Eliminating doctoral seminars to revitalize the humanities PhD: Opinion

Eliminating doctoral seminars in the humanities could help strengthen the degrees of PhD graduates, writes George Justice. The author explains that many programs do not have enough students to offer an appropriate range of seminars, and that PhD students often wind-up taking master’s level classes instead. The author describes how humanities PhD programs could be re-envisioned and restructured so that students take two years of master’s level courses to complete a master’s degree, before going on to complete three years of research-intensive PhD work. This kind of program “would make better use of our limited resources and better prepare a smaller number of doctoral students for career success after grad school,” writes Justice. The Chronicle of Higher Ed (International)