Blog CLX (160): The History Ph.D. as Businessman

Today's posting represents the return of the "History Ph.D. as..." series.  This interview with Chris McNickle, a University of Chicago  history Ph.D., was originally published on page 23 of the November-December issue of The University of Chicago Magazine with the title of "Past is Prologue."   The author of the interview was Laura Demanski.

McNickle is the global head of institutional business for Fidelity Worldwide Investment, a position he took in 2011.  Prior to this job, he worked for the consulting firm Greenwich Associates. He is also the author of two books on New York urban history: New York City: To Be Mayor of New York: Ethnic Politics in the City (1993) and The Power of the Mayor: David Dinkins, 1990–1993 (2012). Here is the interview:

How did you end up at the University of Chicago?
I developed an interest in history, New York City history in particular. I discovered a biography of Fiorello LaGuardia that had been written by Arthur Mann. I thought it was a great biography and wanted to go study with him.

What was your dissertation about?
It looks at the electoral history of NYC mayors in the late 19th and the 20th century as a series of ethnic successions where different ethnic groups play the most dominant role in the city’s politics at different times. What’s interesting about New York is that no one ethnic group has ever been able to dominate so entirely that it could win citywide office without creating coalitions. The dissertation was published as a book. I was very proud of it.

What drew you to study history?
I never really contemplated an academic career. After college I went into international banking for about five years. Then one of the periodical Latin American debt crises occurred, and it was clear it was going to be some time before there was a lot of activity again. I had discovered traveling to Latin America that those countries that had been discovered by a European power about the same time as the United States had many superficial similarities, but worked very differently than the United States, and that intrigued me. Also, when I traveled to Philadelphia from New York to attend the University of Pennsylvania—leaving one large American city for a second one—I had expected things to be more or less the same, but they turned out to be more different than similar. Those two comparative experiences caused me to want to understand these differences.

How does your history training help you in your work at Fidelity?
I think any graduate program that is demanding and helps people to solve problems in a structured manner offers a set of disciplines that ought to be helpful in making business decisions. In the case of a historian, we are trained to make connections across time and across different dimensions of human behavior. We are taught great respect for marshaling evidence to make a case. We’re taught that people have an easier time understanding complex events when they are wrapped around a story, particularly when they’re supported and the logic is clear. All of those tools are very helpful in business decision making.

Do you have advice for graduate students who want to go into business?
I would encourage them to recognize that they have a range of skills that, if they have been successful history students, any employer would want to have. It’s less about the historical knowledge itself than things like intellectual curiosity, a desire to understand how things happen, a need to know the facts and document them rigorously—all of those are qualities that employers seek.

How do you spend your spare time?
Reading history, writing history.

Does the history you read inform your work?
Yes, in some ways it’s simply a matter of intellectual interest, but in other ways it does help clarify the situation. So look at European history since World War II. The European project, as it’s often referred to, is all about the politics of trying to create enough connections and coherence across Europe that violent conflict would no longer be deemed sensible. That’s been a very keen part of why Germany and France have been such strong proponents of bringing the Euro Zone together. As a matter of pure economics one can imagine certain solutions that as a matter of political decision making simply are not acceptable to the major countries of Europe.

Are you writing something now?
I’m working on a history of Mayor Bloomberg’s term in office. I’ve just begun that.

Is it more challenging to write with less hindsight?
There isn’t as much historical distance, yet at the same time the information and research that I need are dramatically more accessible through websites now. There may be a moment where I do realize that I don’t have as much historical perspective as one will have over time. But I think that there’s a real benefit to writing the history of important events shortly after they happen, when memories are fresh.

Blog CLIX (159): Honors and Infamy to the Blog

Every once in a while, it is interesting to take time to see how people are reacting to "In the Service of Clio."  In her blog, "From PhD to Life," Jennifer Polk is treating me as a major...well, perhaps "important" is a better word...voice in calls for reform of the academic job market, or at least in regards to the history Ph.D. "I don’t know the answer to Saratakes’s question about 'how this ends.' What I do know is that a major attitude adjustment is called for, alongside serious reforms to graduate education." Since Polk is a career coach, she might know something about career management. That quote refers to Blog CXXXVII: Tell Me How This Ends?

On the other hand, Allen Ruff and Steve Horn, journalists working in Madison, Wisconsin, do not think much of grand strategy programs and sees it as part of the military-industrial complex. They have a long essay on Ruff's blog that explores the grand strategy network entitled: "Serving Empire: Grand Strategy at the Long War University." In it they state: "Currently serving the national security warfare state, a matrix of closely tied university-based strategic studies ventures, the so-called Grand Strategy Programs, have cropped up on a number of elite campuses around the country" Ruff and Horn add: "The network marks the ascent and influence of the Long War University." The post is long, but hardly says anything analytical. The 2010 “Workshop on the Teaching of Grand Strategy” that I wrote about in Blog LVIII: A Teaching Workshop is referred to as a "Long War University Homecoming." This posting on "In the Service of Clio" is cited as a source for this essay.   The two note: "The NWC retreat might best be described as an imperial war hawk’s 'how-to' teach-in." Ruff and Horn, however, do not do much other than quote the titles of our sessions. It is all very "right-wingy." 

I found the essay amusing more than anything else.  If you read my account, it was not a very exciting gathering.  We talked about teaching.  What books we use.  Issues like that.  While Ruff's blog had a neat look to it with a black background, I was disappointed that neither I nor most of my NWC colleagues were mentioned by name.  (One person from the Strategy Department made it in the post).  I guess I am not one of the "cool kids" in the network.  Bummer.

Guess, I better get back to blogging about history.

Blog CLVIII (158): Success Stories (3)

In 2012 Matthew Casey became an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern Mississippi.  Before that he earned a Ph.D. in history from the University of Pittsburgh where he specialized in Latin American history.  He earned a BA in history from the University of Texas at Austin. He teaches courses on Latin American and Caribbean History. 

His research interests focus on the analysis of race, labor, and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as the larger Atlantic region.  He has had articles and chapter length essays appear in the following journals and anthologies: New West Indian Guide, Haiti and the Americas: Histories, Cultures, Imaginations, Labour: Journal of Canadian Labour Studies and Colonial Crucible: Empire in the Making of the Modern American State.  His article in New West Indian Guide was won the Andrés Ramos Mattei-Neville Hall Prize awarded by the Association of Caribbean Historians for the best article on Caribbean history in the previous two years.

His reviews have appeared in the Hispanic American Historical Review, Caribbean Studies, and Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal.  He has presented papers at the Haitian Studies Association, the Conference of the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and at university organized conferences at the University of Miami, Florida Atlantic University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Universidad de Costa Rica.

He is currently working on a book manuscript that traces the experiences of Haitians who circulated between their home country and eastern Cuba during the first four decades of the twentieth century.  Below is his contribution to the Success Stories series:

By the early and middle of the Spring 2011, it was clear that I would not be starting a tenure-track job for the following academic year. A phone interview, two planned American Historical Association (AHA) interviews and one conversation from an ad-hoc CV drop did not yield a campus visit. Meanwhile, applications for the late-posted 4-4 tenure track jobs and visiting positions were taking just enough time to throw off my dissertation-writing rhythm. Writing was even more difficult coming out of the stress of the job market and the anxieties surrounding the real possibility that I might have to find non-academic work. It bothered me so much to think about my research never seeing the light of day or my academic library becoming an albatross around my neck. My excitement about the publication of one of my dissertation chapters in a good journal was even muted. Two pieces of advice sustained me. First, a relative reminded me that “you will do something” after graduate school; just because it was difficult to imagine leaving the academy at the time, did not mean that I would cease to exist if I did. Later in the Spring, a close friend who was also writing a dissertation suggested that I take some time off in the summer. I used my sister’s out of town wedding as an opportunity to take two weeks entirely off even though I did not want to. The fact that these were the most important nuggets of wisdom should indicate how obsessive I had become. At some point in the late Spring, I received an offer from my graduate department to stay in the program for another year, teach a standalone course for a graduate student who received a research fellowship, and add one of the chapters to my dissertation that I had planned to delay in the event of an early defense.

I started the new school year more refreshed than I had ended the previous one. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that extra year of graduate school was more like a productive post-doc than anything else (though I still did not have the degree or even the slightly higher pay of a post-doctoral fellow). I wrote the additional chapter within a month and it required few revisions. I spent the rest of the year finishing up the dissertation introduction and cleaning up the overall document. That fall, perhaps as a result of the article, I was asked by a prominent journal to write an article-length, multi-book, review essay; I also had the opportunity to submit a book chapter for publication in an edited volume based on research that did not go into the thesis. By the time of the next year’s AHA, I had submitted a full version of the dissertation to my advisor and had added two lines to my CV. All of this helped me get interviews but not necessarily a job.

Only in hindsight did I realize that the last year of graduate school was not limited to improving the first impression that is a curriculum vitae. I was also working on an equally important “second impression”: professional development and scholarly maturity. At the most basic level, this came from teaching an additional semester and the bundle of knowledge, professionalism, expertise and confidence that comes from creating a new course. The act of sustained revision of the dissertation forced me to reflect on the broad implications of my work—not just on the historiography but for what it said about the larger history. At conferences, I asked veteran academics to provide feedback on my presentation style. It all sharpened my skills and improved my confidence. 

The following year, I had a stronger CV and was demonstrably closer to my Ph.D. defense but received fewer initial interviews. Such is the job market. But this time, I interviewed stronger and secured two invitations for campus visits. By the middle of the Spring 2012, I had accepted a tenure-track job at the University of Southern Mississippi, where I currently teach. I am proud of my accomplishment but I know that there is always an element of luck and the unpredictable in the job market. One thing that I have learned from the experience is how many highly intelligent Ph.D. holders are underemployed in the academy or have left it entirely to find work in a different field. At the risk of sounding maudlin, I hope to offer some solidarity and sympathy to job seekers from someone who knows what it is like to leave the market empty-handed. Perhaps, my story will also provide a bit of optimism from someone who did manage to secure a good position. My advice: work on your professional development as much as your CV and do not let your position dictate your self-worth.

Blog CLVII (157): Open Access--A Bad Idea

The book is an old piece of technology. This media format has been around in its basic format despite some changes to its production for over 500 years. A lot of people think the new digital mediums are going to change the industries associated with the book. In Blog LXXVIII (78): E-books: Just Say No I argued that new scholars should not invest their careers in these new media formats for a number of reasons and to stick to traditional media formats. E-books are simply too much of a fade.

A couple of essays that have appeared of late make different arguments that only confirm what I argued back then. Clifford A. Lynch, the executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information, argued in the electronic supplement to the magazine of the American Library Association that e-books have been a bad bet for these depositories. “Some major publishers severely constrain which titles and libraries have access to their e-titles; some are charging very high prices or renting books to libraries for a limited number of loans or a limited time period, or both.”

Joseph J. Esposito, a management consultant in the publishing industry has concluded that: “the ‘promise’ of e-books…has not meaningfully changed the fortunes of the university press world.” His assessment is simple and direct: “electronics are not a strategy; electronics are an enabling technology that has to be put in service to a strategy.” Put another way, there has to be more to an undertaking than a new format. The medium is not the message.

Despite these sound conclusions, the academic journal community is now considering new venues, formats and models of doing business. The open-access movement wants to shift the costs of publication from the consumer or subscriber, to the producer, which is another way of saying the author. The “gold approach” requires articles to be made available on-line free of charge when they are published in print with the author pays a processing fee, for the costs of copyediting, formatting and other publishing task. This fee is significant; as much as $2,000. Another model, the “green approach,” makes a rough copy of a published article available at some type of public repository. In fact, several universities have are pushing policies that require their faculty members to make their published research available to the public.

At the 2014 meeting of the American Historical Association, this issue was debate in a session. “I really believe open access is not a passing fad,” Mary Ellen K. Davis, executive director of the Association of College and Research Libraries, said during her presentation. “I believe open access is a durable feature of the landscape of scholarly communication.”

Robert A. Schneider, a professor of history at Indiana University at Bloomington and editor of the American Historical Review, disagreed. He said there was nothing wrong with the subscription process. “It does work to some degree—arguably to a great degree.” He said the author processing fee is “not only broken, it’s wrong.”

Schneider is right. I think the open access debate reflects an American fascination with technology for its own sake. My little theory is that this focus had something to do with the founding of the United States taking place at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. New technologies, the founding of the new country, and its push westward all offered hope and promise for the future to the people of the new nation.

The problem is the open access movement idea of making authors pay for the right to get published is an approach to information dissemination that is more flawed than current formats. Developing a new approach that requires scholars to pay to have their research published puts even more burdens on new scholars who already stressed enough. The salaries an academic earns are not particular high compared to what their age cohorts in other professions like advertising, or accounting make. These fees could represent a significant portion of their income, assuming they have one. There are a lot of budding scholars that are working adjunct jobs that need publications to establish their credentials to open up employment opportunities and this economic requirement could easily turn into another barrier.

Open access takes the idea that everything on the internet should be free to an unhealthy extreme. In a capatalist society if people are in the business of producing information, then they need to be able to making a living and turn a profit at that effort. The newspaper industry has learned this lesson the hard way. If it is free on the internet, why buy the content on paper? The newspapers that are thriving at the moment are the ones that require subscriptions to access their content on-line like The Wall Street Journal and The Orange County Register. We should also face the fact that the internet is not free. Plenty of people make money from it; from firms like Apple and Dell that produce the machines that we use to get on-line to service providers like Cox and AT&T that charge people monthly fees for access to the digital world.

I should also note I see a little bureaucratic self interest in the open access movement.  It also strikes me that it is a way for librarians to get their libraries out from under budget constraints. If content producers have to pay for journal articles, then they can use their limited dollars for other projects.

What is a scholar to do about these large trends? Push back. Do not contribute content to this open access movement. Fight it when and where you can, be it administrative meetings or in conversations with the people that run the libraries.

It is only your future that is at stake. 

Blog CLVI (156): The Johns Hopkins Proposal

Johns Hopkins University has recently announced a program designed to reduce its graduate student enrollment by a fourth. The university plans to use the money that is saved from providing teaching assistant stipends to these students to increase the amount they pay to the other three-fourths. William Egginton, vice dean for graduate education at Johns Hopkins, explained the proposal would help make the university’s programs "financially competitive with peers so that we are assured that graduate students choosing between Johns Hopkins and peer institutions can make those decisions based solely on the appropriate academic fit, without the complicating factor of lower stipends."

Rebecca Schuman, the education columnist for Slate.com, has endorsed this move: "I’m all for it, and I’d be delighted, not dismayed, if other universities emulated this strategy." She explains why: "A major research university has finally recognized, openly and publicly, that there are very few good jobs available for recent Ph.D.s in today’s barren and pitiful market. Rather than continue to populate senior professors’ seminars with a phalanx of minions who will then graduate into a jobless hellscape, Hopkins has elected to thin the herds in its own programs."

Tenure track faculty will be required to teach more undergraduate courses. This proposal has not gone over well with grad students at Johns Hopkins who are concerned that the university will increase its use of adjuncts rather using graduate teaching assistants, diluting the quality of a JHU degree. "Bless your hearts—you know what will worsen that problem?" Schuman asked. "When you and all your friends become adjuncts in five years."

I have to admit I am more with Schuman on this one than the grad students. It seems like the university has found a good way to address a serious problem. It reduces the supply, increases the viability of the grad students that are admitted to the school, and requires that faculty--the ones with the most experience and expertise, the ones that undergraduates and their parents (who are writing the checks to pay for that private school tuition) expect their children to be interacting with, actually deliver on their reputations. The faculty expecting light teaching loads might be disappointed, but they still get to work at a great school with a lot of perks. This solution seems quite reasonable and equitable. Like Schuman, I hope other institutions follow Johns Hopkins.

Blog CLV (155): Success Stories (2)

Today's posting is the second in the "Success Stories" series.  "Success Stories" is an attempt to share what some new scholars have done to beat the odds and find steady employment in the hopes that others my profit from the experiences of others.

This posting comes from Hillary R. Gleason, an assistant professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Laredo Community College.  She recieved her BA from Our Lady of the Lake University, a MA degree from Texas A&M University—Commerce, and the Ph.D. from the State University of New York Binghamton.  Her dissertation is on the tenure of Lieutenant General Walter Beddell Smith as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  She has published book reviews in Presidential Studies Quarterly, History: Reviews of New Books, H-War, Kansas History, Intelligence and National Security, and the North Carolina Historical Review.  Prior to arriving at Laredo, she taught courses for SUNY—Binghamton, SUNY—Oneonta, the University of Phoenix, and Texas A&M University—Commerce.  Here is her essay:

I began looking for a job while I was still technically ABD, about a semester before I graduated. At the time, I was not sure what I wanted to do with my Ph.D. Did I want to teach? Research? Go into administration? Go into the private sector? The good news was that I had options. The bad news was that I lacked direction. To compound my problem, I began looking for a job at the height of the Great Recession. Even today, the job market has improved but the overall picture remains bleak—making finding a job harder than ever before. 

In the end, I was lucky. I managed to get a job while most of my friends were still out of work and looking. I accepted a job teaching at a community college and, because I love teaching, it turned out to be a great fit. Yet the road to employment was rocky. I made some good decisions and plenty of mistakes along the way. 

My biggest mistake in the job hunt was that I tried to limit my geographical area. I really wanted to be near my family after being away so long. As a result, I limited my search to the Dallas area. This made finding a job impossible. Jobs for Ph.D.s (academic jobs, think tank jobs, etc.) are scarce anyway and the Recession did not improve matters. My limiting myself to a particular place I was effectively sabotaging myself. After months of frustration, I realized that the only way I was going to find anything was if I was willing to go where the job was (regardless of where that might be). Once I stopped limiting myself I had far more success. 

Another reason for my success was (oddly) my lack of direction. I was not emotionally tied to anything I had to be doing. This flexibility helped me get a job. For example, a lot of my friends felt like they had to be at a research institution. They would not even bother applying to smaller schools or community colleges. The hard fact is that there are only so many top-tier jobs available—most new graduates are going to have to aim a little lower. Pride goeth before the fall—or the employment line. 

I did not have any hang ups about where I was supposed to be. As a result, I applied anywhere and everywhere. I applied at community colleges, at smaller schools, at think tanks, and (yes) even at research institutions. I applied even when I was only marginally qualified. I was told “no” more than I was told “yes.” But my philosophy was that it never hurt to try. 

I applied to Laredo Community College (LCC) in one of my fits of “why not?” Every time I applied for a job, I would add it to a list I kept. This list enumerated what jobs I applied for, when, and listed a date (usually in about a week or two) when I needed to follow up. I added LCC to the list and forgot about it. About two weeks later I had not heard back from them, so I called the history department. My goal was to ask the secretary if my application had been received, what the time table was, etc. When I called and stated my purpose the secretary (to my shock and horror) quickly transferred me to the department head. 

The department head listened as I apologized for bothering him and then I repeated my questions about the application. He asked me a few questions and had me follow up with HR. It turned out that HR did not open the email that contained my letters of recommendation—hence my file was not complete and I was therefore not even being considered for the position. This is why following up is essential! Had I not checked on this, I would never have gotten the job. 

As it turns out, that conversation with the department head swung the door open for me. He was looking for someone with exactly my qualifications and a few days later I was invited for a campus interview. A few weeks after the campus interview, I was offered the job. What then followed was a mad scramble to contact all my pending application-holders and respectfully withdraw my name (better not to burn bridges, after all), move, and write lectures like a fiend (but that’s another story…). 

My job hunt was, admittedly, unorthodox. But the economic climate was so bad (and continues to be awful) that I was going to do what it took to get a job. I was not sure I would like teaching at a community college, but I knew that this did not have to be where I was forever. Why not give it a shot? As it turns out, I love my job. While I may not be here for the rest of my career, I am planning on sticking around for the foreseeable future. So, my advice is that you be flexible, humble, and persistent—you might find employment (and happiness) in an unexpected place!

Administrative Post 29

Someone asked why there were so few post in the Summer and early Fall.  A lot of things happened that got in the way.  Furloughs and a government shutdown prevented me from going into the office, using my work computer, or even checking e-mail.  (I am an employee of the Federal government).  Those two things slowed down productivity.  Despite all this work stoppage, duties piled up and the days back were even busier than normal.  While we were gone, work changed some of the access rules and now I cannot work on the blog from my office computer at all.  I also spent part of my summer working on my next two books.  It took some time to figure out ways to work around these issues.  I think and/or hope I have figured them all out and hope we can get to blogging.