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Re: Money (#132674)
by Sterling Fluharty on March 13, 2009 at 2:04 PM
Great point. I think we will see with Obama's education budget that data systems for student tracking will comprise a very small fraction of the overall money allocated. The same thing will need to be true for the humanities and graduate programs in general. Now let's link to the other part of Obama's educational goals. Part of holding schools accountable is rewarding the best teachers with the most pay. The same thing should apply to history doctoral programs. We should be awarding more money to the programs that reduce attrition and improve graduation rates and reducing funding for programs that have poor retention and graduation rates.

Which metrics? (#132679)
by Sage Ross on March 13, 2009 at 3:27 PM
Are attrition rate and graduation rate really the proper metrics to evaluate the success of graduate programs?

The institutions in the best financial shape are the ones that can bring their grad students all the way through. Rewarding those places with even more funding might simply amplify the distinction between rich and poor graduate programs.

Of course, there are many more humanities PhDs being earned than there are faculty positions for them. So a financial feedback loop like that might push small programs with little funding over the brink so that they stop taking students (which in turn puts more pressure on faculty for teaching, which possibly results in the creation of new faculty positions to relieve some of that load).

Unfortunately there is plenty of incentive (both financial and disciplinary) for taking on graduate students even when little funding is available. (Or maybe fortunately, if one views having more humanities PhDs as a social good, regardless of the number of humanities-specific jobs available. I guess it comes down to the balance between scholarship as a job and scholarship as a vocation.)

Re: Which metrics? (#132684)
by Sterling Fluharty on March 13, 2009 at 5:23 PM
They count for something, but they are only part of the picture, and probably only a fraction of the overall measure we should be taking. I think chapters 2 and 3 in _The Education of Historians for the Twenty-first Century_ cover most of the important metrics by which we should measure the success of our history graduate programs.

What you say about colleges and universities with endowments was probably true as of last semester. Now I am not so sure. There are a lot of hiring freezes and reduction of staff taking place. Funding and benefits for graduate students may also be cut.

I also think there should be Pell Grants for masters students. This could solve many of the problems you describe.

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