Atlanta University launched its doctor of arts in humanities programs almost 40 years ago, and, since the 1988 merger with Clark College, Clark Atlanta University has continued to award the degrees. This fall, for the first time, its students will be able to earn Ph.D.s in humanities instead.
This is an exciting change that should make our students more marketable,” says Dr. Bettye Clark, dean of graduate studies at Clark Atlanta. “In DAH [doctor of arts in humanities] programs around the country, there’s been a whole lot of research and talk about students wanting the Ph.D. degree and feeling that the Ph.D. degree — just by the nature of a Ph.D. degree — would make them even more marketable.” The same goal is behind other changes occurring in humanities Ph.D. programs, whose graduates have long struggled to land positions on college faculties, more so in the current weak economy.
“I would say that graduate schools all over the country are doing interesting things to make the humanities Ph.D. more marketable in many ways, more relevant to current needs,” says Dr. Debra Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools.
Stewart says the changes include training humanities doctoral candidates to meet the teaching and service requirements of junior faculty positions, promoting interdisciplinary collaborations between different academic fields and building relationships with alternative employers, such as businesses and cultural institutions.
“The graduate schools themselves, I think, are very engaged in trying to better prepare humanities Ph.D.s for the wide range of jobs that exist,” Stewart says.
The University of Colorado Boulder has gone so far as to halve the length of its Ph.D. program in German to four years, making it a better value proposition for loan-burdened students.
The HBCU Experience
