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Desire Ph.D. in history? Depart

This USF graduate student in history wonders why there is no doctoral program.

By HOWARD TROXLER
Published February 4, 2007

As a graduate student in history at the University of South Florida, I'm proud of my school. President Judy Genshaft and USF's leadership have made exciting strides toward becoming a top-tier research university.

But there's one way I feel a little let down. If I want to go any further educationally in the field of history after finishing my master's degree, I'll have to look outside the Tampa Bay area.

Why? Because one thing that USF doesn't offer is a Ph.D. program in history.

Frankly, that's surprising for a school that is headed toward being a major university. It's even a little embarrassing - like trying to get into the Parade of Homes before the plumbing is finished.

Take a look at a survey of the nation's top 50 research universities. All but four of them are "comprehensive" universities, like USF (as opposed to specialized technical or medical schools).

Here is how many of those 46 offer a doctorate in history: 46.

In fact, this is the largest metropolitan area in the nation without a history Ph.D. program within 60 miles. The closest is at the University of Florida in Gainesville, 120 miles away.

Great! We're Number One in something.

So, why doesn't USF have a history doctorate? Partly, it's been a matter of inter-university politics.

Florida has 11 state universities, and there's always jostling among them for new degree programs. The state Board of Governors has expressed frustration with the elbow-throwing and for a while it told everybody to cool it.

Delcie Durham is USF's dean of graduate studies. She told me that USF has had a proposal for a history doctorate in the works, but it has been slowed by the resistance at the state level. The state prefers a different kind of degree aimed at the theme of "globalization." She is working to figure out how it all fits together.

An engineer by training, Durham nonetheless agrees that USF can't afford to give short shrift to the humanities. Our study of ourselves, she says, is just as important as the hard-science research: "There is no technological bullet that will save us."

I traded e-mails with R.E. LeMon, vice chancellor for academic and student affairs under the Board of Governors. LeMon confirmed the state is interested in a different, new kind of Ph.D. at USF that would be "very interdisciplinary, very unique, and potentially very exciting," drawing from several different departments.

"I counseled USF," LeMon wrote, "to pursue this line of academic thinking as opposed to feeling as if it needed to 'prove itself' by offering a traditional Ph.D."

In other words: no history doctorate.

USF's history department - described as "small but excellent" by one external evaluator - already does more with less than a lot of schools.

When the department wrote its Ph.D. proposal, it ran a comparison with 27 "peer" universities around the country. The average history faculty size was 26; the average undergraduate load was 322 history majors.

At USF, the faculty size was 17; and the number of undergraduate history majors was 540. (The department has added two or three faculty members since, but is still below average in size, and overworked.)

The first-year cost of a history doctoral program was estimated at $219,010, and by the fifth-year, $406,656. But, the department points out, doctoral students provide a great source of cheap teaching labor as well.

All in all, a pretty good deal.

Beyond that, the advanced study of history adds to a university's prestige and to the overall energy and dynamism that a university is trying to present. It helps put a university on the map, academically speaking.

A Ph.D. in history, argues department chairman William M. Murray, an expert on Greek history and the Hellenistic world, "will enable Florida to engage in the national debate, in a way that helps determine how Florida is talked about for the next 50 years."

Raymond Arsenault concurs. A professor of history at USF St. Petersburg, he helps run the school's highly vaunted Florida Studies program.

"There is a basic core of intellectual inquiry that makes a university a university," he says. "History is certainly a part of that - if you leave it out, you leave an awful lot out of the intellectual territory."

It seems strange, even perverse, to have to beg for the importance of history in an age when we so obviously need it. Yet here we are.

So consider this a friendly but insistent encouragement to the Board of Governors, university system Chancellor Mark Rosenberg, and USF's Board of Trustees and top administrators. Have your new Ph.D. if you will, but correct this as well.

After all, there's an old saying about history, and what happens to those who choose to ignore it.

When he is not studying for his history comprehensive exams, Howard Troxler is a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times.

[Last modified February 3, 2007, 21:30:01]