Grad Program Worries

Every year of teaching, I re-learn the lesson: less. Do less. Shorter. Talking about Blasted today alone took over thirty minutes. It was a great discussion! But I wish I hadn't also assigned three other readings. "But they were short," I told myself. Didn't matter. 

It's the same thing with sermons. I'm so wordy. "I can make it 10 pages! That's 20 minutes, right?" Inevitably, it's more like 25. Besides, 20 minutes overstays its welcome. 15 minutes makes for a better sermon.

Shorter, less. The law of diminishing returns reigns supreme. 

We're talking to accreditors from our discipline's big accrediting body. We had the whole faculty talking to them this morning. They toured facilities and sampled classes (not mine) over the day. They watched the show tonight. Our PhD/theory-crit-history faculty (including me) talks to them tomorrow morning. 

I've told my therapist already I'll have to be judicious about how honest to be. The truth? I harbor grave and growing ethical qualms about having a PhD program. Increasingly, the PhD does not--cannot--deliver what it's classically guaranteed: a career in academia. Only 37% of graduates find full-time positions in five years of graduation. Too many PhDs are graduating, but the bigger systemic issue has to do with the shift from tenure-stream and full-time teaching positions to adjunct and other contingent labor. 

The discipline's response so far has largely consisted of blaming PhD programs, charging them either with being disingenuous to recruits about their chances or refusing to equip them with the skills they could use to find employment beyond the academy (or at least beyond the discipline).

About the former, we're if anything too honest with prospective students--honest to the point of demoralizing. We've long told actors not to go into the profession unless they can't imagine doing anything else. I find myself giving similar lectures to applicants in our interview rounds. "Imagine yourself spending 7 years of hard work studying and teaching, only to find yourself unable to get a tenure-stream position after. Would you still do it?" For some, the answer is yes--at least, they can't imagine themselves doing anything else. 

As for the other factor--training PhDs in skills beyond the discipline--that seems like slow-motion nihilism to me. I mean, sure--by all means, encourage students to minor in disciplines that might help them get jobs. Hold some workshops in diversifying skills and communicating what you can do beyond teaching/research. But when it comes to giving over curricular hours to, say, skills that would make them attractive to alt-ac careers (counseling, assessment, para-curricular program management)--I don't like it. Other grad programs already exist in higher ed administration. 

Also, at some point, don't we risk turning the PhD into a pure vocational training? Is that what it's for? Is that its only worth? I don't accept that argument on the undergrad level. Do I accept it on the grad level? It is different. PhD work is much more expensive--monetarily and professionally--than undergrad degrees. 

I'm just not comfortable asking students to make that sacrifice. I need to find a reason for the degree in the absence of jobs the degree preps graduates for.