Indiana Alumni Magazine
A Higher Degree of Success
Ph.D. students find their degree a ticket to a wide range of nonacademic careers.
by Elizabeth Hunt
Keri Lubell, MA'94, considers herself lucky. A Ph.D. candidate who plans to submit her dissertation next summer, Lubell has already landed a job she believes is ideal. "The hours are great, my colleagues are great, and I get to pursue exciting projects largely of my own choosing," says the sociology student. "I often think to myself, 'Who wouldn't want this job?'"
If you think Lubell has won a coveted junior professorship at a prestigious university, think again. She works at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, as part of the CDC's Youth Violence and Suicide Prevention Team. A position in "applied," rather than academic, sociology, appealed to Lubell because, she says, it not only makes excellent use of her sociological training, but it also gives her the satisfaction of making a real difference in society.
Still, a job within the ivy-covered walls and ivory towers of academe is what most people think of when they think of careers for recipients of the Ph.D., the highest degree a university can grant. Yet, like Lubell, scores of IU Ph.D. candidates and recipients each year go on to nonacademic jobs, positions in industry, business, government, and the nonprofit sector.
In some fields, particularly in the sciences, choosing an applied position rather than an academic one is commonplace. IU Bloomington's chemistry department, for example, sees as many as half of its Ph.D. graduates go off to work in nonacademic positions, typically in industrial or governmental research positions.
"Among the most popular positions for our students are jobs with pharmaceutical companies," says Steven Wietstock, coordinator of instructional programs for the chemistry department. "I think students are attracted to the idea that they might play a role in the development of an important product."
In nonscientific fields, real-world applications for scholarly knowledge may be less obvious, but they can be just as compelling to newly minted Ph.D.s. Doctoral candidates in a wide range of fields feel the pull to put their scholarly training to work in positions that have a broad impact.
"We have a Ph.D. student who's taken a job with a nonprofit foundation," says David Neumeyer, director of graduate studies for the School of Music. "Part of his job is to develop a music curriculum for schools, so the position calls for his expertise in some of the same ways a teaching position might."
Because recent Ph.D. recipients often take interim positions such as postdoctoral fellowships and visiting professorships, it is difficult to measure accurately any recent change in the number of Ph.D.s who take permanent positions outside academe. But discussion of this issue has most certainly been on the rise. In magazines and newspapers, academic journals and professional meetings, the topic of Ph.D.s in nonacademic jobs has occupied scholars, journalists, and university-watchers — and has emerged as something of a sore subject.
Why would controversy surround an issue as seemingly innocuous as letting our most highly educated minds share their knowledge with the rest of the world? What's behind the heightened buzz about nonacademic jobs for Ph.D.s?
The answer to these questions can be summed up in one short phrase: the academic job market. An underlying assumption of much of the discussion surrounding nonacademic jobs is that most students taking these positions have been squeezed out by an academic job market at an all-time low. A Ph.D. recipient who takes a job outside academe, many believe, is almost always taking a second-choice job.
It's certainly true that the academic job market has seen rosier times, at least in most fields. An anticipated 1990s faculty hiring boom, fueled by the retirements of professors who began their careers in the 1960s, never emerged. Federal funding cuts in research and higher education have further tightened the purse strings for many institutions.
As universities have restructured programs and departments to include fewer full-time, tenure-track faculty members, the most desirable academic jobs have become increasingly rare. "Probably less than 5 percent of people who complete Ph.D.s get jobs at large, prestigious research universities," says Eugene Kintgen, associate dean of research and the University Graduate School. "That's surprising to a lot of people."
The depressed state of the academic job market has sparked charges, from within universities as well as from the outside, that doctoral programs are admitting too many students. Various statistics show that the number of Ph.D. graduates has been rising steadily, even as the number of jobs for professors has been falling. According to widely cited figures, American universities produced 33 percent more Ph.D.s in 1997 than they did just a decade earlier. Those same universities have not generated a third more academic jobs in that time. Not even close.
Overproduction of Ph.D.s is a charge that IU and other major research universities take very seriously, but it is also a problem with a larger context that is important to understand, say faculty and administrators.
"Several programs at IU have voluntarily reduced the number of (Ph.D.) students they admit," Kintgen says. "But it's not entirely in response to the job market. It's part of an approach to graduate education that believes it is better to admit fewer students and take better care of them than it is to admit many students and let them fend for themselves."
IUB's English department provides an example of a program that takes such an approach, says Linda Charnes, director of graduate studies in English. "We have made a concerted effort to admit fewer students and provide those we do admit with substantial support," she explains. "Our graduate students are guaranteed funding (a tuition remission plus a stipend) for years two through six. That's an excellent offer."
The promise of that support has helped the program recruit stronger students, Charnes says, and has allowed the English department to turn out job candidates who compete more effectively in a tight job market.
"While the national average for getting jobs in literature fields is about 35 to 40 percent, the IUB English department has had a much higher rate — up to 65 percent — over the last four to five years," she reports. "I'm amazed at how successful we have been."
There's a certain irony, however, in responding to charges of Ph.D. overproduction by reducing the number of students admitted. When fewer students are admitted and provided with strong support, a far higher proportion of them will finish their Ph.D.s instead of dropping out, generating an increase in the number of doctorates awarded. Charnes and other faculty and administrators believe that lower attrition rates — and not overadmitting students — is the chief reason that the number of Ph.D. graduates has risen in the last decade.
But all of the discussion surrounding the academic job market and charges of Ph.D. overproduction beg a more fundamental question: Are nonacademic jobs second-choice jobs for Ph.D. candidates and recipients? In many cases, as with sociologist Lubell, the answer is a clear-cut no.
"I came from an undergraduate institution with a strong bent toward applied research," says Lubell, who did her undergraduate work at Johns Hopkins University. "I always knew that's what I wanted to do."
Moreover, Lubell feels confident that she could have competed successfully for a teaching job if that had been her choice. "IU's sociology department does a wonderful job of preparing students for faculty positions," she says.
"That's certainly true," says Brian Powell, director of graduate studies for the IUB sociology department, which, like the English department, enjoys excellent academic job placement rates. "It's also true that most of the students who go through our program will gain very strong skills in statistics, computing, and research — all highly marketable skills for a very wide range of jobs."
The discovery that you have such desirable job skills can lead to a change of career goals, as it did for Bob Moore, PhD'99, a peer of Lubell's in IU's graduate sociology program.
"I went to graduate school because I wanted to teach sociology for a living," says Moore, who now works at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, helping identify and understand the social processes involved in using technology. "In graduate school, though, I became excited about doing research. When I stumbled on this job, the prospect of focusing on research full time appealed to me."
Moore laughs at the mention of salary differences between his current position and a typical junior professorship. "This position pays much better," he says. "And sure, that was an incentive, but it was by no means the most important consideration."
But in an era in which "plum" professorial jobs are being replaced by temporary positions with heavy teaching loads, considerations such as a good salary and a regular schedule (with no crunch-time grading) are increasingly important to many Ph.D. candidates. After all, they have invested a great deal of time and energy in earning their doctorates.
The absence of tenure-related stress is another plus to many non-academic job seekers. "I can definitely live without that," says Lubell.
Even for students who have grabbed the brass ring of a tenure-track position at a university, a position outside academe may turn out to be the right choice. David Cassuto, PhD'94, landed a tenure-track job at the University of Missouri-Rolla just as he was finishing his Ph.D. in English. While he recognized his good fortune and genuinely enjoyed his job, he had discovered a new interest in environmental law, sparked by his dissertation, an interdisciplinary work that explored literature and water policy in the American Southwest.
"I was writing about a topic that required knowledge about legal issues," he says. "I didn't have the insight I wished I had." After a year of teaching, Cassuto left the university to pursue a law degree at the University of California-Berkeley.
That led to a prestigious clerkship on the U.S. Court of Appeals and a subsequent career that combines writing with working as an attorney. With his second book about to be published and a new position as a litigation associate in a large law firm, Cassuto isn't looking back, although he hasn't discounted the possibility of another academic job sometime in the future. "My life," he says, revealing an English professor's ability to turn a phrase, "has been a series of leaving doors ajar."
Like many others involved in the discussion about nonacademic careers for Ph.D.s, Cassuto believes that the doors that have opened for holders of doctoral degrees are a positive development, and not just for the degree-holders themselves. Whether Ph.D. recipients are exploring nonacademic jobs by choice or because of the constraints of a tight job market, their education, skills, and intellectual curiosity give them a great deal to offer outside the walls of the university.
"One thing I look forward to in my career is the opportunity to be consulted on matters on environmental policy," says Cassuto. "English academics are rarely consulted, and that's a shame. Their expertise could be useful in far more situations."
Keri Lubell agrees. When she comes across postings for other governmental or research jobs, she is quick to pass the information along to her fellow Ph.D. candidates in the sociology department. "What I try to impress upon other students is that there's so much you can do with your degree," she says. "The world needs us. It sounds hokey, but it's true." 
Elizabeth Hunt, BA'88, recently completed a Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a writer with a South Bend firm that specializes in marketing for nonprofit organizations.