bigboybaruch

I do greatly appreciate the insight! But, for those of us in the humanities, there really are not a whole lot of options. Either way, if we stop now, we are going to be working retail (if we are lucky to get a job at all over minimum wage) with our degree(s) in English, German, Religion, Philosophy, and so on. Again, for many of us, there is no pay cut. In fact, a PhD stipend is more money than I have ever made (I'm in my early 30's!). At the end of the day, if I end up spending the next 5-8 years of my life working my ass off at something I love and I can't even get a job teaching High School when it's all said and done, oh well. Again, given our options, and if we secure decent funding at a good program, why the hell not? If I'm going to be working at Taco Bell end game, I might as well get paid while I am earning a PhD before my career making burritos begins. Coming from someone who has spent time making burritos, working totally awful bottom of the barrel jobs, I can absolutely say IT IS WORTH IT. If you're paying for your PhD that is another story, of course. But for most of us, even that meager 15k stipend is pretty goddamn okay. 
 
cheers

Not to nit-pick, but I'm getting paid very, very generously to spend 5-8 years "giving up pay."

This is a modified version of a post I made under the forum "decisions, decisions." 
 
The most important question, I think, you should be asking yourself in this season of acceptances is not which program you should go to, but if you should go to grad school at all.  The history job market is very bleak.  It may well be better when you graduate, but it may well not be.  There are troubling trends like MOOCs that, many people think, will  restructure much of education in a way that will reduce the number of tenure track hires.
 
How bad is the job market currently?  According to Harvard, as of the fall of 2012, only 52% of Harvard PhDs who got their PhD in the humanities from 2006-2011 had an academic job.  (And it looks like, based on some other data they report elsewhere, that about 1/3 of those are in non-tenure-track positions.)  23% were "unemployed and searching."  (Due to self selection bias in reporting, this data probably underestimates the number of unemployed.) [1] And those numbers are those of one of the most prestigious grad schools in the nation.  Here is what Chicago history's numbers look like: https://history.uchicago.edu/sites/history.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/Placement%20Statistics%202002-2011.pdf
 
Many people in history from elite programs, for instance, spend several years after graduating twisting in the wind with low-paid, time-consuming, and short-term lectureships and visiting assistant professorsips before either get a tt job or quitting academia.  If you are really committed to an academic career, you may well be signing up for a PhD + several years of uncertainty and scrapping by after that.  While it is hard to get accurate numbers,  it looks like only 33% of Yale's history cohort of 2012-2013 got a tt-job.
 
Of course not all subfields within history are made the same.  Some of your fields have excellent job prospects; others, terrible.  20C US and Europe after 1789 appear to be the worst.
 
It behooves you to research the matter and think about the kind of bet your are making.  You are giving up 5-8 years of pay, and more importantly, 5-8 years in which you could be launching a different career.  When you graduate at age 30 with a PhD, you will have opened a few doors (for instance, you are an attractive hire for a private high school), but shut many more.
 
I am not saying you should not go.  Personally, I have found getting a PhD immensley rewarding.  But it has also come at a great cost.
 
[1]http://history.fas.h...s-2006-2011.pdf.

So let me get this straight. You are saying that the "issues related to sex and gender based harms/crimes" thread is not the proper place to doubt a woman's testimony. However, everyone has already doubted Ludlow's testimony! Is this only a place for us to assume professors are guilty and that false accusations never happen?

Almost every poster has suggested that he is a sex criminal and man to be avoided, even with a total lack of evidence, but you are upset that I suggested that she might be crazy or a liar?
 
 
Also, Ian, I don't think reasonable skepticism about the validity of a completely unsubstantiated testimony is AT ALL related to problems in some philosophy departments. I don't care if the accuser is a man, woman, or child...it is simply unfair to assume guilt based on a single testimony. It is completely possible that the accuser is crazy or a liar. Do you deny that possibility? Surely you don't.
 
...So are you suggesting that because there are real climate issues in philosophy departments, we ought to show women deference and not question them when they make accusations? Even if we know nothing about the case? That's absurd. That merely creates a new climate issue: it's called a witch hunt. Do you want to practice philosophy in a climate where we jump to conclusions and assume every accusation is true?

I know there is a MASSIVE pressure to white-knight any time a women/sex issue arises. The socially safest thing to do is assume that in every case there is a male professor dominating and taking advantage of a female undergraduate, and then defend to the bitter end that surely this was one of those cases. No evidence? "These issues are hard to prove!" Evidence to the contrary? "That evidence doesn't say anything! I'm going to apply all of my skepticism only to evidence that suggests the testimony was false!" This inconsistency is currently socially valued. If you are ever seen posing some skepticism to a testimony, YOU ARE NOW THE PROBLEM. No. No. Some skepticism is NOT the problem. Waiting to see the evidence before drawing a conclusion is NOT the problem.

 

Cross posting this from the new thread I made on the Ludlow issue:
 

If this evidence of Ludlow's accuser making friendly communication with Ludlow during the time that the accuser was supposedly trying to kill herself/in the hospital and extremely depressed does exist, and it surely does because they are obviously ready to show it in court, then this accusation, as I feared, has done a terrible injustice to Ludlow's name.

Again I say, not every accusation = a terrible person. Not every accusation means you should flee the departments involved. Sometimes accusations are made by crazy people or liars.
 
"Mr. Ludlow denies P's allegations that he sexually harassed or assaulted her. Mr. Ludlow is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit or any lawsuit by P. That, alone, speaks volumes about this case. The authorities have never notified Mr. Ludlow of any criminal complaint nor has he ever been contacted by the police. He certainly has never been charged with any crime, now or ever. Moreover, to our knowledge, there has never been any recommendation by any Northwestern "committee" that Mr. Ludlow be terminated.
 
Mr. Ludlow did not assault P nor did he engage in any inappropriate conduct. We have corroborating evidence that P propositioned Mr. Ludlow. He refused her advances.
We are in possession of communications which show that P initiated friendly communications with Mr. Ludlow the day after and then again four and five days after the date on which she now alleges he assaulted her. Some of these communications were via social media. We also have text messages which show that P was very friendly with Mr. Ludlow on February 15, 2012--five days after the alleged assault--and that she, in fact, asked him to meet with her in person and then came to a conference he was attending, asking him to talk with her. At that time, Mr. Ludlow told her, as he had in the past, that he did not want to be romantically involved with her.
 
On April 24, 2012, P's previous attorneys sent a letter to Mr. Ludlow requesting a "settlement." Mr. Ludlow refused to enter into any type of settlement because he had done nothing wrong. We heard nothing more from P until we learned of the lawsuit she had filed against Northwestern.
 
We encourage the press and people reading the articles arising out of this complaint to remember that there are two sides to every story. We also encourage the press to engage in responsible reporting and not to inflame an already difficult situation. These allegations are very serious and will be dealt with in due course through the litigation process."

I believe that the best way to learn about the climate is to talk to women who are experiencing it.  I think that's the best you can possibly do.  If anyone thinks your request is odd, then that *right there* is evidence of a problem.  They should be ready and enthusiastically willing to help you connect with women in the department.  Any other response is evidence of a problem.

Only 2/20 graduate students is an unencouraging sign. I think Brown has similar issues with representation. Talk to both of those students, philosophe. It's reasonable to talk to former students as well, especially ones who were supervised by the person you're most interested in working with, if there is a such a person. 
 
It's also totally reasonable to ask anyone at the school why there are so few women in their program and what they are doing about it or plan to do about it. Be a little bit wary of explanations that attribute no blame whatsoever to the department ("We make offers to lots of women, but they all end up snubbing us for higher ranked schools!").
 
If you're visiting, ask if you can stay with one of those two students. One of my friends went to an official visit that included a hotel stay, but requested to room with a woman graduate instead for one night, and that request was accommodated and it was very valuable. This will give you a lot of time to get to know each other, and for a frank conversation about the climate to occur naturally, in a relatively stress-free context (in pajamas and over a beer, say). 
 
If you are currently at a university where there are well-connected woman philosophers, meet with them and show them your list of acceptances. They'll often tell you where is and isn't safe. (I had a professor do this for me when I was choosing my MA school; she literally glanced at a list, pointed at a couple and said 'not here'.)
 
Meeting other women graduate students, in any program, especially if they are far along, can be good, too. There is seriously something like a network of whispers we use to keep ourselves safe, and you'll find that a lot of different women in the field can pass on relevant information about a lot of different places.
 
It is exhausting, and it isn't fair that we have to do this sort of fact-checking, but those are the breaks. And in fact it can actually be a net positive experience, since the feelings of solidarity you get when you talk to other women who have had to navigate the same issues can be pretty strong.
 
Good luck!

I'll be the first to bite on this new thread, but in a general way. 
 
Basically I'm wondering how I can assess the climate for women at any one department. Is there a unified source somewhere? In particular, my only accept right now is at Rochester, and it looks like they only have two female grad students (out of 20). I'm wondering if the best way to assess the situation is to ask for the contact information of one of them? Do you think it would be seen as an odd request of the chair to specifically have the info of a female student? 
 
I'm worried about... well, all the usual worries. 
 
Any advice on this would be appreciated!

I don't think that should seem odd at all. If the chair, or other faculty, make you feel odd for asking for that information, I would take that as a bad sign about the department's climate. You should definitely talk to current grad students at departments you're considering. 

Would you continue the conversation about Peter Ludlow, Colorado, Rutgers, Northwestern, etc., here?  Otherwise the acceptance thread becomes the everything thread.  For me, having separate threads divided by conversation is helpful for sorting through posts/comments.  And in my view, this conversation is too important to be a sub-topic in an acceptance thread.

Sure, in an overcrowded field you need to reduce the number of competitors. That's standard game theory. If you use well-founded arguments, you reduce the number of intelligent competitors, which is even better.

Sure, in an overcrowded field you need to reduce the number of competitors. That's standard game theory. If you use well-founded arguments, you reduce the number of intelligent competitors, which is even better.

Sure, in an overcrowded field you need to reduce the number of competitors. That's standard game theory. If you use well-founded arguments, you reduce the number of intelligent competitors, which is even better.