Ellen MacKay
As a consequence of our participation in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate (2002–05), IU’s English PhD program (http://www.indiana.edu/~engweb/gradStudies/index.shtml) launched a new curriculum (2009) and exam structure (2006). The ambition of the department was twofold: to shorten the time to degree and to train graduate students to succeed in a discipline increasingly structured by shared methods and practices and untethered to a predetermined set of objects. Both changes, curricular and exam-based, resulted in the revitalization of a largely disused course format: the practicum or workshop.
The old exam structure required students to elaborate a critical problem during their comprehensive exams, thus laying the groundwork for the intervention of the dissertation, but research revealed students were not proceeding efficiently to the prospectus stage. To prevent this slowdown, the new exam has two parts, across a fairly strict time line: students now take the first leg of the comprehensive exam, an oral coverage exam, in the September following the completion of course work. If they pass, they proceed in January to a semester-long prospectus workshop, which walks them through the process of writing and revising the dissertation prospectus. In May, students defend the prospectus in a second oral exam and begin drafting the dissertation during the summer. The workshop, led by the director of graduate studies, is an opportunity to discuss disciplinary norms (particularly as they relate to publication and productivity), as well as to survey the range of intellectual activities that can comprise the dissertation and the field more largely. It is therefore a vital site of professionalization. It is also an enhancement to efficiency; preliminary data analysis show that this new system has reduced time to degree by eight months.
The curricular changes are best expressed in the preamble to the revised course structure:
Rather than define our curriculum in terms of content and coverage, we organize it in terms of practices. The teaching of literary history remains a central component of what we do, but our newly revised curriculum re-inflects each level of course-work according to the wide range of practices we currently perform as academics. The set of courses offered at the 500-level are characterized by their hands-on focus on various practical and technical skills needed for a successful professional career. Our 600-level offerings are focused on various practices of reading in various fields (literary-historical period, theoretical approach, form and genre). Our 700-level seminars are focused on the practice of advanced research in the discipline.
The 500-level offerings thus far include a course on archival research and curation (in IU’s rare book and manuscript library), cultural research methods and the digital turn, the art of the review, writing about performance, and “how to write an article for a scholarly journal,” the last a smash success—three-fourths of the students enrolled have successfully placed an essay in their top-ranked journal. At a moment in which tenure-track jobs are dwindling and students are looking beyond traditional employment options, these courses offer students training that is translatable into a wider market, while simultaneously enhancing their readiness for the academic job market.