In addition to seeking benchmark numbers for faculty and students, the survey was also designed to shed light on departmental practices related to student recruitment and employment. Humanities stakeholders have been keenly interested in the strategies used by departments to draw more students into their programs. In consultation with department chairs and scholarly societies, the HI staff developed a list of possible recruitment practices for the survey. Almost all of the departments were engaged in one or more student recruitment strategies identified by the project’s stakeholders, with substantial shares of departments employing each of the approaches (Figure 16).
Slightly more than 70% of departments indicated that they were engaged in “outreach to/recruiting of students currently in other majors or who have yet to declare a major.” As a separate research brief from the HI reported recently, humanities and social/behavioral science departments draw in unusually large numbers of students from other programs, which would appear to validate this as a successful strategy. However, the student population appears likely to shrink in coming years as the population of young people of traditional college age shrinks, and thus this strategy may yield diminishing returns in the future.
A majority of the departments are also engaged in a variety of other strategies, such as offering “events, classes, or other activities designed to aid majors in thinking about future jobs or careers” and adding “high-interest introductory courses intended to attract students.” Making a change in requirements for the major was also a common strategy, with 40% of departments indicating they had adopted this practice. In addition, approximately 35% of departments had introduced diversity, equity, and inclusion programs designed to attract new student populations to the major. The other practices about which the survey asked were selected by no more than one-third of departments. When invited to share “other” strategies, a small number of departments indicated they were engaged in outreach through social media, live social events, discipline-specific clubs, or student ambassadors.
Disciplines differed with respect to their uptake of each practice. Around 80% of the departments in classical studies, race/ethnicity studies, and women’s/gender studies indicated that they were trying to attract students from other departments at their own institutions, while 80% of religion departments prioritized outreach to students from community colleges—the only discipline to make that approach such a high priority. Most of the larger disciplines (English, history, and LOTE), as well as anthropology and art history, on the other hand, made a greater priority of offering events, classes, and other activities designed to support their students’ future careers.
In view of parent and policymaker interest in student employability, the survey also asked departments what they were doing to assist their students in preparing for future careers. The survey found that a majority of departments offered three types of programs to help their undergraduate and doctoral students prepare for future careers (Figure 17).
In every case, though, relatively small shares required participation. For students at the undergraduate level, the most widely adopted practice was to offer internships in a work setting, with 72% of departments providing that opportunity to their students. More than 60% of departments offered their undergraduate students occupationally oriented presentations by employers and alumni. Strikingly, however, the share of departments requiring participation in such activities was only 5% and 10% respectively. A smaller share (just 53%) offered workshops related to careers for their undergraduate students, with only 8% of the surveyed departments requiring participation.
Notable differences in the prevalence of these activities were observed among the disciplines, however. The larger disciplines were the most likely to offer these programs, with 70% or more of the departments in communication, English, and history (plus anthropology) offering or requiring each of these activities. Among smaller departments, art history was a standout, with occupationally oriented presentations and coursework/workshops offered by 70% of its departments, and a full 94% of departments offering internships. Some disciplines were much less likely to offer these programs to undergraduate students. Fewer than half of philosophy departments, for example, supported any form of career-related programming, with only 42% offering an internship, 36% offering presentations by employers or alumni, and 21% offering career-oriented courses or workshops for undergraduates (the smallest share, by a wide margin, among all the disciplines).
Departments were somewhat more likely to offer occupationally oriented presentations and coursework to doctoral students than to undergraduates, but at the same time were less likely to offer internships to doctoral students than undergraduate students. In communication, art history, and history, at least 70% of departments offered all three types of programming to doctoral students. The philosophy discipline was again one of the least likely to offer this sort of programming to their doctoral students. Occupationally oriented courses were also offered by only 46% of race/ethnic studies departments to doctoral students, and presentations and internships were offered by an even smaller share (about one-third). The study did not explore why some disciplines were so much less likely than others to provide their doctoral students with these opportunities, making this a ripe subject for future investigation.
Next: Concerns About the Future >>
