Chapter 5: At the Ends of the Profession
…vocationalism has been a unifying point of opposition for
the profession [of English] since literary critics first secured their standing
in higher education by setting themselves above “educationalists” and social
scientists [during the Progressive era]. (174)
Thinking about how
vocationalism was a significant part of the curriculum at UNH through the
teens, twenties and into the early 1930s…
…as the technical and managerial classes developed their own
“organic” intellectuals after World War II, they began to articulate their
status in terms of specialized expertise rather than as a general professional
ethos. With that transition, the culture of expertise came to replace the
humanistic “cultural capital of the old bourgeoisie” (Guillory 45). (p. 174)
Thinking about how
this happened perhaps a bit later at UNH, as the specialists arrived in English
in the 1960s and they began to assemble the proposal for the Ph.D.
Throughout the history of the liberal and mechanical arts,
humanists have looked down upon vocationalism. Since at least the Yale Report
in 1828, humanists have complained about students being too concerned with
working for a living (see Reports on the Course of Instruction). Such
complaints have been concentrated on classes of students deemed unworthy of
liberal education. (174)
…historical junctures where developments in our field have
converged with broader trends… (176)
In the decade after World War II, the profession was
hard-pressed to disarticulate its higher purposes from its massive service
functions. To serve the exploding numbers of students, general education
programs were established that laid the groundwork for the rise of the
profession. In the 1960s, English departments sought to claim some of the federal
funding that flowed into education in the post-Sputnik era, and notable
disciplinary, social, and institutional possibilities emerged around English
departments’ partnerships with schools. These initiatives presented a historic
opportunity to establish an integrated field of work that reached from grammar
to graduate school. Unfortunately, these efforts largely ended with the
collapse of funding, jobs, and majors at the end of the 1960s… (176)
Disciplinary historians such as Gerald Graff have examined how the postwar growth of general education programs enabled the profession to expand and consolidate its institutional position (see also Connors and Russell). (177)
Intellectual and institutional resources generated by general education enrollments were invested in building up a research mission that lacked the external sources of support that other disciplines drew upon. In their absence, English and other humanities disciplines came to depend upon cheaply delivered general education courses to support research workloads for selected faculty. (177)
...New Criticism, which served to "rescue tradition from the jaws of history" by providing a methodology for reading texts as literary embodiments of humanistic ideals divorced from their political sources and functions (Professing 171; see also Said). (178)
As Cain has discussed, in the 1940s New Criticism became "an established practice, and by the early 1950s it was 'the establishment' itself." (179)
Only one-quarter of new English professors had PhDs in 1960, as compared to one-third in 1953 (Grumman). The enrollment pressures had a leveling effect, with two-thirds of faculty teaching some composition, and many teaching mostly composition (Kelly; Weingarten et al.) (185)
Before the creation of the National Writing Project in 1974, Project English was the only national program to enlist professors in collaborations with teachers in summer institutes and collaborative research aimed at developing curricula to meet the developmental needs of students. (187)
...formalist presuppositions of traditional models of content masterly prevented practitioners from coming to terms with the critical potentials of the social experiences of broader classes of students. Those formalist presuppositions have historical exacerbated the oppressive workloads that have been imposed on teachers of gateway courses. As I will discuss in the next section, content-mastery approaches to teaching have tended to concentrate class time on formal instruction in literature, writing, and grammar. Very little time ends up being left for workshopping writing or for reading. By default, writing ends up being the work left to be done at the end of the day. Teachers are left alone to spend their "free" time commenting on papers after students have completed their writing on their own. This "process of teaching writing by correction--or instruction after the fact and after the act"... (193)
At the same time that the profession was confronted with a collapse in majors and jobs, it faced public assaults on its credibility and a back-to-basics movement that undercut its educational base. The number of graduates with majors in English was cut in half (from 63, 976 in 1972 to 32, 541 in 1980). Doctorates followed in a parallel drop (from 1, 412 in 1973 to 714 in 1983). (193)
HERE IS HIS PRIMARY CRITICISM OF THE PROFESSION:
Much of the disabling continuity between that work and those positions had been set out by the discipline itself. The profession had long ignored the fact that many undergraduate and most graduate students will teach for a living. The pressures to attend to that fact were contained within a job system that downloaded the most challenging teaching onto paraprofessionals, technical colleges, and service courses. If the profession had confronted those challenges, they might not have grown to crisis proportions. (194)
AND HERE:
...the declining fortunes of the discipline have been due not just to the drops in majors but also to the general degradation of teaching as a profession--a decline that the profession had itself helped justify by temping out work with general education, including teaching and articulation with schools. (200)
---
Allen's The PhD in English and American Literature documented a 50 percent growth in the rise of PhD programs in the 1960s, from 81 in 1960 to 124 in 1969. Burgeoning doctoral programs established the research credentials of departments in state colleges seeking to raise their standing. Allen's study was sponsored by the MLA with foundation funding to examine why doctorates were taking an average of ten years in English--more than in any other field (with six years the average in the humanities). ABDs were apparently fanning out from doctoral departments to meet the demand for instructors, with about half of all doctoral students not completing their degrees. Allen concluded that "colleges depend for their teaching staffs on ABDs and teachers not yet that far advanced" (83). (197)
Shugrue proposed shifting the discipline's focus from literary to literacy studies in order to develop partnerships with schools, attract broader classes of students, and prepare graduates for varied careers. Other reform proposals, such as those of John Gerber in 1977, also recognized that drops in majors and positions were due to broad changes in literacy and education that called upon professors to attend to the conditions and consequences of their work. Such pragmatic responses often treated the discipline's service mission as the key to revamping programs of study around the practical benefits it provided. Such proposals tried to harness the power of the uses of literacy to build public support, expand programs, and open up new career opportunities. To reformers, this response was simply common sense. To traditionalists, it threatened to overturn the profession by subordinating its higher purposes to its basic uses. Such anxieties were not ill founded. The instrumental powers of literacy have such popular appeal that they challenge the profession's sense of itself in ways that have been contained by confining writing and teacher training to service courses. In retrospect, we can see how such hierarchies have limited the disciplines learning capacities at critical phases in its development, for a discipline cannot expect to learn from the work it ignores. As changes in literacy deepened, the discipline could no longer maintain its critical distance, and practically engaged alternatives began to emerge in more broadly based departments. (203)
Disciplinary historians such as Gerald Graff have examined how the postwar growth of general education programs enabled the profession to expand and consolidate its institutional position (see also Connors and Russell). (177)
Intellectual and institutional resources generated by general education enrollments were invested in building up a research mission that lacked the external sources of support that other disciplines drew upon. In their absence, English and other humanities disciplines came to depend upon cheaply delivered general education courses to support research workloads for selected faculty. (177)
...New Criticism, which served to "rescue tradition from the jaws of history" by providing a methodology for reading texts as literary embodiments of humanistic ideals divorced from their political sources and functions (Professing 171; see also Said). (178)
As Cain has discussed, in the 1940s New Criticism became "an established practice, and by the early 1950s it was 'the establishment' itself." (179)
Only one-quarter of new English professors had PhDs in 1960, as compared to one-third in 1953 (Grumman). The enrollment pressures had a leveling effect, with two-thirds of faculty teaching some composition, and many teaching mostly composition (Kelly; Weingarten et al.) (185)
Before the creation of the National Writing Project in 1974, Project English was the only national program to enlist professors in collaborations with teachers in summer institutes and collaborative research aimed at developing curricula to meet the developmental needs of students. (187)
...formalist presuppositions of traditional models of content masterly prevented practitioners from coming to terms with the critical potentials of the social experiences of broader classes of students. Those formalist presuppositions have historical exacerbated the oppressive workloads that have been imposed on teachers of gateway courses. As I will discuss in the next section, content-mastery approaches to teaching have tended to concentrate class time on formal instruction in literature, writing, and grammar. Very little time ends up being left for workshopping writing or for reading. By default, writing ends up being the work left to be done at the end of the day. Teachers are left alone to spend their "free" time commenting on papers after students have completed their writing on their own. This "process of teaching writing by correction--or instruction after the fact and after the act"... (193)
At the same time that the profession was confronted with a collapse in majors and jobs, it faced public assaults on its credibility and a back-to-basics movement that undercut its educational base. The number of graduates with majors in English was cut in half (from 63, 976 in 1972 to 32, 541 in 1980). Doctorates followed in a parallel drop (from 1, 412 in 1973 to 714 in 1983). (193)
HERE IS HIS PRIMARY CRITICISM OF THE PROFESSION:
Much of the disabling continuity between that work and those positions had been set out by the discipline itself. The profession had long ignored the fact that many undergraduate and most graduate students will teach for a living. The pressures to attend to that fact were contained within a job system that downloaded the most challenging teaching onto paraprofessionals, technical colleges, and service courses. If the profession had confronted those challenges, they might not have grown to crisis proportions. (194)
AND HERE:
...the declining fortunes of the discipline have been due not just to the drops in majors but also to the general degradation of teaching as a profession--a decline that the profession had itself helped justify by temping out work with general education, including teaching and articulation with schools. (200)
---
Allen's The PhD in English and American Literature documented a 50 percent growth in the rise of PhD programs in the 1960s, from 81 in 1960 to 124 in 1969. Burgeoning doctoral programs established the research credentials of departments in state colleges seeking to raise their standing. Allen's study was sponsored by the MLA with foundation funding to examine why doctorates were taking an average of ten years in English--more than in any other field (with six years the average in the humanities). ABDs were apparently fanning out from doctoral departments to meet the demand for instructors, with about half of all doctoral students not completing their degrees. Allen concluded that "colleges depend for their teaching staffs on ABDs and teachers not yet that far advanced" (83). (197)
Shugrue proposed shifting the discipline's focus from literary to literacy studies in order to develop partnerships with schools, attract broader classes of students, and prepare graduates for varied careers. Other reform proposals, such as those of John Gerber in 1977, also recognized that drops in majors and positions were due to broad changes in literacy and education that called upon professors to attend to the conditions and consequences of their work. Such pragmatic responses often treated the discipline's service mission as the key to revamping programs of study around the practical benefits it provided. Such proposals tried to harness the power of the uses of literacy to build public support, expand programs, and open up new career opportunities. To reformers, this response was simply common sense. To traditionalists, it threatened to overturn the profession by subordinating its higher purposes to its basic uses. Such anxieties were not ill founded. The instrumental powers of literacy have such popular appeal that they challenge the profession's sense of itself in ways that have been contained by confining writing and teacher training to service courses. In retrospect, we can see how such hierarchies have limited the disciplines learning capacities at critical phases in its development, for a discipline cannot expect to learn from the work it ignores. As changes in literacy deepened, the discipline could no longer maintain its critical distance, and practically engaged alternatives began to emerge in more broadly based departments. (203)
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