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"The article above mostly rants about how the majority of the teaching is done by the teaching-only staff (as you would expect), and how they should be given mo

"The article above mostly rants about how the majority of the teaching is done by the teaching-only staff (as you would expect), and how they should be given more consideration." It's a rant about being slotted into a system where it's next to impossible to get into the "good" track, from the "bad" position. "The truth is that the worth of a professor is measured by his research, not his teaching." Which means it is pretty fucked up that two-thirds of the academic faculty is never given the opportunity to prove their worth. It's of course even worse than that, because there is only a minority of minted PhDs that can even secure such a position. All in all, it looks even worse than STEM, where there at least is temporary research roles for junior faculty.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
Humanities departments at universities in the US have been getting smaller, and more professorship slots are moving towards STEM, in general. However, this has come at the end of a tremendous growth cycle in the humanities if you zoom out to the last 50-100 years. It also seems like more "traditional" fields like History and English are being replaced by Psychology, Sociology, and [x] Studies, which seem to have a very different focus. Even in STEM, only about 10% of PhDs from top-tier universities go on to become professors. A small fraction of the rest end up adjuncting, but a much bigger fraction take the escape hatch into industry. A PhD in history basically only prepares you to be a history professor, though, so I imagine that the escape hatch is much more narrow in that field.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >so I imagine that the escape hatch is much more narrow in that field Worst case, someone with a PhD in at least most technical fields is seen as at least as educationally qualified as someone with a Master's and there are lots of sciences like biology or chemistry where a PhD is seen as a pretty good degree for an employer outside of academia for a lot of purposes. A lot of the humanities, less so. If you have a PhD from a good school in English lit, that may suggest certain things (both good and bad) about your qualifications but isn't necessarily a recommendation beyond a good portfolio. Though the same thing could be said about a law degree which a lot of humanities undergrads I've known got and never really used except in very indirect ways.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

Humanities departments at universities in the US have been getting smaller, and more professorship slots are moving towards STEM, in general. However, this has come at the end of a tremendous growth cycle in the humanities if you zoom out to the last 50-100 years. It also seems like more "traditional" fields like History and English are being replaced by Psychology, Sociology, and [x] Studies, which seem to have a very different focus. Even in STEM, only about 10% of PhDs from top-tier universities go on to become professors. A small fraction of the rest end up adjuncting, but a much bigger fraction take the escape hatch into industry. A PhD in history basically only prepares you to be a history professor, though, so I imagine that the escape hatch is much more narrow in that field.

ghaff 3y ago
>so I imagine that the escape hatch is much more narrow in that field Worst case, someone with a PhD in at least most technical fields is seen as at least as educationally qualified as someone with a Master's and there are lots of sciences like biology or chemistry where a PhD is seen as a pretty good degree for an employer outside of academia for a lot of purposes. A lot of the humanities, less so. If you have a PhD from a good school in English lit, that may suggest certain things (both good and bad) about your qualifications but isn't necessarily a recommendation beyond a good portfolio. Though the same thing could be said about a law degree which a lot of humanities undergrads I've known got and never really used except in very indirect ways.