Bruin Bear doing some dopey field of history that has little to do with my areas of study. In short, if it enhances my school’s reputation or the standing of my field then I profit at least indirectly. That attitude well help you prosper in the turf wars of this balkanized discipline.

Blog III: Class and History

People going into the history profession need to know something about the field: it is extremely—and I mean extremely—class conscious.

Allow me to explain with a story or two. My father spent 22 years in the United States Army as a quartermaster—or supply—officer. He retired as a lieutenant colonel. During his military career, he returned to his undergraduate alma matter, the University of Texas at Austin, and spent two years teaching ROTC in the early 1970s. He had the rank of major at the time. Now, UT had the right to say yes or no to the officers that the Army intended to assign to the ROTC detachment, and he told me that the university said no to an officer who had flunked out of Texas and then finished his degree at some other school. Why? Well, all ROTC officers were members of the faculty. My father signed a contract with UT in which the university gave him the rank of associate professor of military science and paid him $0, which in the early 1970s was a lot of money. He was an active duty officer and was getting his Army salary, but as a member of the faculty he had all the rights and privileges as another professor, including membership in the faculty club, checking out books from the library, and attending university committee meetings. As I was getting ready to go to grad school, he told me that he met more rank and status conscious people in those two years at UT than he did in his entire military career. Apparently one of the things that really bothered the civilian academics is that he was an associate professor but only had a master’s degree. I have always tried to keep that story in mind and not get to arrogant. I know I have not always been successful, but I do try.

Here is another story. Another family member works at a university and was attending a job talk for a newly minted Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkley. The candidate was interviewing for a position in a new program that the university had just started up. This individual had developed this argument that nuclear weapons were weapons that were developed intentionally with no intention of ever being used, and that they would never be used. Now, I was not at the job talk so I do not know how they handled the fact that the United States used an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki—but that is beside the point. My relative quickly saw a problem with this argument and asked the candidate if they were serious; would the United States refuse to use nuclear weapons if, for example, North Korea attacked the South and was close to driving down the length of peninsula, taking out the Republic of Korea government. Would the United States allow a legitimate, multi-party democracy and fifty years of American foreign to go down the drain? The response of the candidate was yes. Suddenly a number of other people started asking questions, poking big holes in the candidate’s argument. Afterwards my kinsman called me and said the argument was so weak that it was difficult to understand why the candidate was under serious consideration. My relative speculated that the only reason that individual was getting a serious examination was that they had graduated from Berkley. The more I thought about it, the more I figured my relative had just hit the reason why the candidate was getting serious consideration. The program was trying to buy reputation on the quick.

These two stories illustrate the class factors at work in the historical profession. Actually, to be correct it is status rather than class. (Almost all academics are middle class in their origins). But there is a certain consciousness about status that dominates the workings of the profession. Is it fair? No, but it is there and you need to be aware of its presence.

How does it work? People coming out of premier schools will have certain advantages, and there are people who expect their due after doing the proper ticket punching. Questions about quality aside, people coming from the more proletarian schools—if anyone with a Ph.D. can be described as proletarian—will just have to accept the limits of their station in life.

Well, remember what I wrote last time. You can make your own opportunities. History is not a true class or caste system, because you can produce quality work and move yourself forward. You might have to try harder and longer, if you come from a school with a more modest academic reputation than UC, Berkley, but you can be as successful as you want to be.

I should note that this caste system cuts two ways. While I was at Texas A&M University—Commerce (a regional school within the state of Texas), I was on a couple of search committees. We had several Ivy League applicants and most were never serious candidates for the position, because it was clear that they were not prepared for teaching at a school like A&M—Commerce. (I will have much more on that topic when we get to job hunting). Many, many graduates of premier schools tend to underperform once they get out into their academic careers, expecting that their degree and the reputation of their mentors will carry the day.

In short, going to a prestigious school helps—it gets you in the door—but that is all it does. You are better off going to Yale than the University of Toledo, but your personality, the quality of what you have to say about the past and the quantity of your publications will do a lot more to determine if you get to go through the doorway.