Sigaba

The difference seems to be that you told a story about your journey to the House of Klio centered around personal growth and developing interests rather than offering a narrative that could be interpreted as defensive. Also, from what you've previously posted,  your personal history is compelling.

I don't know if doubling down on your attack on someone doing his level best to make a good decision makes your post any more credible.
IME at Cal, most of the instruction of upper division courses was done by graduate students. It was my understanding that this practice was common throughout the College of Letters and Sciences. If your experience was different, please share that information. 
Also, if one were to spend an appreciable amount of time reading on this BB, one will find myriad examples in which aspiring graduate students learn that professors view their responsibilities differently.
 
 

Based upon your previous posts, my guess is that you're having a hard time communicating with members of your department generally and your advisor is seeking to avoid any misunderstanding.
I would double check your school's policy and the state's laws on single party consent for recording conversations. If the recordings are above board, I would think about how to phrase your questions and concerns about being recorded. I would also consider taking very good notes or recording the conversations as well.
 
 

The difference seems to be that you told a story about your journey to the House of Klio centered around personal growth and developing interests rather than offering a narrative that could be interpreted as defensive. Also, from what you've previously posted,  your personal history is compelling.

The Bronx ranks fifth and third among American counties for COVID-19 confirmed case and deaths, respectively. Fordham, like other schools in New York is in limbo -- trying to prepare for the next term without knowing if in person instruction will be allowed.
While I can understand the frustration of not knowing one's status, I think it is important to keep things in perspective. The challenge you face is figuring out where you'll be going to grad school. The challenge people who work and live in the Bronx face is staying healthy.

Re: Low GPAs and PhD applications
Hello everyone and welcome to those new posters. 
I want to say something to be clear about low GPAs and your urge to explain your performance. The place that you would have room for doing this is your SOP. Do not explain your GPA. Your SOP is not a story about you and the difficult semester you had. Trust me, it took me six years to finish my BA. 
The SOP is about your research: the questions that move you, the topic that you are interested in, and how these questions and these topics fit with the school you are applying to. Now, and this is very important, if something that happened to you, if something you went through, speaks to, informs, underpins your research, then you might as well talk about it. However, talk about it not in the melodramatic tone of "this happened and I got this GPA" but rather "this happened and this is what I did". The first one is defensive, the second is assertive. You want to be assertive. 
I say this based on experience. My initial SOPs were a weepy complaint of how horrible my thesis committee had been in my defense. They truly had been vicious and tanked my GPA (well, I thought so, even though it went down just a tiny bit). Thanks to a mentor and a looooooot of work, I turned my whining into something along the lines of "I incorporated the comments from the thesis committee in three published articles" (articles were, of course, my proud moment in the CV). Sounds better, right? 
 So, do not feel you owe anyone an explanation. Nobody is checking if your GPA went suddenly down in sophomore year Spring semester (actually, if someone is checking that, you don't want to work with that person). Just talk about your research, this is what get you in doctoral programs. 
My two cents. 

Seen by whom? IMO, generally accepted practices are not automatically best practices.

I am not sure that I agree with your argument that a professor or other person with power is bound by your past when it comes to making decisions about their future.

IME, decision makers form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions notwithstanding the previous work or recognition of a person under consideration. I have witnessed a department pulling the plug on a plan to offer an endowed chair to a MacArthur fellow,. That was followed by pulling the plug on another MacArthur fellow. In both cases, the individuals stepped on toes in very subtle ways.
I can think of two historians who were denied promotion. An assistant professor was fired because she appeared to pick family over "publish or perish." This decision would not have been made without the advocacy of the department chair and other women in the department. An associate professor was denied promotion because the decision makers determined that  his most important work looked like a coffee table book even though it was an entry in one of his field's most prominent series. His community rallied to him to no avail.

Not historians, Don Nakanishi was initially denied tenure at UCLA in 1987 and Lorgia García Peña was denied tenure at Harvard last year.
Ultimately, every person of color must decide which tools of accommodation and resistance to use. What I find controversial is that you're offering  guidance in absolute terms ("always"). And while that guidance is experience based,  you are much closer to the start of your journey than the midpoint.
IMO, graduate school in history transforms people in two ways. First, one goes from being a novice to someone who can create new knowledge.
Second, one receives information  on how to be a professional academic. It has been my observation that it is rare for professors to stand on someone's head and then train a graduate student on how to differentiate among what is desired, what is needed, and what is necessary. Instead, the information is communicated with increased subtlety -- an ethereal  remark in the margin of an assignment or draft, a slow nod delivered with a slight smile and a glimmer in the eyes. After that, it can appear one is getting what one wants when something else may be happening.
Sometimes, it is years later over dinner and drinks that one can throw back one's head and laugh "Oh, so that's what you meant..." But before then, one can spend time stepping on toes when, sometimes, an "Excuse me, may I..." followed by a closed door conversation (or two) can turn an obstacle into a stepping stone or an opponent into an ally.
$0.02/YMMV

Your subject line is actually unclear.  Remember, in English, "you" can be used as a singular or plural.  The POI, a very busy department chair, may read the subject line and interpret it that you're interested in the program (i.e. working with you guys!).  If the POI did in fact open the email and see that you have made explicit connections to his work and inquiring whether he is accepting students for fall 2021, and then forwards the email on, he may (a) be socially inept (not unusual), (b) think that the DGS can handle all of your questions until to the point where s/he can longer do so and forwards the email back to the POI, or (c) all of the above plausible reasons.
I would politely respond to the DGS and say that you are excited about the program, ask whatever questions you have, and inquire whether this POI is taking students. Go from there and see what happens.

Seen by whom? IMO, generally accepted practices are not automatically best practices.

Seen by whom? IMO, generally accepted practices are not automatically best practices.

Welcome to the GradCafe

I recommend that you hold still on the reaching out for at least sixty days. COVID-19 has turned the Ivory Tower upside down, especially at public institutions.
During the interval, see what you can find about the institution's financial position and plans for the coming term. Can you find program guides / schedules of classes / other materials that may allow you to sketch out a plan of action in terms of your course work? Can you identify a handful of "must read" books and start reading them?
A second recommendation for immediate implementation is that you change your username to something that allows a very high degree of separation between any future posts you may make here and your personal professional self. Changing your username now is easier than having to remember not to vent when it is time to vent in the venting thread. 

Welcome to the GradCafe

I recommend that you hold still on the reaching out for at least sixty days. COVID-19 has turned the Ivory Tower upside down, especially at public institutions.
During the interval, see what you can find about the institution's financial position and plans for the coming term. Can you find program guides / schedules of classes / other materials that may allow you to sketch out a plan of action in terms of your course work? Can you identify a handful of "must read" books and start reading them?
A second recommendation for immediate implementation is that you change your username to something that allows a very high degree of separation between any future posts you may make here and your personal professional self. Changing your username now is easier than having to remember not to vent when it is time to vent in the venting thread. 

If you are looking for greater independence, you may consider an institution that doesn't offer funding at all. You will sacrifice pedigree for independence, however.
I'm reading a lot about what you want from a programme and how you'd like to be exempt from certain requirements, but I'm not seeing what you bring to the table. What will you contribute? I see you want the programme to give you authority and reputation but you want to maintain distance from it, not become part of it.
When I read what you wrote, I get a sense that you feel you're "above" a lot of these things, due to your prior success and financial situation. Am I reading too much into it?
From this information alone, you don't seem invested in the process enough to be worth accepting as a student. You're obviously more than capable of doing all the learning and work by yourself. The degree is just a way of elevating your status. 

Hello,
Thoughts numbers aside, have you done any primary source research? What are you doing for a capstone project for your MFA? Would you be able to take a graduate-level historiography course in the fall at your current institution? A historiography course will give you a better sense of what it means to practice the discipline of history that will be different from art history (You could transfer that credit but whether it'll help you opt out of the PhD program's historiography course is highly subjective)? Do you have French or German reading knowledge?
Museums are also very difficult to come by-- getting a job in a museum is highly dependent on your network connections. You'd need to find a way to fit in an internship in your extremely busy PhD program to get your foot through the door if you haven't done one already. You'll want to look for a program that has a public history as a field so you can devote some time to reading relevant literature and learn how to communicate with a public audience while most of your coursework revolve around high-level academic conversations with more jargon.
JHU and UNC wouldn't be the first place I'd think for women/gender history at all.  Rutgers, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin definitely do come to mind.  Madison is truly a lovely place to live (though very cold!) with a direct bus ride to Chicago O'Hare or MSP airports. @gsc can give you more pointers as her interests overlap with yours.  Read books and articles on topics of your interest-- where are the scholars based?  Where did they get their PhD from? That's how you develop a list of schools to apply to, not the USNWR, which is outdated.
My $0.02.
 

The most important parts of the application:
1. Fit (this is how you figure out where to apply)
2. Statement of purpose that demonstrates fit, engagement with relevant historiographies, the ability to conceive a dissertation-worthy project, evidence of previous research experience and generally showing you understand what a history PhD is all about. For the SOP to be successful, your project needs to be narrow enough to be a dissertation. From what you've described, I have no clue what your project is about. All I know is geography, time period and the very vague umbrella of "social and cultural history." So you need to really think about the specifics before you can even approach an application. I do, however, recommend demonstrating a level of flexibility; your project will more than likely change as you proceed through the program, and your adviser will more than likely not want to deal with someone who is incapable of accepting that change. This could be as simple as discussing how you started a research project expecting one thing, but the primary sources led you to another thing--as they should! Could also be along the lines of expressing that you look forward to working with Professor Awesome on X method to explore Y and Z and how that may impact your project.
3. Writing sample based on original primary source research, preferably using the methods and tools of the history discipline. I have colleagues and friends who used writing samples in related disciplines because they didn't start out in history. If you do this, you need to explain in the SOP how your experience will elevate/inform your research as a historian. Since you're interested in public history, this should be an easier selling point for you.
To figure out fit, which is central to every application, you need to know the departments to which you apply inside and out. Find 2-3 scholars in the department with whom you could work, whether they are thematically, geographically, methodologically in line with your research interests. You need to show why these scholars make sense as potential committee members. TMP gave great advice on how to find such scholars.  Moreover, you need to show what you bring to the department. How will your research add to the intellectual environment? It's a good idea to consider what resources the university has--any collections in the library that are pertinent to your research? Archives nearby? Also consider what other resources the department can provide. Funding, placement record are very, very important. Any department that won't tell you their placement record is suspicious. You don't want to go somewhere that uses you as cheap labor and is incapable of placing their grads in jobs inside or outside academia. 

Covid-19 has not impacted my plans to to relocate for grad school.  Even though a decision has not yet been made about how classes will resume in the fall, I want to live near campus. I figure there will be some other students around, especially grad students.  Plus it was pointed out to me that one might easily be able to meet one's professors eventually, even if classes are conducted online.  I'll be needing their recommendations to get a job later, and I think meeting IRL is better.

ZeeMore21--
You have misread my post. It will remain as written.

I did not question his field of study. I questioned the purpose of his decision to identify himself first in terms of his gender and his race.

His introduction as written implies that he thinks his skin color and plumbing are more important to his candidacy than what he's done as a history major, and what he wants to do as a graduate student.
The purpose of my question is to provide SBP an opportunity to consider the efficacy of this approach.

As for your closing remark "just for your sake," you might have gotten more traction had you written "for my own sake" or omitted it altogether.

I recommend that you break column B into at least one additional column for degree. Maybe also for department and for program.
I would add columns after "Funding" for analysis of a school's financial health, another for public/private, and maybe another for the number of major sports programs a school has. (Because the revenue generated by hosting major sporting events is a big unknown.) I would also add columns for if a school is in a red state or a blue state as the "culture wars" are likely to heat up over the next couple of years as the bills for the CARES Act come due.
If you want to get into the details over the "current climate of the world" you might add one or more columns for likelihood of four categories of catastrophic events (war, pandemic, natural disasters, economic ruin) so you can figure where you want to be in the SHTF moment. 

A carefully selected mandatory outside field could help. Especially if that outside field dovetails with a primary field. As an example, an outside field that presents opportunities to develop ArcGIS skills that will (ostensibly) used to make maps for one's research projects. Another possibility is to do an outside field in finance with the intent (wink wink, nudge nudge) to develop a skill set that will be valuable when you're a professor sitting on various committees.
I would run the risk assessment on being upfront IRT asking questions about non academic careers especially because of COVID-19. The coming years are going to be especially competitive for anyone seeking funding and support. If two candidates are equally qualified but one is not as committed to the profession as the other, it is not unreasonable to assume that the gate keepers will look more favorably on the true believer will get the nod over someone who is ambivalent. (Disclosure: As a former true believer, I generally had a competitive advantage when it came to admissions, support [including/especially when I screwed up], and, with one critical exception, rapport with professors. Not bitter, though.)
In the event you decide to ask direct questions about non academic jobs, please develop great questions and practice how you will ask those questions as well as the follow up questions. There is a generational divide in the Ivory Tower and it s expanding. This divide can serve as a filter that alters the way questions are heard, if not also how they're asked. Do your best to ask questions that are in your self interest without sounding selfish. One can find numerous threads on the GradCafe that center around how to phrase tough questions. If the existing threads do not provide adequate support, please consider the benefits of asking your questions in this thread.

A carefully selected mandatory outside field could help. Especially if that outside field dovetails with a primary field. As an example, an outside field that presents opportunities to develop ArcGIS skills that will (ostensibly) used to make maps for one's research projects. Another possibility is to do an outside field in finance with the intent (wink wink, nudge nudge) to develop a skill set that will be valuable when you're a professor sitting on various committees.
I would run the risk assessment on being upfront IRT asking questions about non academic careers especially because of COVID-19. The coming years are going to be especially competitive for anyone seeking funding and support. If two candidates are equally qualified but one is not as committed to the profession as the other, it is not unreasonable to assume that the gate keepers will look more favorably on the true believer will get the nod over someone who is ambivalent. (Disclosure: As a former true believer, I generally had a competitive advantage when it came to admissions, support [including/especially when I screwed up], and, with one critical exception, rapport with professors. Not bitter, though.)
In the event you decide to ask direct questions about non academic jobs, please develop great questions and practice how you will ask those questions as well as the follow up questions. There is a generational divide in the Ivory Tower and it s expanding. This divide can serve as a filter that alters the way questions are heard, if not also how they're asked. Do your best to ask questions that are in your self interest without sounding selfish. One can find numerous threads on the GradCafe that center around how to phrase tough questions. If the existing threads do not provide adequate support, please consider the benefits of asking your questions in this thread.

It will depend upon the industry, the firm, and your role. If the criteria for hiring center around the ability to do the job, does a third master's send a better message than experience that demonstrates the ability to handle projects and responsibilities that are more complex over time? Are you seeking employment at a firm that has a critical mass of true believers? If so, a third degree could be used as a razor to shred you.
Are there professional certifications that you could get instead of a third master's degree? Can you take courses / gain experience that expand your skills on a personal professional level?
The pivots themselves could be problematic if they take you to different industries and/or vastly different career paths. Can you point to the pivots as part of a broader plan to provide maximum value to your employers?

I think calling it a "postmodern-leaning establishment" is going to do far more to tank your chances than either your political affiliation or interest in Calvin Coolidge. Like, what does that even mean?
There are certainly party affiliation trends within fields, but as long as you are a good scholar and don't act unprofessionally (which goes for what I presume you call SJW snowflakes as much as it goes for the neo-Nazis), nobody will care.

This can be a real balancing act to pull off. I’ve been ambivalent about academia since I started and tried to straddle both worlds— I’ve fit a couple internships and a very part time (quarter-time?) research assistant/ public history position into my time so far, and my advisor has been very supportive, but in general, I’ve found it difficult to acquire the non-academic work experiences and preparation that I wanted when I entered the program.
In my experience, when you come into a graduate program, there are expectations and claims about how you will spend your time and what the bulk of your energy will go towards: these are dictated by your funding package, by the structure of the program itself, by your advisor and committee, and by the general culture of the program. I think you have to be very forceful, persistent, and organized if you want to override these various claims on your time to do something else (like an internship, or a part-time gig), keeping in mind, too, that some of them (like teaching) can’t really be helped. 
The structure of graduate education often militates against the kinds of things that grad students are often advised to do to prepare for non-academic careers. For example, during the semester, a heavy teaching load will make it difficult to squeeze in a part-time gig and do your coursework or write (which you’ll need to do to finish the program). Summers are incredibly valuable currency and there will be no end of things competing for your time during them: preliminary research to help you figure out what your dissertation should be on, time spent studying for comps, time spent preparing stuff for publication, time spent doing dissertation research, time spent writing dissertation chapters, time spent teaching (you likely won’t get paid in summers, so summer teaching is an important financial lifeline, too). And of course during all this the clock is ticking on your funding package (not to mention, you know, the rest of your life— being a grad student gets old quickly.) So you have to choose wisely, and plan ahead, and think carefully about what you want to prioritize.
I ended up fitting my work experience into semesters where I was not teaching and had already finished my research, or was too early in the program to actually have diss research to do. I was fortunate to have some of these semesters built into my funding package and in other cases I made some of my own: this year I applied for a TAship with a 2-0 teaching load, which made for a busy fall semester and a spring semester free to do a 15 hr/week internship. You might see if you can create these opportunities for yourself during your program: external fellowships, alternative graduate assistantships that aren’t teaching (e.g., working in the campus writing center, or processing manuscripts at the library). (Ask prospective programs about these during accepted student days!)
Also, speaking of visit days, my undergraduate advisors told me to keep mum about my ambivalence towards the academy during prospective visits. This was well-intentioned advice, and there are still advisors and whole programs out there who have not gotten on the alt-ac bandwagon. But in retrospect I might have benefitted from asking my potential advisors up front about whether or not preparing for non-academic careers was something they’d be willing to work with me on, taking the attitude that if it wasn’t, they weren’t going to be a good fit for me anyways. I think in the past five years, and especially with coronavirus, the landscape has changed enough that you can and should freely ask this question. You really, really don’t want to arrive at your program and realize that it’s not going to be supportive of what you need and want.

I very sincerely suggest that you reconsider how you evaluate these kinds of opportunities. To paraphrase JFK, it's not what the profession does for you, it's what you do for the profession.
While a ROI approach to how the Ivory Tower is financed is probably long over due, I don't know if it is sustainable for a graduate student entering a program to gain training to join a profession in which personal relationship are generally vital to one's success. (The exception would be rock stars whose (apparent) virtuosity and charisma allow them to do what they like while being s-birds.)

But if one were to take a ROI approach, the initial fee is a one time payment for $50. Were you to put that into a savings account, in thirty years, your net would be about $1.37.