Despite new hires, Yale history department retains vacancies

This year, the History Department welcomed seven new full-time faculty members — but professors warned this may not be enough to fill existing vacancies.

Despite the influx of new faculty, including two senior and five junior appointments, department chair Naomi Lamoreaux said she expects that faculty retirements and remaining empty positions will leave eight-and-a-half vacant departmental “slots” — or faculty positions — by December 2015. All but one of the seven new positions are simply filling holes where faculty members retired or died, Director of Undergraduate Studies Beverly Gage said, adding that the hires do not signify an increase in the size of the history faculty.

History professors interviewed said vacancies in their department were the consequence of decreased hiring after the 2008 recession.

“[The administration] never said there was a hiring freeze, but they certainly slowed down hiring,” Lamoreaux said. “There have been a lot of vacancies they haven’t filled.”

History professor David Sorkin, who was one of the seven new hires, said that while adding so many new faculty members at once is slightly unusual, the hiring decisions make sense given Yale’s hiring cutbacks six years ago...