- PhD Students Are In A Good Place- The Chronicle of Education reports that the Modern Language Association (MLA) expects 2,400 jobs to be posted with the group this academic year. While this number might sound good, it is still “near the historic low.” Unfortunately, there is a backlog of unemployed PhD students looking for tenured or tenure-track jobs and 2,400 jobs is not nearly enough. For some the answer is to look at community colleges, and for other it is a matter of what their discipline and subdiscipline are, since “there’s no such thing as a single academic job market, and some scholars are more likely than others to get jobs.”
- How to Stop Being Like Ostriches- The Chronicle of Education examines how the American Historical Association is going about changing the way they educate their students. It is not just about telling students to prepare for fields outside of history, but about “examining the training we offer. … If we tell new students that a history Ph.D. opens many doors, we need to broaden the curriculum to ensure that we’re telling the truth.” While History is already trying to change the way it educates, other fields are going to need to follow suite, because as one academic pointed out: “If we continue to behave like ostriches, we’re dead.”
- Non-tenure Track Professors May Get A Break- The Chronicle of Education reports that the new president of the Modern Language Association, Michael Bérubé, plans on improving the current situation of non-tenured professors. He wants to reduce the amount of time students spend in graduate school as a means of decreasing student debt. Bérubé also plans on helping non-tenure-track faculty get access to campus resources and professional development as part of “building job security and professional dignity for non-tenure-track faculty who have been in their positions for a decade or more.” In addition, the new president hopes to improve classroom accommodations for students with disabilities and to transform scholarly communication so that it fits the digital age.
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