College Teaching in Humanities

In which of the humanities subject areas would a person be more likely to get a college teaching job?

 

In the US? It must be English. Certainly, the English/Literature section at the Chronicle always outweighs everything else.

But remember that you're going to spend the first several years of your career teaching English 101.

Angela

 

Humanities

I agree with Angela - English/Literature/Writing areas would be in the most demand. Last I read someplace, the subjects most in demand for instructors were (not necessarily this order): English, Computers, Business and Health (primarily nursing).

 

Are there any DL schools that offer a graduate degree in English / Lit?

 

Fort Hays has an 18 credit English option as part of its Master of Liberal Studies program.

 

Also check out California State University, Domingez Hills - MA in Humanities with a concentration in Literature (writing). Totally DL.

I guess it's as difficult getting English Depts to offer DL graduate degrees as someone commented it was with History Depts.

 

Ethics may well be a grown area in the post-Enron world. My wife, with her Dominguez Hills MA in humanities, has all the work teaching ethics and bioethics that she wants -- at both a community college and in the off-campus center of a far-away university (St. Francis). She's been asked if she wants to do more at two other community colleges in the same (Peralta) system.

 

Pardon my English. Ethics may well be a growth area.

 

Thanks for the correction or I would have had to note that groan was the proper spelling.

 

Yes that seem to be true that English especilly writing is the first in demand in the humanities because when I applied to be an instructor at a university here in Houston, I was scheduled for an interview because I have a lot of published articles and they needed an instructor with a writing experience. However after the interview, they found out I do not have sufficent graduate hours to teach writing so they instead scheduled classes for me in my speciality e-business.
BA HISTORY
MBA E-BUSINESS
MEAD- ADULT EDUCATION AND DISTANCE LEARNING

 

What about Religion/Religious Studies? Is this an overcrowded field?

 

Here is what the job market for humanities faculty members looks like today through the Chronicle.

American studies (5)
Classics (2)
Cultural studies (12)
English/literature (90)
English as a second language (21)
Ethnic/multicultural studies (10)
Foreign languages/literatures (46)
Gay/lesbian studies (1)
History (34)
Philosophy (15)
Religion (13)
Speech/rhetoric (25)
Women's studies (4)
Other humanities (52)

Here is the community college portion of the above numbers.

American studies (0)
Classics (0)
Cultural studies (0)
English/literature (31)
English as a second language (7)
Ethnic/multicultural studies (2)
Foreign languages/literatures (8)
Gay/lesbian studies (0)
History (7)
Philosophy (2)
Religion (0)
Speech/rhetoric (7)
Women's studies (1)
Other humanities (9)

Here is the link for the Chronicle's job site - http://chronicle.com/jobs/

 

The curse of the 10 minute edit option...

Remember that the numbers I gave in the above post are for today only and that it is getting late in the faculty hiring cycle for most schools. A few months ago, there may have been a ton of openings in the humanities fields. Who knows? Maybe somebody with several months worth of the print edition of the Chronicle could tell us.

In the humanities world, remember that community colleges everywhere have programs in fields such as english and history. Not all schools have specific majors in religion/religious studies or humanities. Since the number of these programs is smaller, your pool of potential jobs is reduced.

 

(Found this old post and thought I'd reply)

This is interesting. I thought ethics/philosophy positions were scarce.