Crisis on Campus_ A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities - Mark C. Taylor [13]
A divisive conflict of the culture wars of the 1980s, the one between senior tenured faculty members on the one hand and, on the other hand, junior nontenured faculty members and young graduate students, had been simmering for several decades. More diverse young people brought with them interests and values—including those shaped by the sixties—that differed from those of their older colleagues. But more important, because of an economic downturn in 1970, many jobs in higher education disappeared. The issue of employment, which has, of course, always been a major concern for young people considering graduate school, suddenly became urgent. I clearly remember sitting in John Maguire’s office a few days after Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, discussing my future. I had decided to pursue a doctorate and was considering three schools. My professor, whom I trusted completely, counseled, “It doesn’t matter what you decide. They are all good programs. Get your degree and you’ll have more job offers than you know what to do with.” When I went on the job market in the fall of 1972, there were only three jobs in modern Western religion, which is one of the broadest possible areas of expertise, in the entire country. The situation has not improved significantly since then.
I have often wondered why nobody saw the collapse of the job market coming. Looking back, some of the reasons for the downturn are obvious. The end of the post–World War II expansion of colleges and universities led to a decline in the demand for new PhDs. Having grown too quickly during the sixties, schools had young tenured faculty members who weren’t going anywhere for a long time; indeed, some of these people are still teaching. In addition, the continuing war in Vietnam and the mounting expense of President Johnson’s Great Society programs combined to create pressures throughout the economy. When the oil crisis hit in the early 1970s, it was the last straw for overextended college and university budgets. Presidents turned down the thermostats, told everybody to put on an extra sweater and stopped hiring.
But not all aspects of the academic economy conformed to market principles. Even though the demand for PhD graduates dried up, the supply did not adjust to the new realities. After a decline from 1975 to 1985, the number of PhDs granted began increasing until it returned to the early 1970s level, a decade later.
Universities supported this irresponsible policy because they could not afford to cut back on graduate students—they had created a system in which this cheap labor was needed to teach undergraduates and do research in the labs of tenured faculty members. The job situation varied from field to field; it was best in some of the natural and social sciences and worst in the arts and humanities. But overall, the situation was daunting; even the graduates of the best programs in the country often could not find jobs.
Faced with escalating financial problems, universities sought new revenue streams, and graduate students developed strategies to defer the inevitable. In the late 1960s, some universities and private foundations became concerned about the length of time graduate students were taking to complete their doctorates. In an effort to expedite this process, they created incentives to get students in and out of doctoral programs in five years. When the economic crisis of the early 1970s hit, many schools began to rethink these initiatives and reverse course. Instead of helping students finish their work quickly, many universities required candidates to complete a master’s degree before starting their doctoral work. This practice, which still continues, increased both the cost and the length of graduate education. In many cases, universities do not give fellowships for master’s programs and