History Departments Struggle in a Depressing Economy

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Inside Higher Ed: The Economic Freeze on History

Heading into the new academic year, history departments across the country are struggling through a wide range of cuts and general uncertainty about their departmental budgets. The effects of the current down economy seem to be affecting most departments—whether large, medium, or small, and at private as well as public institutions. But the specific effects on individual departments and the strategies adopted for coping with them seem widely varied.

To try to get a better picture of the actual toll the economy is taking on departments, AHA staff wrote to 110 department chairs in all 50 states; asking about the size and source of any cuts to their budgets, the effects (if any) such cuts might be having on personnel and the execution of their mission; and finally, their strategies for dealing with current economic realities.1 More than half of the department chairs responded, offering frank and detailed assessments of the situation in their departments. Collectively, they painted a grim picture of the financial state of most history departments.

Since the situation is still in flux for most departments, most were reluctant to speak on the record. Given that reluctance, and to avoid doing them any further harm, this report offers an anecdotal summary of the responses, and does not quote any of the chairs by name....