According to a recent study, Wesleyan ranked first among the country’s undergraduate schools for sending the largest proportion of history majors on to receive history Ph.D.s. The results were reported in the September issue of Perspectives, a magazine published by the American Historical Association (AHA).
Wesleyan produced 16 history Ph.D.s for every 100 history bachelor’s degrees from 1987 to 2002, on par with the University of Chicago. Next on the list were Pomona, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and Wellesley, each producing 15 Ph.D.s from 100 history BAs.
Based on gross numbers, Wesleyan placed thirteenth nationwide. The university was one of only two liberal arts colleges that made it into the top 25, the other being Oberlin College.
Many professors in the history department said that they saw the article as an indication of the department’s high intellectual caliber.
“The rankings are a great comment on the quality of history education at Wesleyan and on the quality of our faculty,” said Judith Brown, vice president for academic affairs and provost and professor of history. “I think this is fabulous.”
The AHA study was based on the federal Survey of Earned Doctorates from 1966 to 2002 and a database of 11,562 history Ph.D.s reported to the AHA Directory of History Departments, Historical Organizations, and Historians from 1990 to 2004.
Giancarlo Casale ’96, assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota, said he was not surprised at all by the article, comparing the level of interaction he experienced in Wesleyan with that in his graduate school.
“In some ways, my undergraduate thesis was treated as seriously, [or] even more so, by my Wesleyan professors than my Ph.D. dissertation was my graduate mentors, and Wesleyan’s upper-level seminars were every bit as stimulating and demanding as any of my graduate courses,” said Casale, who completed his history Ph.D. at Harvard University in 2004.
According to Perspectives, the undergraduate origins of a student made differences not only in recruitment of the top-tier Ph.D. schools, but also in the student’s future success in the job market.
“The members of the department nurtured my curiosity, [and] introduced me to various approaches and methodologies, which proved indispensable in graduate school,” said Gabriel Paquette ’99, who is teaching courses in history and the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan. Paquette received a history BA degree from Wesleyan and is completing the Ph.D. program at Cambridge University.
Some attributed the success of the history program to the department’s culture of encouraging students to actively engage with historical narrative and its emphasis on historiography. All history majors are required to take HIST 362: Issues in Contemporary Historiography.
Sarah Kaufmann ’06 said the department’s focus on historiography had influenced her decision to be a history major.
“[Learning methodology] is a different way of learning than just reading the studies of other scholars and commenting on them,” Kaufmann said. “By the end of my junior year, I had confidence that I’d be able to carry out independent research and learn on my own.”
Others added that an intimate relationship with faculty, who are committed to both their teaching and their scholarship, also might have contributed to the result.
“The history department faculty is always around,” said Rachael Zilboorg ’06, a history major. “I like that I can stop by Bruce Masters’s office after class to ask a question, and I can’t count how many hours I spent in Renee Romano’s office my freshman and sophomore years.”
The regularity with which professors urge academic inquiry and intellectual extension also was noted as a factor in the statistics.
“I’d guess that students found role models [amid] a departmental culture encouraging intellectual rigor and research skills,” said William Armstrong Professor of History Philip Pomper. “The department offers a wide range of courses given by instructors who are dedicated to teaching and at the same time outstanding scholars in their specialties. We are probably the best-staffed department among the small liberal arts schools and the quality of the faculty equals that of the bigger elite schools. So, it all adds.”
Yet some expressed concerns that the ranking should not be overstated.
“Of course I’m delighted that [Wesleyan] history is doing so well, although from the middle of the fray I can’t say that it always feels that way,” said Professor of History William Johnston. “There is always a lot of room for improvement.”
Leave a Reply