What This Country Needs is Another Doctoral Program in History

by Cliopatria

Last February, I posted"Wherein I Name a Dozen or More Doctoral Programs in History that Ought to be Shut Down." Would it surprise you that none of them have been? I didn't think so. What surprises me, a bit, is Dave Davisson's announcement that the University of South Florida's Board of Trustees will be voting this week on proposals to add new doctoral programs in history, government, and sociology.

I'm going to forego any polemic about the proposal. Here are a couple of important links for consideration of it: the AHA's"History Doctoral Programs in the United States and Canada," which is searchable by institutional name, state or province, and specialization, and the USF Board of Trustee's working proposal for the new doctoral programs. The history proposal is the second one in attachment B.

Unlike North Dakota, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio, Florida and Texas, which recently added a doctoral program at UT, El Paso, have had robust population growth. Like UT, El Paso, USF, with campuses at Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and Lakeland, is in a part of the state that has no nearby doctoral program in history. To the north, both Florida State and the University of Florida have doctoral programs in history; and to the south, both Miami's public Florida International University and private University of Miami have doctoral programs in history. USF's proposal would offer central Florida a doctoral program in history. So, there's a population and a geographical rationale for the proposal. Is there a market rationale for it? Don't even ask. If it aims at having a conveniently located program for community college faculty in central Florida to get a terminal credential, maybe. That's one of the things that a strong M.A. program used to be about.

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David Davisson - 9/5/2007

USF is in the process of recreating itself as a research 1 university. The dismal state of higher education in Florida makes USF's aspirations a welcome tonic.

While their motives may be noble, their specific goals are unclear.

The administration wants these three programs to work together to create a field of sustainability and globalization studies. Exactly what such a program might look like is being left to the departments, none of which have any experience in either field. Not only that, but I get the impression that most of the faculty see it as a faddish bandwagon that administration doesn't really understand.

Over the next few weeks/months I'll be generating some posts about what a Sustainable History program would look like if they let me design it.

Gareth Evans Jones - 9/4/2007

There was a group of Native Americans around Lake Okeechobee known as the Mayaimis. The name 'Mayaimi' is first used in Hernando d'Escalante Fontaneda's 1575 account, where he refers to Lake Okeechobee as the Lake of Mayaimi. He was a spanish shipwreck survivor who lived among the Native Americans of southern Florida for 17 years.

Extending down from the Lake of Mayaimi was a waterway to what is now called the city of Miami, now called the Miami River, which gave its name to the city.

The first permanent European settlers of the area now known as Miami were from the New Smyrna Colony, which was near what is today known as Daytona Beach. Perhaps that is the seed of the story.

Ralph E. Luker - 9/3/2007

Thanks for the correction, David. I'll make it in the post.

David M Fahey - 9/3/2007

The University of Miami is in Florida, while Miami University (founded while Florida was a Spanish colony) is in Ohio. The Miami Indians never lived in Florida. The story that explains the confusion in names is that land developers from Dayton, Ohio, the major city on the Miami River, created Daytona Beach and renamed what had been Lemon City as Miami. At least this is what I have been told.

samuel rotenstreich - 9/3/2007

That's only the tip of the iceberg. Universities' programs and degree fail to address important current needs and issues. A doctoral program in government may be as redundant. You need more studies of organizations, computing, human processes, legal and society issues as well as more professional schools such as engineering, law, nursing and medicine.