All posts by Katina Rogers

Responses

P. Morgan: How Will the MLA Support Implementation?

In a thorough and thoughtful critique of the Task Force Report, Paige Morgan writes:

What steps will the MLA take next in order to support these recommendations, and help Ph.D. programs implement them?

I am of course aware of the various guidelines that have been created – for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media, and for Institutional Support of and Access to IT for Faculty Members and Students. I appreciate those guidelines – and yet, I remember very clearly how opaque they were to me as a fairly new digital humanist, even 3-4 years back – so I wonder how they read to other academics who are new to digital humanities. I think that alone, the guidelines are far from sufficient to help departments make the transitions that have been proposed. Making such transitions will involve careful thinking about scaling up, and making incremental changes that support further adjustments.

Read the full post (part 1, part 2) on Morgan’s blog.

Paige Morgan recently completed her Ph.D. at the University of Washington in the Department of English and Textual Studies program.

Responses

B. Mangrum: Importance of departmental action

Ben Mangrum writes:

Post warnings and statistics on department websites, the Doctoral Study report recommends; inform students about the uphill battle for tenure; discuss honestly during the first year of graduate study the prospect of an adjunct career. For one, this recommendation places an ethical obligation upon departments to create awareness about the state of academia, which (although by no means a panacea) seems right. This strategy also gives departments a concrete avenue for staking out ground within the unfavorable, changing academic landscape. If a department provides concrete examples of its training for both academic and non-academic careers, as well as specific numbers about its placement record, this kind of “candor” could cultivate more transparency for both prospective and current students, who often view the job market as some veiled and ominous force.

Read the full post at Ethos Review.

Ben Mangrum is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.