Since the shortage of humanities Ph.D.s turned to surplus in the early 1970s, a full generation of students has passed through graduate school and into the job market. This study explores the strategic changes undertaken by humanities departments in response to the continued surplus and the resulting unemployment of graduates. To gather data for the study, telephone interviews were conducted with representatives from 86 departments of English, history, and philosophy. The respondents were first asked what they thought should be done to alleviate doctoral unemployment. Then they were asked 19 questions representing individual strategic change alternatives being carried out in their departments, as well as one question concerning future changes they had planned. Finally, they were asked four questions concerning their past and present enrollments and doctoral placement rates. Analysis of the survey results showed that departments did indeed respond consciously to the poor employment prospects facing their graduates: they took measures to reduce the numbers of doctorates granted each year; they changed faculty personnel policies; they changed academic programs to better prepare their graduates for employment; they provided direct placement services, and they planned future changes. The findings also indicated that several intervening factors were related to the responses of departments. For example, public institutions were more responsive than independent institutions, and growing departments were more likely to implement changes than departments with shrinking or static enrollments. Research institutions and large institutions tended to cut back the number of graduates they produced, whereas other doctoral-granting or smaller institutions were likely to make certain academic program changes. Finally, history departments tended to prepare students for nonacademic employment; English departments prepared students for employment in high schools and community colleges, and philosophy departments were the most active in promoting their students to potential employers, although they did not target a particular job sector. In all, the departmental changes most positively related to graduate employment were changes in academic programs, and these program changes seemed to be more successful in placing doctorates in nonacademic careers than in academe.

Educators, authors and policymakers continue to address the quality and focus of higher education in the United States. Some have noted the unprecedented number of students entering professional colleges and universities as a gateway to promising careers, while others have suggested that our schools lack the wherewithal to reconstitute the idea of a liberally educated person. Yet, over the past 16 years there has been considerable growth in the number of institutions that have established new graduate programs in Liberal Studies. This study examined the growth associated with those programs and addressed the issues of why the programs were started; whom they served; and, how they fit and operated within their host institutions. The methodology encompassed survey and case study research. The population consisted of the total number of schools actively affiliated with the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs (AGLSP). / Ed. D.