Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2021-2022 Level: Graduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Major [UG] / Program [Grad]
Program Name: English PhD
Description of Data Collection:
Every candidate has a graduate faculty adviser. Candidates who are teaching also have a teaching mentor. Both write annual reports on the candidates’ progress each year.
Every candidate takes 3 oral exams: a minor field, a major field, and a dissertation prospectus exam. The exams are graded as follows: pass, fail, or pass with distinction.
Exam committees normally consist of 3 faculty members, and the chair of the exam committee reports any problems to the PhD Director.
The PhD Director meets with each candidate one-on-one every summer (and more often if necessary) to assess progress and answer questions. This year the PhD Director met with each candidate virtually or on the phone, at least twice, to check in on their well-being and progress, answer questions, and assure them that the University was doing its best to support them in this difficult time.
Dissertation committees normally consist of 3 faculty members, all of whom must agree that a dissertation fulfills the requirements for the degree.
Candidate CVs are collected in order to keep track of conference presentations, publications, and awards. This year two candidates, Noël Ingram and Julia Woodward, won a Donald J. White teaching award; and Matt Gannon and Laura Sterrett were awarded MCAS Dissertation Fellowships for next year. All PhD candidates are active in presenting their work at virtual or in-person conferences and in publishing academic and/or public-facing work.
This year, five current PhD candidates and recent alumni actively pursued jobs, and two of these won full-time positions. One accepted a full-time position in the liberal arts department at the New England Conservatory (NEC does not have tenure). The other accepted a full-time visiting lecturer role at Mount Holyoke College. From 2011 to 2022, despite the abysmal market for full-time work in English Departments since 2008 and especially since the pandemic, our placement rate into full-time academic positions is 61%. This percentage includes tenure-track and full-time non-tenure-track departmental positions as well as library positions (some of which are tenure-track) and administrative positions, plus hybrids of these categories. Given the increasing scarcity of tenure-track roles, we measure employment statistics using the larger category of “full-time academic.” We find that alumni sometimes need one or more years postgraduation to find that first full-time position, but it happens more often than not. Our 3-year placement rate, 2011–2019, is higher, 66%, as one would expect given this pattern of jobseeking.
Review Process:
The Graduate Program Committee meets each year after Commencement to review the above data, to evaluate the program’s achievement of each learning outcome, and to make recommendations to the whole department for improvement. This year we will continue to discuss possible curricular changes relating to conventions governing dissertations, the formation of exam committees, and equity across fields of study within our discipline. We have also enthusiastically embrace the new internships for graduate candidates the University has begun to offer under the auspices of the Institute for the Liberal Arts.
Resulting Program Changes:
About 15 years ago the program reduced the number of exams and added a dissertation prospectus exam to encourage more rapid completion.
The director keeps statistics on candidates’ progress, publications, fellowships won, and placement into academic or non-academic work after graduation. One change was simply in department discourse about the job market. Despite its challenges, our alumni very often succeed and land in fulfilling careers in academia. We have sought to move from a situation of employment angst to one of cautious, prepared optimism. Part of this has involved bringing alumni back to campus for two well-attended and well-received discussion panels this past year, on “Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Academic Careers” (fall) and “Teaching at Community Colleges” (spring).
The Associate Director of the PhD program is in charge of job market and placement assistance. He or she meets with job seekers individually, reviews job market materials such as CVs, cover letters, and teaching portfolios, and arranges mock interviews. The Director is in dialogue with the Associate Director so that both can be responsive to the changing contours of the academic labor market for English as well as to the particular situations of each jobseeker.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
About 15 years ago the program reduced the number of exams and added a dissertation prospectus exam to encourage more rapid completion.
The director keeps statistics on candidates’ progress, publications, fellowships won, and placement into academic or non-academic work after graduation. One change was simply in department discourse about the job market. Despite its challenges, our alumni very often succeed and land in fulfilling careers in academia. We have sought to move from a situation of employment angst to one of cautious, prepared optimism. Part of this has involved bringing alumni back to campus for two well-attended and well-received discussion panels this past year, on “Full-Time Non-Tenure-Track Academic Careers” (fall) and “Teaching at Community Colleges” (spring).
The Associate Director of the PhD program is in charge of job market and placement assistance. He or she meets with job seekers individually, reviews job market materials such as CVs, cover letters, and teaching portfolios, and arranges mock interviews. The Director is in dialogue with the Associate Director so that both can be responsive to the changing contours of the academic labor market for English as well as to the particular situations of each jobseeker.
Attachments (if available)