National Research Council Gives High Ratings to Doctoral Program in History

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The doctoral program of the history department in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, ranked 3rd among the 138 history doctoral-granting universities in the nation in terms of graduate student placement in academic jobs, according to a recently released study by the National Research Council. Among its Southeastern Conference peers, it ranked first in this category. Additionally, University of Arkansas history doctoral students completed their degrees faster than their counterparts at all but two other SEC schools.

Provost Sharon Gaber praised the history department for “doing an excellent job of preparing and positioning our Ph.D. students to step into faculty positions at other universities. We are very proud of our faculty and students for this great ranking.”

In terms of scholarly productivity — books and articles per faculty member— university historians ranked 2nd among SEC history departments and better than those at Columbia, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Georgetown, Ohio State, Emory, University of Michigan, the University of Texas and several others.

Overall, the department of history ranked 5th among SEC schools according to a complex ranking system that covered 21 categories, including faculty publications, grants and awards; graduate student funding and qualifications; and program diversity.

As the data from the NRC indicates, the graduate program in history did very well in the rankings even though the statistics were collected prior to the department’s three best years ever in terms of book and doctoral degree production (2007-2010). In the past two academic years, history faculty published 13 books with major presses, including Oxford, California and Cambridge.  Two historians received a total of four national book awards for works published in 2009.  Fifteen historians now have contracts for forthcoming books.  

Between January 2008 and August 2010, the department graduated 14 students with doctoral degrees and placed 13 recent doctoral graduates in academic positions in institutions ranging from Iowa State to Coastal Carolina. In 2010, two of history’s doctoral students won three highly competitive national fellowships:  a Fulbright to Egypt, an International Research and Exchange grant and a Title VIII Research Scholar Fellowship from the American Councils for International Education.

“The graduate programs in Fulbright College are as competitive as any in the country,” said William Schwab, dean of Fulbright College. “Reports like this one from the National Research Council simply confirm what we in the college, and in the university, and in the state know — the University of Arkansas has stellar, productive faculty members who are preparing graduate students to compete successfully for positions in industry, in business and in academia across the country.”

The full report is available at http://chronicle.com/page/NRC-Rankings/321/