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title, date, permalink, tags
| title | date | permalink | tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limit Case | 2024-03-09T09:41:28-05:00 | /limit-case/ |
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I argued back in Planned Obsolescence that the limit case of scholars' belief in collaboration was the co-authored dissertation; if we could not imagine such a thing -- how it would work, how it would be assessed, how it would be valued and rewarded -- we would at least unconsciously maintain the pre-eminence of the individualistic single-author/Great Man mode of production within the academy.
I raise this because yesterday in a department meeting, in which we were discussing professional development opportunities for graduate students, it occurred to me that the limit case of our belief in alternative career paths -- trajectories that lead outside the classroom, into a range of roles on and off campus that make use of the skill set developed in PhD programs but not in ways that replicate the careers of PhD faculty -- might be whether we could imagine admitting a candidate whose statement of purpose described such a path. An application like this might describe how the candidate's passion for the study of literature or art history or philosophy and their desire to see that knowledge do work in the world lead them to want to build the knowledge base and skill set necessary to work in a nonprofit organization, or a foundation, or a secondary school system, or anywhere else we might imagine.
How would we respond to such an application? Would we think you don't need a PhD to do that, or that's not what a PhD is for? Or would we see the benefit of helping prepare a student to take the ways of reading, writing, and thinking that we believe are important out beyond the walls of the academy to do that work in the world?
If we have a hard time imagining how we would support such a student, how we would assess their work, how we would see the opportunity to support them as an opportunity rather than an uncomfortable fit, we are at least unconsciously maintaining the assumption that the academic job market is the natural outcome of the PhD program, and thus ensuring that other career paths can only ever be Plan B.