Lessons From A Lost Option

THE JOB MARKET for Harvard Ph.D. s in Sanskrit Studies or History of Art has never been particularly strong, but thing seem to be getting worse than ever for academics hoping to junk the scholarly life. For four years, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) had run an unusual six-week intensive introduction to the basics of business for some 150 GSAS students and alumni; the program, offering instruction in such topics as finance, marketing, and production, propelled a good number into high-flying jobs with Sony, Citibank, Mobil, Wang, and the like. Last week, however, GSAS officials, citing financial difficulties, announced that they were canceling the widely regarded experiment.

The decision came as no real surprise to those familiar with the Introduction to Business Program for Ph.D. s. It was expensive, and with enrollment down to 29 in the last session--sharply below the needed 50--the drain became prohibitive. While refusing to give exact details about the financial losses, one official said that Harvard was subsidizing the course well beyond the $2500 tuition for each student. In addition, other administrators pointed to the dropping enrollment and voiced qualms over whether students need the program in its current form.

It's hard to reject, prima facie, the reasons Harvard gave for discarding the program. Fiscal squeezes are the rule these days around the University, after all, and there is no reason to sink extra money into job placement, worthy as it is, before more fundamental tasks--from scholarships to junior faculty salaries. Moreover, with the perennially tight academic job market showing signs of opening up after two decades, it may well be a good time to reevaluate Harvard's approach to career placement for graduate students. Harvard officials promise, finally, to explore other ways to help Ph.D.'s enter the non-academic job market.

Still, the demise of the program underlines the difficulties still facing Ph.D.s and suggests some ways Harvard might redirect its efforts to help them. Alumni of the program said its too-narrow approach may have hurt it by focusing only on business rather than including non-profit concerns as well. More telling, though, is the criticism that Harvard did not make strong enough efforts to publicize the program either inside or outside the University--dooming it, perhaps, to poorer enrollments and a lower reputation among such programs than it deserved.

Given this track record, Harvard officials will be under extra pressure to make good on their pledge to come up with imaginative new ways to help Ph.D.'s get jobs. Kenneth Langer, a GSAS official, says placement issues are at the top of the agenda this year for the Graduate Student Council. But the one suggestion tossed out thus far--holding more seminars on alternative careers--hardly seems an adequate replacement for the high-powered assistance supplied by the discarded retooling program.

It's disappearance makes a longstanding gap even harder to fill. But the fact that such an experiment worked for a while, and under better conditions could have lasted, reemphasizes the need to continue attacking the problem along such imaginative lines.