Why Are There So Many Marginally Employed PhDs in English?

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran two articles recently on growing unhappiness about a problem Ph.D. students in English at Columbia University face: most of them are not getting jobs, at least not the type they expected to get when starting graduate school. Not a single student finishing the degree in the 2018-19 year received a prompt offer for a tenure track collegiate teaching position. The school asserts that later one of the students got a tenure track position, and a few others got halfway decent opportunities (non tenure track jobs or post-doctoral fellowships), but the “underemployment” rate among these Ph.D. students was extremely high. And this is at an Ivy League school. What about the PhDs at lesser reputation schools say, Indiana University?

Let’s compare the academic world to the Real World—job markets outside of academia in the competitive free enterprise economy. In the Real World, if the price of oil falls from $75 to $35 a barrel because of the fracking revolution, the demand for petroleum engineers will dry up, and kids previously getting $100,000 a year with a bachelor’s degree will suddenly be fighting for a job. Enrollments in petroleum engineering will, perhaps after a couple years lag, fall precipitously. In a few more years, assuming oil prices are still pretty low, the starting salary of new petroleum engineers will have fallen significantly, perhaps to $65,000 a year, and what us economists call a “new equilibrium” will be reached. Markets adjust to handle changing needs for petroleum engineers—and most other occupations.

But the supply of new PhDs in English and other humanities has dramatically exceeded demand at prevailing academic market prices for many years. The market adjustment normally occurring does not seem to be happening. Why? First of all, it typically takes six or more years to get a Ph.D. in English, far more than the typical length period in most disciplines a couple generations ago (it took me less than three years, not extraordinarily unusual in the 1960’s). Students receive support as teaching assistants or fellows and are able to live modestly but comfortably well into their late 20’s. Some borrow tons of money from the federal government, which tends to prolong their stay in graduate school, as professors ask them to stay around an extra year or two to make trivially important revisions to a dissertation that nearly no one is going to read anyway. The typical finishing Ph.D. has literally been in academia for over 20 years and knows no other life—he or she has truly been sheltered, usually with considerable public subsidy, from the real world.

The biggest problem is that schools like Columbia keep taking big new Ph.D. classes—Columbia admitted 19 new Ph.D. candidates right after the relatively disastrous hiring year described above. Why? The faculty want lots of graduates students to keep those annoying undergraduates from bothering them, and also need them to help do research on obscure authors to allow publication of articles in even more obscure journals that no one reads. Federal loan subsidies help fund keeping the students around—and some politician of the Elizabeth Warren genre may successfully get all those loans forgiven soon anyhow.

Things will get worse before they get better, and hit other disciplines equally hard, as enrollments tumble and outside support from governments and private donors shrink as the public grows increasingly fed up with higher education—its inefficiencies, its increasing capitulation to the interests of radical left students who are more ideologically than academically oriented. Ph.D. enrollments in the humanities, social sciences and related disciplines (e.g., music, communications) SHOULD decline, sharply, and probably some marginal Ph.D. programs should close, a move bitterly resisted by faculty wanting the prestige of teaching in graduate programs and the perks associated with having glorified serfs doing their dirty work (teaching beginning survey courses, for example). State governments should review their funding of many graduate programs not receiving strong external research funding (those in the hard sciences or engineering.)

What will happen? As the Bard once said, “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” English departments seem determined to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”

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High Schoolers Raise Money to Give Janitor a New Truck

Travis Kennedy worked at the school for over 22 years and didn't realize his impact.

“The work of a custodian may not appear glamorous, but Travis Kennedy has become a staple at Jasper High School for his dedication to the work and the students. Kennedy really made an impact on JHS sophomores Sam Hice and Preston Reed.”

“‘I never knew I was living like that. You know, you didn’t know you were impacting them. I didn’t know I was impacting them. But, you know, you got to live truthful. You’ve got to be honest. You have to try to do things right. And I was made to do that,’ says Kennedy.”

“Kennedy makes a 20-mile commute to and from work every day, but he does it with a servant’s heart. The two students noticed that their school’s janitor was getting to and from work in a truck in poor condition. At the same time, they wanted to make their appreciation to Kennedy known.”

The students decided they had to do something. So they started a GoFundMe page in order to help “Travis the Janitor” get a new ride.

“‘Travis the Janitor’ is an honest, hardworking man who deserves much more than just a new truck, but this is a start,” the page stated.

“It’s just so great when they give back to you and show you how much they appreciate you,” says Kennedy.

The students are attempting to raise $20,000 and have already raised nearly $8,000 in just a week!

Hice and Reed say they did not expect the effort to grow as quickly as it did.

“We were hoping it would,” says Hice. “We did not expect it to make nearly $1,000 a day like it has,” says Reed.

Kennedy says he is overwhelmed with gratitude by the gesture. He’s worked at JHS for 22 years, and says he didn’t realize what an impact he was making on the students.

Hice and Reed first encountered the custodian during their 8th grade year. Since then, Kennedy says they always make an effort to greet him.

“He’s a great example of the ‘Viking Way’ here at Jasper- which is summed up with humility, and he is always working with a smile, just hard-working and when you come up to him and say ‘Hey!’, he will always tell you something about the gospel, a great quality to have, and that’s what stood out to me,” says Reed.

“They run through the halls and ask how I’m doing, and I just say ‘I’m blessed’ and ‘I love y’all’.”

The students told Kennedy what they were doing and why in this heartfelt video taken by JHS principle Jonathan Allen. The video brought Kennedy to tears.

A local car dealership has even gotten on board. Carl Cannon Chevrolet Buick GMC in Jasper offered to match GoFundMe donations up to $10,000.

The students started the fundraiser on National Custodial Workers’ Recognition Day.

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The West Australian Government will ban students from using mobile phones in all public schools in a major push to reduce distraction and focus on learning

The ban, announced today by Premier Mark McGowan and Education Minister Sue Ellery, will come into effect from 2020.

The prohibition on phones will take effect during school hours, beginning from the time students arrive until the end of the school day, including before school and during break times.

"We want to create the best possible learning environment for WA kids and our policy will allow students to focus on their school work without the distraction of a mobile phone," Mr McGowan said.

With no phones, life returns to the schoolyard

The "off and away all day" policy comes after consultation with schools such as Ocean Reef High School that already had successful guidelines in place for controlling access to mobile phones.

Principal Karon Brookes said despite initial resistance from some students, the ban immediately reduced disruptions in the classroom and increased interaction in the schoolyard.

"Teachers felt that at every change of lesson, they weren't dealing with students and reminding them, prompting them to put away their phones," she said.

"But we also noticed this growing noise in the yard … students were actually talking, laughing and engaging with each other."
Ms Brookes said the school set up extra activities at recess and lunch breaks to help students get used to the new policy.

One Year 11 student at Ocean Reef Senior High School, ZJ Tan, said the ban had paid dividends. "We are not distracted by notifications, so we are more focused in class and we are aware of what homeworks are given out [and] when assignments are due. So grades have improved," she said.

The ban restricts the use of mobile phones, smart watches, earbuds, tablets and headphones unless students are under the instruction of a staff member.

Students from kindergarten to Year 6 will not be permitted to have mobile phones in their possession during the school day.

Students from Years 7 to 12 must have their phones turned off during school hours and kept off and out of sight until the end of the school day.

Additionally, under the new policy, smart watches must be set to airplane mode.

Mr McGowan said exemptions to the policy would be made for students with special circumstances, including those who needed to monitor a health condition, were under the direct instruction of a teacher for educational purposes or had teacher permission for a specified purpose.

Education Minister Sue Ellery told ABC Radio Perth the ban, which had been trialled at six secondary schools, had been relatively well received. "Most of [the students] said they found it useful to have a break," she said. "Some of them whinged a little bit, but nobody said that it was completely unreasonable."

Ms Ellery said teachers would also be allowed to give students permission to use their phone — for example, to take photos of work on whiteboards or to confirm shifts with employers.

She said while other states pointed to the rise of cyberbullying as motivation for similar bans, that was not the case in WA.

"I don't know that it will do that of itself, because most of that happens actually outside of school hours," she said.

"But if this policy helps kids form the habit of having a break and knowing that the world isn't going to end, the sky isn't going to fall down, if you're not on social media 24/7.
"That will probably help with cyberbullying as well."

Ms Ellery said the response at Ocean Reef Senior High School, one of the schools to have trialled the ban, gave her confidence the change would be a success.

"When they introduced the policy at the start of last school year, they were amazed," she said. "They hadn't anticipated the level of noise in the playground at lunchtime because kids were actually talking to each other."

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