Active History

The History PhD and Before: Reimagining the History MA to Improve PhD Outcomes

November 22, 2022 1 Comment

Suzzallo Library, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Photo by Ken Theimer on Unsplash.

By Adam Chapnick

This post is written in response to the report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada (available in English and in French). A series by members of the Task Force ran on Activehistory.ca from 18 October–17 November, 2022. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting their own response piece to the series.

The October 2022 report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada – and the Activehistory.ca series springing from the Task Force – tell a grim story. Tenure-track jobs are increasingly scarce, funding for PhD candidates often fails to enable them to live above the poverty line, and graduate students are experiencing an overwhelming mental health crisis. Indeed, it is hard not to see some of these challenges as insurmountable.

But I wonder whether, in this focus on the PhD and beyond, the Task Force has missed a potential solution to many of the problems it identifies: a reconsideration of the role of what comes before – the history MA.

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Rethinking Program Design: The Goals and Value of a History PhD

November 17, 2022 No Comments

By Sam Hossack

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the ninth (and final) in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

Over the past month, members of the Canadian Historical Association’s Task Force on the Future of the PhD have contributed articles to Active History summarizing the major findings of our report. Many of the report’s findings suggest that the current state of the History PhD is dismal, including long completion times and poor career outcomes for graduates.

While many might rush to conclude that we should simply stop training History PhDs in order to better match the number of graduates and the number of academic jobs, doing so does not address the diverse reasons students pursue a PhD or the many structural problems that exist within programs. To improve student experiences and enhance the value of the PhD, departments need to acknowledge the flaws in current programs and recognize the effects of these flaws. We can re-think the design and purpose of our programs. The Task Force heard throughout our consultation process that there is value in completing a History degree, and History PhD training is important for those who work outside of tenure-track faculty positions. As historians, we know that there are numerous benefits of studying history and of doing so at an advanced critical level. The problem is not that there is no value in a History PhD. The problem is that we have not yet done a good job communicating the value and translating the benefits to other-than-academic realms.

We need to think about what History PhD programs teach and what graduate students learn. The first step in any program evaluation process is to reflect on and answer perhaps the most difficult question of all: What is the goal of a History PhD program? Most programs are implicitly designed to prepare students for academic careers, but that narrow goal is no longer appropriate. The current misalignment between program goals, program design, and post-graduation results shapes adverse conditions for students, contributing to mental health issues, dire financial situations, and long times-to-completion, in addition to precarious employment upon graduation. In spite of all of this, while only a small minority of graduates find tenure-track academic positions, many more graduates do use the skills they developed in their History PhD programs.

Good program design requires alignment of goals, activities, and assessments. An over-emphasis on assessments creates misalignment.

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What Can History PhD Programs Train Students For?

November 15, 2022 1 Comment

Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada, https://cewilcanada.ca/CEWIL/About-Us/Work-Integrated-Learning.aspx

By Tina Loo

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the eighth in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

It’s clear from the CHA Task Force Report that there are far more History PhDs than there are fulltime, tenure-track jobs, and that many such degree holders have found work in other sectors.

Given that, if History departments wish to continue to have doctoral programs they should offer students more and different kinds of learning opportunities, ones that would both serve them well academically and position them for other kinds of jobs. Certainly, the participants in the CHA webinars on “Historians at Work” agreed. Employed outside the academy in the public and private sectors, these History PhD holders pointed to the utility of collaborative work experiences, quantitative and language skills (including programming languages), and learning to write for diverse audiences.

While many of these skills can be acquired in a university classroom context by allowing doctoral students to fulfill some of their program requirements with, say, existing undergraduate courses in statistics, languages, or GIS, I think there’s a strong case to be made for offering them the opportunity to pursue what’s known as “work-integrated learning” (WIL).

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Language, history and British automobiles: where schoolwork and hobby connect

November 14, 2022 No Comments

Ian McCallum

As a PhD student, I work with all aspects of the Munsee language, an Indigenous language spoken in southwestern Ontario. This involves research, teaching, documentation and the creation of resources. As a student, I study best practice in language learning and revitalization methods that can support community-based initiatives. As both a researcher and a student, language work can be all-encompassing.

I find one way to balance the language work is through restoring and repairing 1960s British automobiles. As much as this may seem to be a completely different “lane” of work, this pastime allows for reflection of the research process. I have owned, repaired and given up on many British cars over the years.

My fate was sealed when I brought an MGB in late high school years. I came by this pursuit honestly; my father had a deep appreciation for vintage cars and motorcycles. I drove the MGB for many years, to school and to work, testing its long-distance capabilities. It let me down only once; the headlights went out late one night returning from work at a summer job. As so often with British cars, the lights soon came back on, the cause of the fault remained an unsolved mystery, and never recurred.

“Austin looks years ahead with the new A55 Cambridge,” publication 1745, Austin Motor Company Ltd, 1959.

Over the years, I have owned many British cars, with interesting names that have passed into history, from MG to Riley, Austin to Wolseley. Continue reading →

Comprehensive Exams: Subject Mastery or a Kind of Academic Hazing

November 10, 2022 No Comments

Football players take the field. Tim Mossholder via Unsplash.

By Christine O’Bonsawin

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the seventh in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

What is the purpose of comprehensive exams? Subject mastery? Subject knowledge? Command of the field? Broad expertise? Situating the dissertation? Preparation to teach?

At the conclusion of the work of the Task Force on the Future of the History PhD, it was clear to members of the team that perceptions about the purpose of comprehensive exams vary between and within History departments across the country and that there are diverse opinions about the aims of such exam processes. In fact, there exists significant uncertainty around the comprehensive exam requirement in our departments, more so than other requisites of the History PhD, including coursework and the dissertation.

As detailed in the Task Force Report, faculty and graduate student respondents were divided on the question of comprehensive exams but also largely open to reform. A quantitative breakdown reveals that only 21% of respondents to our survey felt that no modifications to comprehensive exams were required. Further, 27% of English respondents and 28% of French respondents supported replacing one or more comprehensive examination fields with the opportunity to teach a course, and 28% of English respondents and 30% of French respondents supported replacing one or more of the comprehensive examination fields with a co-op internship.

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Reforming the History Dissertation

November 8, 2022 1 Comment

Podcasts are one exciting alternative form that dissertations can take. Photo by Soundtrap on Unsplash.

By John C. Walsh

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the sixth in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

The Report argues there are ethical, epistemological, and professional reasons for History programs to discuss reform to the dissertation that goes beyond limiting page counts. This process starts with identifying and explaining a program’s learning objectives for the dissertation. Currently, departmental websites present outcomes such as demonstrating an “original contribution to historical knowledge” or “une contribution originale à la discipline historique.” Left unsaid on websites are what orginal(e) means, reflecting, it seems, an assumption that the audience for these websites – prospective and current doctoral students – have already acquired enough disciplinary experience and professionalization to understand the meaning of historical originality, and to understand as well that “original” in historiographical parlance is itself historical, having changed over time. Even if is not the intention of department websites, current descriptions assume a lot and may alienate more than illuminate. The website language is also emblematic of how opaque dissertations, like doctoral programs more broadly, can appear to students who must navigate program requirements to earn their degree and then explain what they experienced and learned to a prospective employer and to their family and friends. No less significantly, as Sam Hossack explained well in an earlier post, unclear and unarticulated expectations are one of the core issues that contribute to student struggle and disengagement from work they care deeply about.

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90 Days to 50 Years: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Expulsion of South Asians from Uganda

November 4, 2022 No Comments

Boarding the last charter flight to Canada. Roger St. Vincent, Seven Crested Cranes. The Uganda Collection. Archives & Special Collections, Carleton University.

By Jackie Mahoney

On August 4, 1972, the President of Uganda, General Idi Amin, announced that South Asians who were British citizens would be expelled from Uganda because, according to him, they were sabotaging the economy. This decree set into motion a mass exodus of the South Asian population of Uganda, who were given just ninety days to settle their affairs and start a new life in a foreign country. Over 7,000 South Asian Ugandans found themselves re-settling in Canada in the months following the expulsion announcement. For many, Canada would become their permanent home.

To share the lived experiences of these individuals, Carleton University Library, which located on the traditional lands of the Algonquin nation in Ottawa, Ontario, is developing the Uganda Collection, originally donated by the Canadian Immigration Historical Society in 2012. This archival collection consists of over 1000 newspaper clippings from the 1970s about the expulsion and reception, a personal memoir that documents the experiences of the Canadian Immigration team in Kampala in 1972, a logbook of arrivals to the Canadian Forces Military Base Longue Pointe, an interactive map of where Ugandan Asian refugees were resettled in Canada, and oral histories from Ugandan Asian refugees who share their lived experiences of the expulsion and their subsequent resettlement in Canada. To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the expulsion this year, the library is hosting Beyond Resettlement: Exploring the History of the Ugandan Asian Community in Exile, a conference that will explore the historical context of the expulsion, Canada’s response and the reception of a large number of the refugees, the larger diaspora of Ugandan Asian refugees, and the lived experiences of the community in Canada and the diaspora over the past fifty years.

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Supervising the History PhD

November 3, 2022 No Comments

Convocation Hall, University of Toronto. Credit: Kara M, via Unsplash.

By Catherine Carstairs

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the fifth in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

For the past year, I’ve been lucky to work with an amazing group of colleagues on the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD, including Will Langford and Sam Hossack, whose posts in this series preceded mine. As Will and Sam have articulated, one of our key concerns was the lack of academic jobs and the paucity of funding, especially in the later stages of the degree program.

One of the issues that I helped to investigate was whether or not better supervisory practices could improve the student experience, speed the time to completion, ensure greater diversity among PhD students, and encourage groundbreaking scholarship. Supervisors cannot change the bleak academic job market for recent PhD graduates, and we have little direct control over the funding provided to PhD students. We can and should lobby for better funding and against the growing precarity of the academic workforce, but we can also work to ensure that our students complete in a reasonable period of time and are producing valuable scholarship that has meaning inside and outside of the academy. We can help our students articulate the skills that they have learned through the PhD, and we can make our departments more welcoming to people who have long been excluded from our profession.

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Graduate Student Perspective: Structural Challenges to the History PhD

November 1, 2022 No Comments

Overwhelmed graduate student

By Sam Hossack

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the fourth in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

During the data collection phase of the Task Force on the Future of the History PhD, we spoke with graduate students in History programs across the country, including formal meetings with the Graduate Students’ Committee of the CHA, informal one-on-one meetings, and anonymous surveys. Over the course of these discussions, a common sentiment emerged: a genuine passion for history.

Graduate students care passionately about historical knowledge and methods — a passion shared by their faculty colleagues. Students believe in the potential of history to contribute to our communities. Those who pursue the PhD do so because they want to continue working in the discipline and contribute to historical knowledge. Their passion persists, despite multidimensional uncertainty and a lack of structural supports within PhD programs that inhibit student pursuits. Graduate students explained that they often feel unable to concentrate on their research due to the many demands on their time, and that they frequently reach the limit of both their mental and physical capacities.

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The Academic Job Market: Tenure-Track Assistant Professors in History in Canada

October 25, 2022 No Comments

By Will Langford

The report of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada is now available (in English and in French). This is the third in a series of posts by Task Force members, offering their perspectives on selected themes from the report. Activehistory.ca encourages readers to join in the conversation, either in the comments or on social media, or by submitting a response piece to be considered for publication upon the series’ completion.

Many – if not almost all – fledging historians pursue a PhD degree with the intention of becoming a university professor. They do so well-aware of the word on the street: the academic job market offers few jobs for historians. The American Historical Association has substantiated the bleak common sense by reporting on academic hiring in the US and describing where historians actually work. I pursued similar research as a member of the CHA Task Force on the Future of the History PhD in Canada. In this blog post, I review what I learned about the employment situation by looking at the sought-after job category, the tenure-track assistant professor in History.

Job Search on the website universityaffairs.ca

Search jobs, https://www.universityaffairs.ca/search-job/

87 tenure-track assistant professors began work in History departments (or equivalent departments) at Canadian universities in 2016-17 to 2021-22. Teaching-stream professors were not considered in the count. The Task Force report contains a table listing the number of hirings by university. Below, a companion table displays where new tenure-track assistant professors earned their PhD degrees.

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