UNC-Greensboro vs. NC State for Rhet/Comp PhD?

[AdornosDoorknob]

Hello friends.

I am considering which of these two schools to apply to for a PhD in Rhetoric/Composition, and I'm hoping someone can give some input on which might be the better option. I live in the area, and my wife has a really good job in Research Triangle, so we do not want to move too far outside of the Raleigh/Durham area. This limits my choices to either NC State's CRDM (Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media) program or UNC-Greensboro's PhD in Rhetoric and Composition. My career goal is to land a TT job at either a Community College or a SLAC/PUI in the southeast, preferably somewhere in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, or North Carolina (I have an MA and fully understand how lousy the job market is, so please understand that comments telling me how lousy the job market is will not really be helpful in this thread; I am strictly looking for input comparing the two programs).

Here are some things I already know about the two programs:

1). UNC-G's stipend is $15,000 in the first year and $20,000 in years 2-4 while State's is only $15,000 through the entire 4 years. However, CRDM only requires PhD students to teach one class of ENG 101 per semester while UNC-G requires 3 sections throughout the year. For CRDM, this perhaps leaves room to adjunct a class per semester at a Community College and thus get a wider range of teaching experience for my CV while making up for the reduced income over UNC-G (or is that a bad idea?).

2). UNC-G currently only has one faculty member specializing in composition. State is short on Composition faculty members as well, but they have considerably more than UNC-G, and Chris Anson is among those at NC State.

3). CRDM at State allows PhD students to design and teach one section of their own upper division course under the supervision of a faculty mentor while in the program. UNC-G only allows PhD students to "Shadow" or "intern" in an upper division class already taught by a faculty mentor.

4). CRDM is interdisciplinary by nature and therefore has Compositionists working alongside Communications scholars, rhetoricians, and even some literature people working in Digital Humanities. Considering this, there is less competition for individual interests, but also a larger pool of interests applying to the program and competing for funded spots.

5). CRDM has had considerably greater luck placing PhD students into TT positions than UNC-G in the last 5 years, though before that they seemed basically in line. In fact, CRDM has a much higher placement rate than a lot of PhD programs, though I assume this is due in part to the fact that it is placing students into Communications and English departments rather than just English.

Any further input would be greatly appreciated. Some general questions I have are: 1). is the funding difference alone a good reason to choose UNC-G over State?, 2). should I worry about the interdisciplinary nature (and communication-lean) of CRDM impacting my ability to find a job in an English department?, 3). Is the fact that UNC-G only has one compositionist on faculty at the moment a concern?. 4). What, generally, are the impressions of the two programs in the field? i.e. is one considered to be more selective or more "elite" than the other?

Edited December 20, 2018 by AdornosDoorknob