Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

At yesterday’s faculty meeting, our department approved the following job description:

The Department of History and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University jointly seek to fill the General Raymond E. Mason Chair in American Military History. We welcome applicants who approach the field broadly, including those examining military policy and institutions, wartime operations, and relationships between the military, society, and culture. Applicants must be senior scholars with distinguished publication and teaching records. A research specialization in modern America is preferred. Responsibilities include teaching undergraduate courses in the History Department and participating actively in the programs and activities of the interdisciplinary Mershon Center. Applicants should submit a letter of interest, a current c.v., and the names of three references to the Chair, Mason Search Committee, Department of History, Ohio State University, 106 Dulles Hall, 230 West 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43210. The review of applications will begin on November 1 and continue until the position is filled.

To build a diverse workforce, Ohio State encourages applications from veterans, individuals with disabilities, minorities, and women. EEO/AA employer.

When bringing prospective job descriptions before the department, it’s customary to offer a rationale, and yesterday the task fell to me. Reduced to essentials, here’s what I said:

State of the Field

The military history program at OSU is consistently ranked first among such programs in North America. It attracts the largest number of applicants of any single field and, because of OSU’s reputation as the premier military history program, most of those admitted choose to pursue their graduate work here. The program has produced a large number of PhDs that have found employment at such civilian institutions as Kansas State University, Texas A&M University, Tennessee Technological University, and Radford College; as well as military schools such as the U.S. Air University, U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and Virginia Military Institute. Approximately half of all of our PhDs publish their doctoral dissertations; a number have gone on to publish second and third books as well.

There is also a very strong undergraduate interest in military history, as the consistently high enrollments in military history reveal. (Over the past five years, these have ranged from a low of 404 to a high of 784. The totals are: 2000-01, 425; 2001-02, 404; 2002-03, 708; 2003-04, 784; 2004-05, 499.)

The departure of Allan R. Millett, the only faculty member in military history who taught a full load of military history courses, has reduced by half the number of such offerings (Geoffrey Parker teaches most of his courses in other fields; Mark Grimsley teaches half of his courses outside military; Jenni Siegel teaches mostly international history; and Joe Guilmartin teaches some non-military courses.)

Programmatic Fit

The principal aim of the search is to secure the best candidate we can. All other considerations being equal, the best programmatic fit would be in modern American military history.

Senior Scholar

Applicants must be senior scholars. Our draft advertisement stresses this point in order to make clear the requirement that a successful chair-holder must have achieved the rank of full professor. We can consider senior associate professors, even though associates could only assume the Mason chair after being promoted.

Subfields

The principal aim of the search is to attract a scholar who approaches the field broadly; that is to say, someone whose track record reflects an interest in placing military history in conversation with other fields. The subfields we have mentioned in the draft advertisement are partially drawn from the terms of the Mason bequest; they are intended to be illustrative, not to preclude other research concentrations. The objective of the OSU military history program is to do everything possible to craft a program that will land our students good academic jobs (if that’s the career track they want); to play a leadership role in moving the field toward a degree of intellectual strength that will command the academy’s respect; to increase the academy’s understanding of the value of military history; and to forge relationships with fields that intersect with military history. The Mason chair holder must be an ambassador for the field in terms of achieving these aims.