Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Fool's avatar
  2. Santa Monica's avatar
  3. Charles Bakker's avatar
  4. Matty Silverstein's avatar
  5. Jason's avatar
  6. Nathan Meyvis's avatar
  7. Stefan Sciaraffa's avatar

    The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…

In praise of terminal MA programs

Brian Leiter

In the last couple of weeks, I had the pleasure of giving talks at two of the best terminal MA programs in philosophy in the U.S., at Georgia State University and then Northern Illinois University.  Both have very strong faculties and have long been among the top terminal MA programs in the discipline, but unlike Tufts (also an excellent faculty), they also offer really good financial support to their MA students.  (I apologize for not recognizing much sooner how weak MA funding is at Tufts.   MA students, like PhD students, should only go to the schools that will offer financial support.)  At GSU, I enjoyed an excellent two-hour seminar with graduate students who had been working on Nietzsche with Prof. Jessica Berry, and they asked excellent questions (GSU is the best terminal MA program for students interested in Kant and post-Kantian Continental traditions in philosophy, and it showed during my visit).  At NIU, another terminal MA program with very good PhD placement, I was impressed by how the Department handles placement (matching students to recommenders, based on coursework and performance) and also with the intelligence and focus of the students. 

A propos the recent post about the proliferations of PhDs, here are a few reasons why academic philosophy needs more high quality terminal MA programs, like GSU and NIU:

1.  Attrition rates in PhD programs are high, but I believe, based on a lot of anecdotal evidence, that they are lower among those who do an MA first.  If someone has contrary evidence, please e-mail me.

2.  Many promising PhD students lack adequate undergraduate preparation, and terminal MA programs are uniquely situated to help students with philosophical interests be better prepared.

3.  Even undergraduate philosophy majors benefit hugely from refining their work and interests with the research-active faculty characteristic of the top terminal MA programs.

4. Many students interested in a PhD program are still uncertain about whether that is the trajectory for them.   Good MA programs, meaning not only good faculty but which also provide financial support, help students figure out whether that is the right path.  I talked with students in the last couple of weeks, but also elsewhere, for whom a terminal MA helped them figure out that academia was not for them.

Terminal MA programs involve a two-year commitment, and the best programs provide full financial assistance (whether through fellowship or teaching assistantships).  The importance of terminal MA programs  is further highlighted by the ridiculous number of PhDs in philosophy currently being awarded.   Everyone who is awake knows there are too many PhD programs in philosophy:  too many in terms of demand for philosophy teachers; too many in terms of what is in the long-term interests of students; too many in terms of their quality.  So let us be candid, with an eye to the well-being of young people interested in philosophy.

There are several examples of faculties that had (and could again have) very attractive terminal MA programs who have now added PhD programs in recent years:  University of South Carolina, Arizona State University, Texas A&M University.  There is no discernible reason other than institutional advancement for those schools to offer PhDs, and their faculties should lobby to return to the terminal MA.  Most of these places were ranked in the PGR in earlier years for the quality of their terminal MA programs.  It is shameful that they are now trying to recruit PhD students.  [UPDATE:  See the apt response of Prof. Portmore at ASU to the preceding.]

There are other schools that have had unnecessary PhD programs for awhile that also should convert to terminal MAs:  University of Kansas, Michigan State University, and Tulane University are examples.  These departments could plainly have some of the best terminal MA programs in the country if they chose to make that their focus. 

And then, of course, there are PhD programs that should probably not award any graduate degrees, given the current quality of the faculty and the outcomes for graduates:    Emory University; University of Oregon; Villanova University.  Emory is the saddest case here, because this was a department that had some really good faculty who either departed or retired or expired (e.g., Donald Rutherford, Rudolf Makreel, Steven Strange).   Despite being a wealthy private university, the department has been captured by mediocrities, and really should stop offering the PhD or even the MA.  Even in the "SPEP" universe of middling scholars of the Continental traditions, Emory, Oregon and Villanova look to me like outliers.  But it might be they could have great terminal MA programs for those going into the SPEP orbit.

I am opening comments here, but those who want to criticize or praise programs will have to do so with their full name and a valid e-mail address.

Leave a Reply to Joel Dittmer, Missouri S&T Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

50 responses to “In praise of terminal MA programs”

  1. Derek Bowman

    Before this thread gets sidetracked with fights about the quality of the specific departments mentioned, I'd like to signal my agreement with the general point in favor of fully funded terminal MA programs.

    I would also add an even more important benefit that terminal MAs can offer, apart from their contribution to those who want to attend PhD programs and to indirect benefits to undergraduate education. It is much more sensible to spend 2-3 years pursuing an MA before moving on to a non-academic career than to commit to the time and focus required for a PhD. Happy and adequately employed philosophy MAs will make much better ambassadors for philosophy in the wider culture than bitter and/or impoverished PhDs.

    Once we've allowed ourselves to recognize that serious study of and engagement with philosophy need not be confined to those in academic careers, the value of fully-funded terminal MAs should be even more obvious.

    Reply
  2. Dan Frank

    Perhaps NIU a/o GSU could comment on this: what is the TA assignment for first year MA students in your program who "lack adequate undergraduate preparation"?

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    Not an official spokesperson for the department or anything like that. Here is the page for MA assistantships at GSU. Not sure if it mentions that first years usually serve as supplemental instruction leaders (http://success.students.gsu.edu/success-programs/supplemental-instruction/), writing consultants (http://wac.gsu.edu/49419.html), or graduate assistants for professors.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    Forgot to post the link for the MA assistantships page for the department. Here it is: http://philosophy.gsu.edu/graduate/admissions/assistantships/

    Reply
  5. Anonymous Grad Student

    My interest in this: From my own experience, pursuing a short-term Master's before a many-many-year PhD is disruptive to one's personal life, particularly for people who have families or spouses. So I'm interested in ways that we can avoid making a Master's a requirement, by helping US PhD programs learn from successful Master's programs.

    In the United States, basically all PhD programs begin with a two-year coursework component that culminates in a Master's. That existing coursework component should already resolve (1) to (4) above. If these are still a problem, what makes the existing setup inadequate?

    Perhaps it is the case that students really need 4-5 years of coursework before starting a dissertation, 2-3 at a terminal MA and 2 more at a US PhD. But I suspect the problem lies more in PhD programs failing to think intelligently about how to set up their coursework. At most institutions it just feels tacked on. This is true both institutionally and pedagogically.

    Institutionally, the coursework is just a box you have to check, and there is normally no need to fit one's coursework into a larger research program. I don't mean to suggest that each course one takes must be justified in light of a prior understanding of one's future PhD. But we could have, for instance, a works-in-progress class within the coursework period itself (rather than within the dissertation writing period, as at my institution), meant to help students learn how to revise their own work. Or have a requirement that 2-3 of your courses have some prospective relation to a research project, with time being spent in your fourth semester writing a paper with a professor on that smaller topic.

    Pedagogically, many professors seem to take graduate courses seriously only to the extent that they can help the professor with their own research program, not to the extent that they can help the student develop. And when they are interested in actually teaching students, it's often only those students they foresee as future dissertation advisees.

    I suspect that the best terminal MA programs are better in each of these regards. We should each think about how our institution can emulate them.

    (Thanks to Professor Leiter for having the courage to call out certain departments. I wish I had the same.)

    Reply
  6. Former MA student

    I don't think the proliferation of phil MA programs (and phil MA students) has to do with a lack of preparation. It's more about getting an advantage in admissions.

    BL COMMENT: If anyone has systematic evidence on this point, it would be welcome. My own anecdotal evidence is not consistent with the claim made here.

    Reply
  7. recent grad

    There are at least two different forms of saturation of the philosophy job market. The first comes from Ph.D.s graduating from programs that do not tend to place their students (which isn't to say anything about the quality of individual Ph.D.s from those departments–I've made some who were quite good). The second form of saturation comes from the programs which may well be placing over half their graduates in TT positions. There are simply too few jobs to place even 2/3 of people coming from good programs. I know plenty of people who come from good programs with good placement rates who are unemployed for reasons having nothing to do with them. I don't think employment should be a guarantee, but it should at least be better than a coin flip. So I think there should be real pressure for all programs to slow the rate at which they produce graduates. Even something like admitting one fewer person a year will mean *something*.

    Reply
  8. Prospective Grad Student

    Two other programs worth mentioning, I think, are the MA program at the University of Toronto, and the BPhil at Oxford.

    Toronto's Program is fully funded, and it has a large, highly ranked faculty, especially in certain areas.

    Funding at Oxford is abysmal, but it seems like the BPhil is really the focus of the department there, and the BPhil has a rather astounding track record of placing students top PhD programs:
    http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/bphil_alumni_information

    I'd be interested to hear what other people's opinions of these programs are.

    BL COMMENT: Students getting an MA at a program that awards the PhD should investigate carefully whether MA students are accorded the same level of attention as the PhD students.

    Reply
  9. Tim O'Keefe

    Anonymous #4 and 5 already responded to Dan's question, regarding GSU, but to elaborate slightly:

    Assistantship duties vary a lot, but most students in their first year will spend one semester acting as a "Supplemental Instruction Leader" for Critical Thinking. This basically involves sitting in on a section of Critical Thinking so that you know the material and what's going on in class and then running additional supplemental study sessions to help students work through the material they've been introduced to in class.

    In the other semester, most students will work with a professor, occasionally helping with research (compiling bibliographies and the like) but more often assisting with teaching. One common way of doing this is to act as a writing consultant: you don't assign grades, but you give feedback on mandatory drafts of student writing so that students have an opportunity to revise their papers prior to turning in the final version to be graded by the professor. In my case, at least, I have the grad student writing consultants sit in on the class so that they're familiar with the material.

    In both cases, I think that grad students with a relatively limited philosophical background are pretty well prepared to do a good job fulfilling their assistantship duties. (All of grad students have *some* philosophical background prior to coming here, but a fair number majored in something else and took some philosophy classes as a minor or otherwise on the side and are trying to round out their preparation prior to starting PhD work.)

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    Professor Leiter: thank you so much for bringing attention to what has long been an overdue conversation in the profession – that too many PhD granting departments should not be in the business of awarding PhD's in philosophy.

    In particular, there are too many PhD programs that are still failing to make placement records or job prospects transparent for their students, when the faculty of such departments know full well that their graduates are not getting jobs, much less having a fighting chance on the job market. And on that note, I have no idea how newly-minted PhD programs in weak or small departments could possibly think their students will be competitive on the job market.

    It seems to me that part of why these guilty departments are so slow to act is because having a PhD program is a means to other ends, some of which have been called out already, e.g. prestige of a "research" university; desirable 2/2 course loads (and thus, more research time) for faculty; grad students and adjuncts teach the bulk of less-desired "service" courses.

    Reply
  11. Douglas W. Portmore

    Brian Leiter writes: "It is shameful that they are now trying to recruit PhD students." I'm not sure whether "they" refers to the institutions themselves or to the philosophy faculties and/or the administrators at those institutions. I assume that Leiter is talking about the philosophy faculties since that's what he opens with in the given paragraph. But let me say that I and many (I suspect, most) others on the philosophy faculty at ASU would prefer a funded MA program to a funded PhD program. But alas that was not a choice that we had. Indeed, I'm told that when ASU went from a funded MA program to a funded PhD program it was a the behest of the administration, and, from what I hear, it sounds like the philosophy faculty didn't have much of a choice at the time. But that was all before my arrival to ASU. Also, it's important to realize that a philosophy faculty can, as we often do, encourage their funded PhD students to apply to other PhD programs after getting an experience that is quite comparable to what they would get in a terminal MA program. So I think that whether it is shameful to recruit PhD students to such a program as ours depends on whether they encourage those of their students who have the prospect of getting into a better program to try to do so, on whether they give those that they are recruiting the relevant information about their prospects, and on whether they intend to help increase diversity in the profession by giving a chance to some of those that no other more prestigious institution will give a chance to. — Unashamedly Yours, Douglas W. Portmore, Professor of Philosophy, School of Philosophical, Historical, and Religious Studies, Arizona State University

    BL COMMENT: That's a fair point, and I apologize for not thinking of that possibility.

    Reply
  12. Andrew Vierra

    Thank you for your kind post Dr. Leiter. GSU greatly enjoyed your visit!

    In response to anon grad student, I suspect that the time commitment problem would be better addressed if PhD programs allowed M.A. course credits to be transferred (many don't, and some only allow a very small percentage to be transferred).

    Could someone say more about the problems with the University of Oregon? It seems to me that if one wants to study the philosophy of race, Oregon would be a great school to attend.

    BL COMMENT: All the programs I mentioned have some very good faculty–Naomi Zack at Oregon is an excellent example. But only one or two philosophers of major PhD program caliber is not enough to sustain a PhD program in my view.

    Reply
  13. Former MA student

    Brian, I have no systematic evidence for this, but would like to hear about your experience. In my MA class of 11, only one or two were there because they hadn't had adequate preparation, while the rest of us were there because we thought we'd have a better chance of a higher-ranked PhD. In my current PhD program the students who have come from MA programs seem to have had similar goals.

    But we probably can't separate very well the preparation from the admissions advantage. Lacking preparation probably means you won't get into a good PhD.

    Reply
  14. Nick

    My personal experience re: Dan Frank's question about funding for MA students with no phil background.

    I did an MA in phil after having taken only one phil course as an undergrad…and that was Existentialism. I was obviously not prepared to teach philosophy, and rightfully did not get paid to do it. I was lucky enough to be admitted at all!

    But I was fortunate to find a TA position in a different department which better suited my previous experience. This department did not have a graduate program so took TAs from anywhere. I doubt this is a common opportunity, but I would encourage MA students new to philosophy to investigate TA/RA positions in other departments if funding is needed.

    Reply
  15. Postdoc

    I am a recent graduate of a PhD program that, given its placement record, should not exist. None of these considerations are new, but I wanted to stress some of the harmful narratives that exist in such places. The placement record, although available on the department website, is almost never discussed. Bringing it up comes off as careerist, showing a lack of genuine passion for philosophy. When placement is discussed at all, only the one or two successful placements over the last decade are mentioned, and the fates of the vast majority who seemingly disappear into non-academic life are ignored. Profs cultivate a belief that the really exceptional students do in fact get jobs, and then every student is allowed to believe that they are really exceptional.

    Students have a responsibility to inform themselves about the job prospects for philosophy PhDs, and departments have a responsibility not only to make detailed placement and attrition information freely available, but, more nebulously, to work towards an atmosphere free of such harmful narratives.

    Reply
  16. Michael Dickson, Philosophy, U. of S. Carolina

    In general I have no interest in philosophy 'blogs'. I reply here out of duty as a chair of a department.

    The world is larger than academic philosophy. I realize that some in our profession will find this statement hard to believe.

    One apparent presumption of the claim that there are too many PhDs being granted in philosophy is that all PhD students are all being trained to go on to teach at academic institutions similar to those in which they are being trained. If this presumption were true, then institutions apart from the top 30 (arguably, 20) schools should stop training PhDs, because the top 20-30 schools provide the vast majority of new faculty to academic departments. The rest of us — whatever pretensions some might have to the contrary — are not doing so, the vast majority of the time.

    But the presumption is not true. PhD students in philosophy go on to take many sorts of job. I have former students in IT departments, law offices, policy groups, publishing houses, and yes, academia. Looking within my department more generally, the breadth of careers widens to include ministers, consultants, administrators, high school teachers, and more. (The notion that these jobs are 'bad', or 'second-rate', because they are not academic jobs in philosophy — a notion that I've heard expressed many times from professional philosophers — is stupid.) Many of our students do not even academic positions of the sort that are in short supply, though certainly some do, at least as one among several alternatives, and a very few of them get those positions.

    In short, our students — MA and PhD (and both programs are thriving, thank you) — are trained for, and get, positions in very small schools including community colleges, as well as non-academic positions, in both cases not as the 'fall-back' position, but as a viable and attractive alternative to academic philosophy (which, frankly, is not all that attractive sometimes). A few — they are the minority, and this fact is known to students who come here and should be made known to students at *most* institutions — take academic positions in colleges and universities, or go on from our MA program to a PhD program.

    The problem is not that there are too many PhDs in Philosophy. There are as many as there are people willing and able to do a PhD, and we have no reason to stop them. Problems arise when we faculty lead them all to believe that they are being trained exclusively (or even, in non-top 20 institutions, primarily) to go on to take an academic position in a university, much like those positions held by ourselves. We have no right to build up such an unreasonable expectation, and I can assure anybody who asks that we are not guilty of doing so at my institution.

    Be honest with potential students about the job market in academic philosophy. Discuss viable alternatives with them. Commit to working to prepare them for both. If, after that, they walk away, then fine. If they still wish to enter a PhD program, telling them that they ought not, and that we are just looking after their best interests, is patronizing.

    BL COMMENT: Prof. Dickson writes: "One apparent presumption of the claim that there are too many PhDs being granted in philosophy is that all PhD students are all being trained to go on to teach at academic institutions similar to those in which they are being trained." I know of no one who makes such a presumption, which would be silly.

    Reply
  17. Michael Dickson, Philosophy, U. of S. Carolina

    Correction: "Many of our students do not even SEEK academic positions of the sort that are in short supply,"

    Reply
  18. Geoff Pynn

    At NIU, first year GAs serve as teaching assistants for two sections of lower-level philosophy courses. "Lacking adequate undergraduate preparation" to begin a demanding doctoral program in philosophy =/= "lacking adequate undergraduate preparation" to serve as a TA for Philosophy 101.

    Truth in advertising, though: only about half of our incoming students receive GA packages with the philosophy department. Most of the rest are awarded one-year tuition waivers. The majority of those without philosophy GA positions find GA positions (with funding comparable to a philosophy GA) in other units on campus (currently eight philosophy MA students have external GAs), and one or two each year receive a fully funded university fellowship of some kind.

    Reply
  19. An Academic Advisor

    In response to Prof. Leiter's comment at the end of Prof. Dickson's post: if a Ph.D in Philosophy is in fact seen as a springboard for more careers beyond just academia, it becomes much harder to claim that there are too many Ph.D programs.

    The quotation that BL cites as silly could be taken in two ways. One is that, e.g., if you are a grad from program X, you should be moving straight to a tenure-track position at an institution of at least similar level to program X. That is pretty unrealistic, yes. A second way, though, which is present throughout Prof. Dickson's post but which the quoted sentence doesn't present, is that the presumption is that one gets a Ph.D in philosophy to become an academic philosopher–whether at an R1, a 4-year school, a SLAC, a CC, or wherever. I take that to be the presumption Prof. Dickson wants to question, though again, the sentence BL quotes makes the first, much stricter claim.

    Philosophers argue that the skills developed in the study of philosophy apply to all sorts of careers. How well do we follow up on that claim? And is it supposed to be true only for a Bachelor's degree? A Ph.D (or MA) in philosophy should indeed, I would think, enable one to do all sorts of things, but the feeling, and my own experience, is that there's not much institutional support and assistance for pursuing other endeavors (if there's actual empirical data on this, and the other claims in this paragraph, it would be great to have). It's not that philosophy departments don't want their grads to do other things, but that the departments don't really know how to begin, what to look for or to do–after all, the departments that have Ph.D programs are themselves often full of at least moderately successful professors, who often did go right out onto the job market and find something. The faculty, whose task is in part to guide their students, often lack such knowledge–that much is understandable. But then that leads to the question of what we can do, what resources we can, or should, be devoting to helping students enter not just academic philosophy, but the professions of their choice. In principle, philosophers believe that our discipline is valuable everywhere. Prof. Dickson's concern, I think, is that practice simply doesn't come close to matching that claim.

    Grant all of that for the sake of argument. In that case, why think that we have too many Ph.D programs? Is it because there are too many new Ph.Ds? Too many for what, exactly? Too many for academia, perhaps. Too many for R1s and top departments, certainly. But too many for all the jobs that philosophers are well-equipped for? If not, then the problem is not an excess of Ph.Ds, but a lack of perspective with regard to what a philosophy Ph.D could be doing. Greater support for, and promotion of, non-academic jobs would then be the solution, not cutting Ph.D programs. Students interested in philosophy win, as they have better support for merging their passion with more possible careers. Faculty win, as their programs get to continue and even expand. The profession wins, as its role and presence outside of academia broadens. And the world wins, at least if philosophers really do have something to bring to the table!

    BL COMMENT: I have the impression that the vast majority of those who enter a PhD program and complete it are looking to find employment in the academy. One rather good reason for thinking that impression is correct is that there are large numbers of unemployed PhDs in philosophy who spend years applying for jobs in the academy. Another good reason for thinking that impression is correct is that schools hiring regularly report huge volumes of applications for their positions.

    Reply
  20. MAGraduate

    I'd like to nth the suggestion that there is a link between MA programs and students wishing to gain an edge in PhD admissions. (Former MA student used the phrase "proliferation of" which I don't think is what they meant — who knows what the causal factor behind an increase in MA programs is. More safely and more relevant, what I think they meant, as they mention in their second post, is the reason and demographics behind students who attend MA programs.) At my funded MA program, I believe everyone had an undergraduate degree in philosophy (and at times from fairly strong philosophy departments). I myself came from a strong enough program that sends students top-20 PhD programs straight from undergrad, and had myself received some funded PhD admissions, but decided that given the job market, I thought it would be wiser to attend the MA and hope for stronger PhD admissions.

    Additionally, Kukla from Georgetown as well as other professors have commented that they've noticed an increasing proportion of admitted students are coming in with MA degrees. There's been an associated concern with this that MA's are becoming almost a requirement for many students because MA students are clearly capable of much higher levels of scholarship given the two additional years of training and institutional support, such as writing sample assistance, that they've received from their graduate program.

    Reply
  21. MR

    The poor PhD students at the departments you've called out. I hope you factored in their emotional response before deciding to call out their departments by name. If you did, I'm curious as to why doing so didn't prevent you from doing what you did. I don't know what calling departments out by name added to your post.

    BL COMMENT: The point of mentioning programs by name is to make prospective students aware of issues that are discussed all the time sotto voce by those "in the know". I do worry about the PhD students in these programs, and they should think carefully about their professional goals and whether transferring might make sense, per Prof. Portmore's remarks, above.

    Reply
  22. Jennifer A Frey

    Prof. Leiter suggests that I, as a faculty member at the University of South Carolina, should lobby to get rid of our PhD program and lobby for a terminal MA (indeed, that it is "shameful" that we have a PhD program at all). The only charitable reason I can think of for this suggestion, directed at my department in particular, is that Prof. Leiter takes a very utilitarian approach to a philosophy PhD (i.e., he thinks that getting a doctorate is a kind of technical training that allows one to become a professor in the academy, and that most people enter a PhD program with that goal explicitly in mind). Prof. Leiter is of course free to think and write whatever he wants about philosophy and doctoral studies, but I do not personally take such a low view of doctoral studies in the Humanities, and I know for a fact that many students in our program do not either. Moreover, speaking only for myself, I do not think it is shameful at all to have PhD students involved in my multi-million dollar research grant here at USC; my grant project affords them many exciting opportunities to learn and to advance their own research (and yes, if they choose to be so focused, their career prospects too). Nor are these sorts of opportunities limited to my contribution or my students in particular, it is just one obvious example of many of the great opportunities available to graduate students at USC. Our department has nothing to be ashamed of.

    BL COMMENT: Prof. Frey correctly characterizes what I am assuming in her parenthetical, though I do not think it is a utilitarian assumption, except to the extent it gives weight to what I have reason to believe are usually the dominant preferences and aspirations of those who pursue PhD study.

    Reply
  23. Concerned

    It is not just a question of there being too many Ph.D. programs. Some of them are enormous. The number of students enrolled in some programs is staggering. That is irresponsible. In such programs (and I have seen it), students are unable to get the support they need to get a Ph.D. worth having.

    Reply
  24. Anon Grad Student

    For what it is worth, my experience has been that virtually all graduate students have begun graduate school with the expectation that they are on a path to likely academic employment. That's true when I'm speaking with students at the very top schools, and it's been true when I'm speaking with students at far lower-ranked schools. The only thing that seems to vary is whether the student sees their path to academic employment as the typical path or as the exceptional path. I wonder how much of the self-regard of some phd programs (including, perhaps, mine) is predicated upon the faculty turning a relatively blind eye to their students' self-delusions.

    Further, it might be worth noting that the Placement page for South Carolina seems to be wholly focused on academic employment, if I'm reading the right page — http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/phil/sites/sc.edu.dance/files/attachments/GradHandbook1516.pdf. There's little there to suggest that the department takes seriously that academic employment is but one sort of placement. (I also had a tough time finding actual placement data, though that could just be my failure to internet search well.)

    Reply
  25. Christopher Frey

    So I've just learned, If I understand Prof. Leiter correctly, that I belong to a department that contains "only one or two philosophers of major PhD program caliber." Am I among them? Who knows? I did have a TT job at Leiter's own university (that I willingly left). Perhaps Chicago made a mistake in Leiter's estimation. We are on the GR's specialty rankings in phil science and phil physics. I presume that is due to at least someone "of major PhD program caliber". Again, who knows. But I highly doubt that Leiter has any well-grounded opinions about the work being done here and its quality. That is the only charitable way for me to interpret his claims.

    BL COMMENT: South Carolina has, in my judgment and in the judgment of philosophers I trust, more than one or two faculty of major PhD program caliber, which is why their terminal MA program was highly ranked. When the faculty was last evaluated, in 2009, it scored a 1.8 out of 2, putting it well outside the top 55 U.S. PhD programs. There have been additions (including Prof. Frey) and losses in the interim. South Carolina was mentioned because, like ASU and Texas A&M, it had what was a highly competitive terminal MA program and then subsequently added a PhD program for which there is dubious need in a job market saturated with PhDs seeking academic employment.

    Reply
  26. Nathan Stout

    So, let’s stipulate that the purpose of a PhD in philosophy is to allow one to secure an academic position. Let’s also stipulate that students enter graduate school with this as their goal. (Like others above, I’m skeptical of both claims). Finally, stipulate that those who successfully complete a PhD are committed to becoming professional philosophers and that those same individuals were as committed to doing so when they began graduate study. Now, imagine that we reduce the number of PhD granting institutions and increase the number of terminal MA programs.

    The problem that we’re trying to solve is that there’s a bottleneck on the way into the profession in that we’ve got way too many PhD’s vying for far too few jobs, but it seems to me that converting some percentage of PhD programs to terminal MA programs would only succeed in pushing the bottleneck back. What we would end up with is way too many MA’s vying for far too few PhD studentships. If those MA’s are just as committed to becoming professional philosophers, then they’d likely hold temporary employment (perhaps as adjuncts) while they apply to PhD programs year after year. Departments would bemoan how many PhD applicants they receive, the profession would become frustrated by the number MA’s being awarded, etc. Additionally, admission to MA programs would become far more competitive and would likely result in those with little, or deficient, background in philosophy (a group that MA programs are, in part, designed to help) being excluded from the discipline before they even have a chance to explore it.

    Now, this arrangement might be beneficial for some in that they would be forced out of the discipline before spending 5-7 years completing the PhD, but is that really our solution? We should just encourage grad students to give up on philosophy earlier on in their career? It seems to me that a better solution would be for departments to supply complete, accurate placement information so that prospective students know how many graduates of a particular program secure an academic appointment, how many land desirable non-academic positions, end up in temporary jobs, or remain unemployed. Then we could just allow students to make informed decisions about their own futures for their own reasons rather than denying many of them an opportunity to complete a terminal degree all together, an accomplishment that seems to me (and, surely, I’m not the only one) meaningful and valuable in its own right.

    Reply
  27. MAGraduate

    I fall into the middle of the responses between Prof. Leiter and those in disagreement with him.

    I think it's clear in one sense that there *are* too many PhD programs by the clear and undisputed fact that there is too large of an amount of individuals who are receiving doctoral degrees with the intention of teaching philosophy, but who end up unemployed or underemployed thanks to the insanely competitive job market. I find the response that there are other uses for a PhD in philosophy incredibly disingenuous and not unlike those responses when people say there are other uses for a JD. Yes, this is factually true. And many individuals who either attend very prestigious institutions or already have connections can enter into very lucrative positions with their PhD/JD, but the simple fact is that law schools and doctoral programs are institutionally set up in order to place students into law careers and university teaching positions and that students by and large attend these programs for this purpose. This is why students pay incredibly close attention to rankings of law schools and doctoral programs: because they are concerned about their ability to get a job upon graduation.

    On the other hand, I don't necessarily go so far as Prof. Leiter does (depending on what his position is). As someone with an MA who is transitioning into another career, I will most likely never teach philosophy as a tenured professor. That said, I have no regrets for my BA or MA in philosophy, and I wouldn't mind for the inherent value that I would find in it at some point actually getting a PhD in philosophy. I wouldn't want all PhD programs below a certain threshold to close just because students there don't have a viable chance at the job market. (On the other hand, I do find motivations suspect when programs take a very successful MA program and add on a PhD program. So while I may not want them closed because people may still find value in getting a degree from those places, I do think there is something ethically troubling when a program decides to further saturate the market with graduates they know won't be competitive. I don't understand why a program would decide this would be a good thing. I can only imagine that these programs are somehow financially benefiting. But perhaps I am wrong.)

    Reply
  28. Daniel M. Johnson

    I enthusiastically agree — even if Leiter is correct that there should be fewer Ph.D programs in philosophy (and I suspect he is to some extent), I think the biggest need for change is those Ph.D programs' ideas about what careers they are training their students for. There should be more support and direction for graduates seeking non-academic employment. The difficulty with this is that the faculty in these programs are generally unsuited to provide such direction. They mostly all took the R1 tenure-track path, after all. Some perhaps spent time at more teaching-oriented schools. Nearly none went into non-academic employment after their Ph.D.

    I graduated from Baylor's Ph.D program. It is (for the most part) refreshingly free of the hierarchical prejudices about the importance and quality of jobs after the Ph.D (the research school>teaching-oriented SLAC or regional public>CC>non-academic hierarchy). It also has some (relatively unique, as far as I know) support networks for people seeking alternative job paths. But those support networks come mainly from informal ties to alumni, often passed down through the grapevine among the graduate students, not primarily from the faculty. It is the alumni who have made their way successfully into careers outside the university that can be of help, much more so than the faculty in the program. So that's a concrete suggestion: reach out to those alumni, invite them back to talk to current graduate students, tie them to the current program somehow, and employ them as guides and support for current students who want to take a similar path. I suspect this will mainly work for Ph.D programs whose alumni feel a strong emotional connection to the program, which may be unusual. (Baylor stands out here; most of the alumni of its philosophy Ph.D program are devoted to it even years afterward because most had such a wonderful experience due to its vibrant, welcoming, tight-knit, mutually upbuilding community. I've never heard of its like in all my conversations with those in the profession from other programs.)

    Reply
  29. Michael Dickson, Philosophy, U. of S. Carolina

    "for which there is dubious need in a job market saturated with PhDs seeking academic employment."

    I thought that we weren't assuming that the purpose of a PhD program was always to train people for the market in question. That assumption would be silly.

    A SERIOUS question is whether programs are honest with their prospective (and adult) students about the nature of the situation that those prospective students are about to enter, and the possible and likely outcomes, and whether the faculty in the program follow up on the picture that they paint for those prospective students. That is a very serious question indeed, and proper commentary on it requires detailed knowledge of how programs handle that aspect of recruitment and admissions.

    Reply
  30. Michael Dickson, Philosophy, U. of S. Carolina

    "I find the response that there are other uses for a PhD in philosophy incredibly disingenuous"

    Just to be clear, my response was not simply that there are other uses for a philosophy PhD, but that, as a matter of fact, many of my former students, and those of my colleagues, both sought and now have jobs outside of academia, and are happy both with their choice to pursue a PhD in philosophy and with their current, non-academic, situation. (This fact happens to be true, as well, of many of my graduate school classmates, who were at a fairly highly ranked institution.) Others have sought, and now have, and are happy with, jobs that involve teaching, but not of the sort that ever appears in JFP (or its successors). A very few have jobs in academia.

    There is no disingenuity (is that a word?) here. I was simply stating a fact. I find it interesting that philosophers apparently find this fact so hard to believe.

    BL COMMENT: This would be more persuasive if the evidence for these claims involved something other than testimony by the Chair of the Department which has been challenged.

    Reply
  31. Michael Dickson, Philosophy, U. of S. Carolina

    I see. It's SO hard to believe that philosophers can get decent non-academic jobs that the more plausible alternative is that I'm lying?

    Recents graduates from our graduate program include:

    * PhD students in philosophy programs other than here
    * full-time instructors at small 2- and 4-year colleges
    * full-time instructor at West Point
    * two ministers (paid)
    * statistician for the State of South Carolina
    * tenure-track position at a small liberal arts college in the northeast
    * Program Coordinator for community education in Boston
    * grant and proposal writer in industry for a company in Colorado

    Of course, that's just more testimony. But then again, it's just testimony all the way down.

    The only reason I bothered to reply is that I hope that some people who want to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy will realize that it really is possible to do so and go on to a career that does not necessarily mimic that of your advisor. Just search for a department and an advisor who understands and appreciates that you are not necessarily seeking to be his or her clone.

    BL COMMENT: I did not think you might be "lying," I did worry that unconscious bias might color how you report outcomes. The relevant question, however, is whether these graduates entered the PhD program with the intention to secure non-academic positions.

    Reply
  32. Christopher D. Boom

    Speaking as an ABD at Tulane, I think it would be an absolute shame if the department were to no longer have a PhD program. I have nothing but positive things to say about my experience in it, and the program has only gotten better during my time here. The faculty is superb, the graduate students are very supportive of each other during the job search and with paper revisions, and there's a constant stream of great moral and political philosophers coming through due to the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs' lecture series and faculty fellows program.

    It's also important to remember that Tulane is a special case due to the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. After all, the 2004-2006 Philosophical Gourmet ranked Tulane as a Group 3 school in Political Philosophy and a runner-up to the Top 50. Given a couple significant post-Katrina faculty losses and a few years of radical restructuring/uncertainty affecting New Orleans universities (not to mention the city as a whole), it was inevitable the PhD program would take some time to recover. But from my perspective, I see no reason to doubt that it will continue to improve.

    Reply
  33. Thomas Mulligan

    I'm quite satisfied with my Tulane education: It's a wonderful school, with a wonderful sense of community, in one of the best cities in the world. If I were offered the opportunity to go back in time and attend NYU instead, would I? I would not, not least because I don't think it would end up making much of a difference in my competence as a philosopher.

    I'd like to make two points:

    First, there is so much slack in the philosophy labor market these days that every graduate student needs to have a backup plan. The data show that pedigree alone is insufficient to carry a student into an academic job. Doubtless many of us have seen this first-hand. And given the state of higher education as I see it, things are unlikely to change anytime soon. Undergraduates thinking about a PhD in philosophy are often told that they should ask themselves "Can I imagine doing anything other than philosophy with my life?" and then go to graduate school only if the answer is "no". This is the wrong question (if you really can't imagine being anything but a philosophy professor, you need therapy–not a graduate education). Instead, prospective students should ask themselves, "Would I enjoy spending the next few years reading philosophy, arguing with my professors and peers, and writing a dissertation?" If the answer is "yes", then however the market shakes out doesn't really matter–those will be years well spent.

    Second, we should consider why students from lesser-ranked programs struggle on the market. Possibility (1) is that they are less meritorious philosophers, either because they were less meritorious going in or because they received inferior training. Possibility (2) is that academic hiring is not meritocratic. Happily, that's an empirical question, and, happily, there is plenty of social science research answering it. The answer is that (2) is true. As it turns out, pedigree is a lousy signal for merit. The two strongest signals are (1) the number of predoctoral publications/citations and (2) how quickly a person finishes her PhD. I have no idea if there are too many PhD programs or not, but I do believe that many of the worries raised here would disappear if we simply didn't make such a fuss over pedigree, and, instead, simply judged each philosopher on her merits.

    Reply
  34. AnonAdjunct

    I'd can't imagine going in to do a PhD unless I wanted an academic appointment. I could see changing my mind before I even hit the job market, but it seems silly to have another goal in mind when starting the PhD program. I know philosophy PhD's are well qualified for a number of non-academic positions, but does the Phil PhD really maximize their likelihood of getting those positions. Are there non-academic jobs where a Phil PhD is more desirable than a Phil MA, or at Phil BA plus work experience, or any one of the alternative paths one could take instead of doing the PhD?

    I'm sure there are some people getting PhD who are either independently wealthy or who just love philosophy enough to justify 5-7 years that could be spend otherwise. There are also people who get MDs but don't want to work in medicine. But those people are rather exceptional.

    Lets be honest here. PhD programs aren't going to start closing anytime soon because so many departments are dependent on graduate student instructors teaching/assisting courses. This in turn worsens the market: more PhDs let departments run with fewer full-time faculty, so few PhDs get hired while more are produced.

    Reply
  35. Chinese Philosopher

    While on the topic of low ranked and unranked programs, I have a serious concern: All of the programs specializing in Chinese philosophy whose faculty have proper sinological training are poorly ranked or unranked in the PGR. What happens to a bright student with a deep interest in Chinese philosophy? S/he is not willing to settle for an East Asian languages and civilizations, literature, or religion department. Should s/he be advised to go to a low ranked or unranked program? Is pursuing Chinese philosophy a path to failure (as defined by those who actually want a job in their field)?

    These are serious concerns, and I'd appreciate any feedback.

    Reply
  36. Joel Dittmer, Missouri S&T

    It appears that most, if not all, the comments are concerned with the well-being of prospective students, as well as of those students who finish with their PhD, and yet alas job prospects are slim for them. This is an important discussion to have. The number of philosophy PhDs being awarded probably triples the number of tenure-track positions available? Yes, a problem.

    Some of the jobs advertised I suspect are close to mine. They are at non-SLAC's, state universities and colleges (not major public research universities), or at public research universities, but with a STEM focus. So, as an assistant professor at one of these places, it's not unlikely you will be the only tenure-track hire, where you advise students (and some of them problematically personal), do independent studies (with very little benefit on either side), serve on numbers of departmental and university committees, teach service courses, and then after all the other paper-shuffling try to squeeze some time together to do some research. (I understand that this sounds like major complaining, and perhaps it is. I, on the other hand, love some of it, and like a lot of it, oh except when you realize that your "academic life" is on the line and you get to spend very little time on research, and not enough time on teaching prep, both of which count more than service.) You might spend a lot of time on "vision and strategy" committees, in order to recruit more faculty and resources, but usually just to stop the accelerating dwindling of your program, and the programs of your fellow comrades in other humanities.

    I think grad departments should be more honest about where their graduates will go, what their academic career will be like, if they are, in fact, lucky to get that tenure-track slot at a non-SLAC, state university/college (not research univ), or research univ with a STEM focus. A "glorious" (not meant ironically) life can await you, but it will be one that looks WAY different than the picture you might have imagined initially in wanting to be a college educator. If you are lucky (and you want to be in the academic realm), this is almost certainly the picture that awaits you if you are out of the top 30 PGR, or out of the "in" in other circles. And that's fine. That is, it's fine that you won't be a rockstar, and that is saved for the top 30 PGR and other "ins"; they are probably more "talented" and after their training, they are probably well more able. And we need rockstars at the cutting edge of research in the field.

    And yet with all that said (sorry!), is there any evidence to suggest that a top 30 (or 15) PGR graduate would be any better at the duties I described at non-SLACs, etc. than say someone graduating from a "marked" program for elimination? I really mean this question in sincerity, and with respect for Brian and the awesome discussion he has started. I could probably, in fact, offer a case that less well-funded, less stable graduate student careers within the more vulnerable departments foster a certain amount of hard-learned, DIY soft skills that is just as good, if not better than, better ranked places. But then, I would just be going overboard!

    Reply
  37. postdoc

    At the university I got my PhD from (ranked Leiter program but towards the bottom) everyone of us (but maybe 1 or 2) wanted a career in philosophy. Those who did not, came to that decision upon realising how impossible it is. They did not enter the program with that mindset. All entered hoping that they might be professional philosophers. There was very little support for us and zero support for non-academic careers– no advice etc.

    I personally find it very hard to imagine more than a small fraction of people applying for a PhD in philosophy who do not have some desire to be professional philosophers. I think there should be room for those who do not want to do it professionally to get PhDs. But at the same time, I worry that many students are mislead and lied to (perhaps unintentionally) about their prospects. I know I was. Of course, some of my cohorts were just delusional.

    Assume there is a large percentage of people applying to PhD programs who do not plan to do philosophy professionally. I wonder then what their plans are and how they arrived at them? Sure, if you have a STEM background, there are other career options for you after the PhD, but the PhD is also not needed for these jobs and may actually hurt one's prospects at obtaining them. I spent the last 5 years working on graduate philosophy and teaching philosophy, publishing in philosophy journals. What are the alternative good career opportunities for me? Yes, I can think of some possibilities, e.g. high school teacher at a elite private high school that offers philosophy. But it is not as if the PhD in philosophy is obvious training for any job but being a professional philosopher. I suspect that those who make their way into other fields do so in spite of the PhD not because of it with few exceptions.

    I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. I'm not talking about a few anecdotal cases. I'm talking about proving with statistics and data that a significant percentage of PhD's in philosophy end up with good well-paying careers outside of philosophy.

    Until this is done, I am very suspicious of any chair or faculty member claiming that their students do not want to be professional philosophers.

    I tend to agree with Leiter that programs with bad academic placement should be shut down.

    Reply
  38. Jacob Archambault

    Here is a suspicion, which others may be in a better position than myself to verify: the increase in the number of PhD programs, as well as the number of students admitted at individual programs, is in many cases a function of increasing undergraduate enrollment at these same institutions, and the need to 1) meet the increased teaching needs arising out of this situation, while 2) increasing, or at least not sacrificing, research productivity. Hence, the increase in PhD students responds to the same causes that have brought about the increasing adjunctification of the academy. As long as pretty much everybody in positions of power (Deans who seek to increase university prestige, administrators whose jobs were opened up by enrollment increases, and tenured or TT professors whose teaching loads are lessened by grad student teaching and TAing) benefits from this, the situation isn't going away. The only way this is changing is if either i) it somehow begins to be in the self-interest of all the aforementioned parties to admit fewer PhD students, or ii) the level of solidarity between tenured and non-tenured teachers at various programs increases in a drastic way.

    Reply
  39. Jennifer A Frey

    Prof. Leiter is suddenly worried about "unconscious bias"?! Come now, that's rich.

    Prof. Leiter, why should your anecdotal evidence about PhD students's intentions, hopes, and desires be given more weight than Prof. Dickson's? Is there reason to believe that your testimony is more credible than his?

    USC is an interesting place, quite different from the other institutions I have been professionally associated with. Down here, I do have students whose main goal in the program is not to be a professor (at the same time, I also have students who are working very hard to get TT appointments, though not at the sort of schools that Prof. Leiter would care about). It's not my job to correct Prof. Leiter's misperceptions of what sort of department we are. I am pushing back, however, against his ideas about what sort of department we should be. Prof. Leiter has a vision of what philosophy is and what higher education in the humanities is, a vision that I and many of my colleagues do not share. His only argument for this vision is that it is what "most students" want, but he has given us no insight into his stunning access into the hearts and minds of most philosophy PhDs.

    BL REPLY: Prof. Frey doth protest too much, as well as making false claims about what I believe. Produce actual evidence that PhD students at SC want nonacademic careers, and that will settle the matter. As another commenter noted, nothing on the dept's homepage suggests anything of the kind.

    Reply
  40. Stephen Krogh

    Throughout my academic career my professors have always been quite candid regarding the nature of the academic job market, starting with my undergraduate studies at Calvin College, and continuing through my MA at Duquesne, up to my current PhD studies at CUA. Thus, I never really labored under the assumption that I will graduate with many (or perhaps any!) TT (or non TT) job prospects crossing before my transom. Has my experience been unusual? I ask, because I've continued my (funded) graduate studies knowing the whole time that they will almost just as likely terminate with a career outside academia as not, but have been more than happy to pursue them nonetheless. While I'm not sure whether CUA would be among the departments some think should abrogate the PhD program, I gather from those listed, e.g., Emory and Villanova, that Duquesne would be, but if my experience is at least somewhat common, then the concerns raised in justification of these programs' dissolution don't seem to hit their mark. If, however, the concern isn't just academic job prospects, but also the quality of education, i.e., if the concern is that students in these programs simply do not enjoy a quality philosophical education, then perhaps the concern could remain live, but then, of course, that latter claim would have to be defended. I'm sure, however, that I am not alone in not wanting to schlep out that dead horse for this discussion. That corpse has suffered enough!

    Reply
  41. Jonathan KVANVIG

    Another advantage of a terminal MA, from my time at Texas A&M. Not only is Brian right about respect for students and their futures, but the best students I have ever had the privilege to mentor were students at A&M when it had no PhD program. I suspect also that the quality of students at top terminal MA programs is better than that at low-level PhD programs and will also compete quite well with the quality of students at PhD programs outside, at least, the top 50 in the PGR. And I suspect we could be even more restrictive than that.

    Reply
  42. Eric Brown

    Once again, it's clear how helpful it would be to have each department post comprehensive placement information, including attrition and what is too often simply called "non-academic" placement. It also seems obvious that our pitch to prospective graduate students, our advising of current graduate students, and our placement procedures for finishing graduate students should match our actual placement record. Some of the departments Brian has identified here might do a far better and fairer job of all this than some of the departments scraping and clawing to be among the winners in various academic markets. But for too many departments, the evidence remains difficult to find. So, while I'm not sure whether there are too many PhD programs in philosophy–if all of us were unimpeachable in providing the evidence and unimpeachable in their pitch, advising, and placement support, would there still be so many able applicants?–I am confident that there are too many programs exploiting their graduate students by misrepresenting the purposes and prospects of a philosophy PhD. I don't know enough to call any of them out, but I would be surprised if they clustered near the bottom of any one ranking of the PhD departments' supposed quality.

    Reply
  43. Brandon Boesch

    Though there have been reports from professors in my department, there seems to be some residual doubt about the conclusions among many of the comments. Let me speak as a PhD graduate student at the University of South Carolina and try to remove a bit of this doubt. (Of course, I speak only for myself, though my suspicion is that many of my colleagues feel similarly.)

    1) I do not feel that I have been, in any way, deceived! I do not feel that my professors have tried to hide anything about the horrible status of the job market. They have not made promises of TT jobs. They have not hidden that the likelihood of an academic job is lowered at SC. In fact, my first semester, I distinctly recall a professor saying something like: "If you can be happy doing anything else, go do it. You should be here only if you will not be happy doing anything else."

    2) Though I am still aiming at an academic career, I am fully prepared to pursue other options. The professors in this department have been encouraging and supportive for others who have made these choices, and I fully suspect that they would do the same for me, if/when I choose to pursue a non-academic career.

    3) The suggestion that an academic career is outside of my reach in virtue of my getting a PhD at USC and not a top-50 PGR is alarming (at best), if only because it suggests that academic hiring is made primarily by pedigree, and not in virtue of one's philosophical abilities (published work, future academic promise, teaching record, etc.) If philosophical abilities are what truly matter, then presumably the school one attends should matter only insofar as it helps demonstrate these abilities. And while I do not doubt that there is some important connection between these things, I suspect that there are other, far more telling parts of an application.

    4) Quite apart from this: even if I never do anything remotely related to philosophy after my time here, I am quite pleased that I have the chance to spend a fair portion of my life devoted to studying questions and issues that truly grip me. How many are so lucky? Further, I am able to do so in a wonderful environment, with advisors who are both well-respected in their areas and immensely supportive of me and my research.

    Reply
  44. Anon "success story"

    A couple thoughts:

    1. I went to a top 20 program and left academia after getting my PhD. An unscientific study of my cohort indicates that about 25% of our incoming classes finished / finished in a reasonable time (i.e. in less than 8 years) and of those about half got good jobs within 5 years (full time teaching positions at a college or university).

    Those are pretty hideous odds if you think of the PhD as a professional certification.

    2. I have a good career outside of academia but my PhD has not helped that in any direct way. Of course I picked up incredible personal resources working through a dissertation in terms of organization and rigour but the private sector is not much of a meritocracy and so that only has marginal benefit. At the end of the day, to have a good career in the private sector you have to learn valuable (i.e. to the market) skills, network and build a resume. The PhD will impress some people but some will resent it or be intimidated by it and most won't really know what to make of it. We all are smart people with college degrees. I think your chances in the private sector are driven by that more than anything else

    Lastly, I'm glad I did my PhD and went in knowing the academic job market is terrible. I did the degree as I wasn't overly obsessed with my career (in academia or out) as defining my life and thought it was something worth doing as an end in itself. My impression, however, is that I am in the minority.

    Reply
  45. Christopher Frey

    My first year class at Pitt was 11 people (a large year). 5 came out the other end with TT jobs. Did anyone say that less than half of us would end up with a TT position? Well, no one could have guessed that precise number, of course. But besides some generalities about the difficulty of the job market, nothing was ever said that would puncture the (unwarranted) presumption that being admitted to a top program meant that one would likely complete the PhD and get a TT job.

    I think the real issue isn't that there are too many PhD granting programs. It is that most PhD programs, including many highly ranked programs, do not make it sufficiently clear to the students they admit what their prospects realistically are. We do so at our program. In fact, we do a better job conveying this message than the other programs I have been a part of.

    Of course, Prof. Leiter has also insinuated that one of his main concerns is not placement of students, but quality of faculty; some programs just don't have what it takes to train PhDs. But if that is his concern, I think the list of programs he has singled out is radically mistaken.

    BL COMMENT: Just to reiterate something noted in the earlier post about the overproduction of PhDs, I believe all programs should admit fewer students.

    Reply
  46. Mike Austin

    In my experience, it is often students from schools like the Univ. of South Carolina who are ideal candidates for what the majority of professional philosophers do in this country, namely, teach. And many of them with 3/3 and 4/4 loads also do excellent research under the pressure of a schedule that people at more prestigious schools could not handle. I'm chair of the EKU Philosophy & Religion department, and would especially welcome applications to any position we might have from students who complete a PhD from USC.

    Reply
  47. Adam Omelianchuk

    Prof. Leiter,

    I echo everything Brandon said. Here's my two cents.

    Let's suppose you are right and that the redundant programs (as I shall call them for the sake of argument) you list are ill-equipped to help fulfill the intentions of those of us who would like to retain an academic post some day. I can't speak for everyone, but I think those of us who attend the redundant programs know full well that the odds of achieving the goals we set at the time we matriculated are against us. Indeed, we were warned about going the route we went, but we also know the odds are against just about everyone (Yes, there are those rare individuals who can write their own ticket). And yet many of haven't dropped out or given up. Why? Are we just plainly irrational to not act out of self-interest and quit? I don't think so, because many of us reset our goals and revaluate our educations in light of other values that are perhaps intangible, but no less important for a life well-lived. If we get lucky, then so much the better. More practically, many of us do not see our education as a liability, and as Prof. Dickson has noted, it is an asset in many ways that go beyond the academic confines of "the profession." Maybe this comes from a bias as I come from a place where I am happy to be doing professionally what I have always wanted to do — if I only get 8 years to do it (3 years at terminal MA program and 5 in a "redundant" doctoral program), then so be it. Perhaps that is gushingly naive, but I spent a number of years in the working world before getting into philosophy, and I would not feel bad about having to return to it (though no one should hire me as a welder!). After all, I could read and write about whatever I wanted and wouldn't have to live to impress other philosophers higher than me on the academic totem pole (something I was already doing in my working world days). I would think those struggling to find their place in the academy would find that enviable, but to each their own, I suppose.

    Reply
  48. Anon recent PhD

    As a recent graduate of one of the programs called out by name, I would like to add my (quick) thoughts. First, Brian is correct to call it out: outside of one specialized area, no one other than myself has achieved a TT job in years. Had I understood the terrible placement track record and the way in which the school is assessed by other philosophers, I would have left after the MA. And I have a TT job!

    The difficulty of seeing your program called out is nothing compared to that of watching talented colleagues struggle year after year to get an academic job. Attempting to overcome a program's negative reputation is nearly futile given how many other candidates are on the market. And, one should question the amount of job-search support you'll get from a program that is so accustomed to not placing students (and of covering over that information).

    Of course, there is more to say – but I'm off to teach (luckily).

    Reply
  49. one of those "non-academic employments"s

    "Lastly, I'm glad I did my PhD and went in knowing the academic job market is terrible. I did the degree as I wasn't overly obsessed with my career (in academia or out) as defining my life and thought it was something worth doing as an end in itself. My impression, however, is that I am in the minority."

    +1. I also went to grad school to talk about philosophy for a few years, and, if I got lucky, to grow a bit as a person. Made about as much money as my friends working at a gas station or washing dishes, and I had a life which worked well for me during my twenties. I was always grateful to be doing what I was doing regardless of what I’d get into next. I know many students don't feel this joy and gratitude, but then I wonder why they bother staying.

    What's "shameful" isn't that there are too many phd programs that all admit too many students, but that within them only one kind of life is really valued. The not-so-implicit message we've all felt is that if you don't make your money teaching philosophy, you are a failure. This is done both in subtle ways (like cognitively joining the whole variety of what most people do as "industry" or "business" or "private sector" or, ugh, "non-academic employment") and not so subtle ways (in fact only socializing with other academics).

    Given that many people in academia have spent their whole lives in the system, it's always worth emphasizing that you don't need to be employed as a philosophy teacher for "doing philosophy" to be a defining part of your life. I have a full time job in tech and continue to actively read and tentatively write about philosophy even though it will never win me professional advancement. But! I would never have reached the point where I could make philosophy a meaningful part of my life without having first went to grad school. If grad school openings were reduced to what the market actually needs, I worry I would never have had that opportunity.

    That said, I actually agree with Brian here that more emphasis should be placed on terminal masters and less on phd. I’d just add that real, concrete steps should also be taken to devalue academia as the sole career path…at least enough to weed out (or save, as the case may be) the many hoop jumpers in grad school who just continue moving toward the next goal they are shown and to help give a more realistic and psychologically healthy view of academic job prospects for the rest.

    Reply
  50. Bruce Brower

    I agree with Brian that there may be too many PhD programs, but as Chair of the Tulane Philosophy Department, I want to defend our program, as a couple of our graduate students have done above. Our goal is to be a relatively specialized program. We lost five members after Hurricane Katrina and are in the final stages of rebuilding. Even after the loss, we retained Oliver Sensen, who works on Kant and ethical theory, Jonathan Riley, who writes on Mill and political philosophy, and Eric Mack, who writes on political philosophy, Locke, and ethical theory. To that group we have added Alison Denham, who works in moral psychology and metaethics, Dave Shoemaker, who works on agency and responsibility along with personal identity and ethics, and most recently, Chad Van Schoelandt, fresh from University of Arizona, who works on political philosophy and the foundations of moral thought. These philosophers work in other areas within ethics and political, so at present six people work full time in those areas. I myself spend about half of my time on metaethics and contemporary contractualism, and our historians do much work in the history of ethics/political. So we have a very, very strong concentration in ethics and political thought, and will continue building on what we have.

    In addition, we have a tie to the Murphy Institute's Center for Ethics and Public Affairs, an extremely well endowed program that does many things of benefit to our PhD students: (1) In any given year, two or three of our graduate students have research positions at the Center. (2) The center brings in, for the full academic year, three full time faculty fellows (on leave from tenure track or tenured positions elsewhere), many of whom teach at other graduate institutions, and all of whom are available for consultation with our graduate students. (3) For the majority of weeks during the academic year, the center brings in speakers in ethics and political philosophy, or sponsors a conference in these areas. (4) Ten of the speakers lead intimate, read-ahead seminars, in which our graduate students participate along with faculty. (5) The three or four conferences put on every year offer further opportunities for interaction, and they include Dave Shoemaker's New Orleans Workshop on Agency and Responsibility, an excellent conference that leads to Shoemaker's Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, now in its third volume.

    In short, while we retain some strenghs in other ares, we believe we offer one of the best educations in ethics and political philosophy. Few large departments have six people who work primarily in these areas, along with several support faculty who work in the same areas. This rebuilding has only recently neared completion, and we will be glad to monitor how our students do on the job market over the next five to ten years and then re-evaluate.

    Finally, I agree with some of what has been said above in favor of positions outside the standard tenure stream. One of our recent graduates, Michael Falgoust, whose dissertation I directed, works in normative issues about intellectual property and technology, and has taken an excellent position at Google as an information technology ethicist. Bill Glod, who worked on paternalism with Eric Mack, has a position as the Philosophy Program Officer at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. One of Radu Bogdan's students, Michael Madary, did a five year non-tenure-track stint at the Vere Project in Europe (see vereproject.eu), now has a book out from MIT, and is only recently back on the job market full steam. So I think people can do well permanently or for many years even if outside of a standard tenure-track position.

    Sorry for the long response, I felt compelled to defend our program. I think it is important that some small programs can achieve strength through specialization.

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

    Reply

Designed with WordPress