For those of us thinking about tenure-track employment, the actual salaries of faculty members can be a bit of a mystery.
To learn more about what faculty members earn at institutions of higher education across the country, check out The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “What Professors Make” database.
Rob Jenkins explains why prejudices against teaching at community colleges have no place in today’s job market in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education:
Finding a full-time teaching job at a community college is not necessarily any easier than finding one at a four-year university. And a community-college career is not for everyone. But when you consider that two-year colleges enroll nearly half of all American undergraduates and, correspondingly, offer nearly half of the available full-time teaching positions, does it make any sense to ignore that job market altogether?
For more information about the academic job market click the “professional development series” tag at the bottom of this article or the Professional Development tab at the top of this page.
In The Chronicle, Gary DeCoker shares what the most competitive applicants for his department’s recent tenure-track search did in their cover letters. To see models of cover letters (written by a GC History Program alumnus now on the tenure-track) that led to AHA interviews last year, see our academic job search resources and models.
David D. Perlmutter gives an academic job search application checklist in The Chronicle. To learn more about the documents most often required for tenure-track job applications in History this year, read our post on “What’s in a Tenure-Track Job Application?”
From The Chronicle of Higher Education:
“Far from the stereotype of the Ph.D. baristas at Starbucks, career-outcome data (see charts for each of the four institutions here) shows that history Ph.D.’s are thriving in a versatile range of careers. If we remove those who are deceased (2 percent) and those for which there are no data available (3.75 percent), then 27 percent are working in a range of industries other than academic research and teaching. (The remaining proportion at the four institutions ended up in temporary part-time, non-tenure-track, or postdoctoral appointments.)
Some of the history Ph.D.’s can be found working in areas where we would expect to find them: higher-education administration, publishing and editing, high schools, museums, government agencies, and public-history sites. They are researchers, consultants, and editors. One Ph.D. from Ohio State University is a vice president and corporate manager of a heavy-metal-equipment manufacturing company. Some are active-duty military officers. Many have successful careers as independent historians and scholars. Others run small businesses that specialize in everything from editing to organic food. Several decided to pair their doctorates with additional degrees to become lawyers, politicians, and librarians.”
The History Program’s Professional Development Blog Series is looking to feature more information about careers outside of academia, so tell us in the comments if you would like to share your experience or if you’d like to hear about a specific career path taken by an alumnus.
