DOCTORAL DEGREES AWARDED IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND LINGUISTICS, 1977-78: THE MLA PLACEMENT SURVEY

IN September 1978, the MLA again set out to monitor the production of doctorates in language and literature and to compare the supply of new doctorates with the demand for faculty in institutions of higher education. Questionnaires were mailed to all departments identified in the MLA's computerized records as offering doctorates (Ph.D.'s or other terminal degrees, hereafter referred to simply as Ph.D.'s) in English, in at least one foreign language or literature, in linguistics, or in comparative literature. Departments were asked to indicate the number of Ph.D.'s awarded between 1 September 1977 and 1 September 1978 and to supply information on the areas in which degrees were granted and on the employment status of the recipients. ¹

Second and third mailings were sent to departments that failed to respond. Departments that did not answer our third mailing were listed separately, and attempts were made to reach them by telephone. All but two departments—a classics department and a department of Chinese and Japanese—supplied data. The survey, therefore, provides complete placement data for the major languages, comparative literature, and linguistics and nearly complete data for classics and the less commonly taught languages.

Production and placement tallies for a two-year period, of course, cannot be used to determine a trend. Normal fluctuations would account for a department's reporting only one Ph.D. this year but projecting six for the next. Such latitude is also evident in the number of programs that produced Ph.D.'s in 1977-78 but not in 1976-77, or vice versa. One French department reported that its eight degrees were an unusually high number.

Although we received responses from all but two Ph.D.-granting departments, we cannot yet claim an accurate count of programs offering the doctorate in any given language. A tally of departments is useful in comparing the production of Ph.D.'s in foreign languages with that in English (or any other discipline). Within the foreign language profession, however, departmental structures vary so greatly that the designation “program” more accurately reflects the state of graduate education. Since a department of Romance languages, for example, may grant degrees in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and perhaps even Romance linguistics, a number of programs may exist within a single department. These must be separated from their department and counted individually if we are to determine, say, the number of programs in which a doctorate in French is available. ²

Since many of the multilingual departments supplied figures on programs that granted Ph.D.'s in 1977-78, without indicating continuing programs that did not, our count of programs remains an estimate. A modern language department that reported degrees conferred in French might also offer a degree in German without so indicating on the questionnaire. A comparison of responses for 1976-77 and 1977-78 reveals that the probable number of programs in comparative literature is 36; in French, 78; in Germanic languages, 65; in Italian, 21; in linguistics, 41; in Slavic languages, 33; and in Spanish and Portuguese, 81.

The employment categories given in the questionnaire (see Tables 1 and 2) reveal our professional concern with the traditional job market for Ph.D.'s in language and literature. ³ The first three categories (tenure-track; renewable, non-tenure-track; and nonrenewable) include only positions in postsecondary institutions. Although some of the positions reported in these categories are probably in community colleges, only one respondent specifically identified a job as being at a community college. Appointments to the faculty of preparatory schools and other secondary institutions are excluded. Six positions on secondary school faculties were reported; a possible seventh was identified as a “public school” position. These appointments, as well as nonfaculty administrative positions (one secondary, seven postsecondary), are accounted for as “nonacademic” positions.

After data have been collected for several years in succession, it will be possible to recognize more accurately any developing trends and to compare hiring figures with previous projections. Increased interest in nonacademic employment has been noted among job candidates recently; the nonacademic categories should therefore begin to attract more attention. In the survey's present format, the two nonacademic categories include a miscellany of alternatives. For example, subsumed under the grouping “nonacademically employed, not seeking an academic position” are six women who have opted to remain at home and not pursue academic appointments. In future surveys, it may be desirable to differentiate further among alternatives to postsecondary teaching positions.

The distribution of degrees among men and women in the 1977–78 survey differs markedly from the previous results. Only Italian preserved approximately the same distribution. Among linguists and Hispanists the percentage of men receiving doctorates was greater than in the previous year. In all other fields, women accounted for a greater proportion of the degrees than they had in 1976–77. The most striking percentage increases were in the Slavic and “other” languages. Among Slavicists, the proportion of women earning Ph.D.'s jumped from 42.3% to 52.7% (but naturally a fluctuation of 10% is not significant in a discipline that produces so few doctorates). Conclusions concerning the increase in female Ph.D.'s in Asian and African languages are difficult to draw, since last year's response from these languages was incomplete. Nevertheless, the number of women reported to have earned doctorates in “other” languages in 1977–78 was over three times the 1976–77 figure. A detailed summary of degrees awarded in Middle Eastern, South and East Asian, and African languages appears in Table 2.

In most fields, the percentage of male degree recipients who secured academic employment was higher than the comparable percentage for female Ph.D.'s. This disparity is most noticeable in French and in Spanish/Portuguese. There is a mitigating circumstance, however, for the highest number of unemployed women seeking positions in a specific geographic region are in these two disciplines.

Although a trend certainly cannot be derived from only two years' data, some marked differences between the two surveys will merit attention in the future. Of the 979 doctorates granted between September 1977 and September 1978, 788 were awarded in comparative literature, French, Germanic languages, Italian, linguistics, Slavic languages, and Spanish/Portuguese. During 1976–77, these seven subject areas accounted for 872 doctorates. The decrease in the production of Ph.D.'s in the major languages may in fact be still greater than the survey indicates, since 12 departments did not respond to the 1976–77 questionnaire.

The decreased production of Ph.D.'s in the major languages is attributable to losses in four areas. In Germanic languages, 38 fewer doctorates were awarded than in the previous year; in French, 31; in Spanish/Portuguese, 15; and in comparative literature, 12. Even though fewer degrees were granted, the recipients fared no better than their predecessors in finding academic employment. In all fields except Italian, the percentage of Ph.D.'s placed in postsecondary faculty positions dropped. The worst decline was in linguistics, which produced 6 more Ph.D.'s this year and placed 14 fewer in academic positions. More disconcerting than the general full-time academic placement rate is the rate of placement in tenure-track appointments. Although the profession is graduating fewer practitioners, the supply still outpaces the number of tenure-track positions offered. Among the Ph.D.'s accounted for in the 1976–77 survey (948), 44.1% found tenure-track jobs. Of the 1977–78 total (979), only 39.3% received such appointments. And of those who did, 5 had been hired before completion of the doctorate; indeed, one was already tenured. Similarly, the renewable, non-tenure-track positions included two continuing appointments. Comparative literature showed the largest decrease in tenure-track placement. In 1976–77, 49.1% of comparative literature graduates were appointed to tenure-track positions. In the 1977–78 survey, the comparable figure is 36%, which correlates closely with the statistics in other disciplines. Only Spanish and Italian enjoy a higher ratio of tenure-track appointments.

In sum, the placement survey raises further challenges for the profession. In response to declining enrollments and decreased hiring, institutions appear to be granting fewer doctorates in the commonly studied disciplines. There is still concern, however, over the continued plunge in academic appointments. While 36.8% of the degree recipients did not find full-time academic appointments in 1976–77, 41.7% did not do so in 1977–78. The erosion of the traditional employment pattern for Ph.D.'s in languages, viewed from the perspective of the doctorate-holding job seeker, is foreboding. But more ominous still are the problems posed for the profession at large, and for graduate education in particular, when one compares our placement statistics with the hiring statistics published by the American Council on Education. ⁴ During the academic year 1976–77, four-year institutions hired approximately 3,000 new faculty members in the arts and humanities. Those new faculty who possessed doctorates accounted for only 42% of the arts and humanities appointments at public four-year colleges and only 55% at private institutions. Among the appointments at community colleges, only 13.1% of the 1,249 new faculty in arts and humanities possessed doctorates. In the ACE survey faculty who expected to complete the Ph.D. within two years of appointment were included among those having doctorates.

The author is Assistant Director of Foreign Language Programs for the Modern Language Association.

¹ A brief report of the results of the MLA survey appears in the Spring 1979 MLA Newsletter . Details on the placement of English Ph.D.'s appear in the ADE Bulletin , No. 61 (May 1979). The results reported here update those published in the MLA Newsletter.

² I am indebted to several colleagues for their cooperation in conducting the survey. Jeanne C. Nelson devised the questionnaire and took charge of the initial mailing. Kristin Helmers prepared the MLA Newsletter report on the joint English and foreign language survey, and Devra Nusbaum assisted with follow-up telephone calls and survey tallies.

³ The National Research Council reports that in 1977 approximately 88% of employed humanists were working in educational institutions (Commission on Human Resources, National Research Council, Science, Engineering, and Humanities Doctorates in the United States: 1977 Profile [Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1978], p. 43).

⁴ Frank J. Atelsek and Irene L. Gomberg, New Full-Time Faculty 1976–77: Hiring Patterns by Field and Educational Attainment, Higher Education Panel Reports, No. 38 (Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1978). See esp. pp. iii, 3, 10–12.

© 1979 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.