I will take the other side of that bet, though not quite in the way you mean. I will take the side that because person 1 -with demonstrated strengths A,B, and C, and hidden strengths D and E – is hired, does not mean that “the people who run Williams” (this deserves a discussion of its own) do not deem strength F to be an important one. Good God, there’s slightly more subtlety to faculty hiring than that.

This reminds me of the sort of discussion where, following a denial of tenure, students claim that the institution does not value the (demonstrably excellent) teaching provided by the professor. Their proof is the denial of tenure. But it may be just the opposite — that the institution’s concern about teaching is what got hu past hu’s initial review and to the tenure process — but wasn’t enough to overcome the very real deficits in, say, peer-reviewed publication, to ensure tenure.

Still, applicants and families understandably want to be diligent. One area where they often kick the tires a lot is the curriculum of possible institutions. There aren’t so many services and rankings that really look closely at curricula. You could turn to something as goofy as the current ACTA rankings, but if you’ve got that much of an obsession with a rigid vision of certain highly particular ideas about “traditional” general education, don’t worry about any of the other kinds of issues involved in choosing a college or university. (For example, if you follow that report, only one highly particular approach to teaching writing is legitimate, and only if it’s a general education requirement: everything else is an illegitimate failure within that ranking system, with nothing further to debate or discuss. If that evaluation satisfies you, you have enough fixed ideas about higher education already to drive any decision you might need to make. )

If you want a more interesting, open conversation about how to interpret what a curriculum has to offer a prospective student, this conversation at EphBlog is kind of interesting if you go down to comment #11 from Williams professor James McAllister. (The initial post is a pretty conventional bit of concern trolling of a kind I’ve talked about a lot at this blog, and it gets pretty well debunked by McAllister by the time comment #11 rolls around.)

More here

With time, Williams professors will come to recognize that as well.

Wow, zero to condescending in 100 words or less.

I regret that Professor Burke had to lose some time on this issue, but I appreciate his weighing in on this and urge him to never return for the sake of his sanity.

Huh? Burke maintains an excellent blog at which he writes tens of thousands of words on just these sorts of topics, interacting with Swarthmore students and alumni (and interested outsiders) in the comments. Burke recognizes, I think, that public discussion of the policies and priorities of an elite college is important. With time, Williams professors will come to recognize that as well.

I should point out–why I don’t know–that the TRIP survey has absolutely nothing to do with history departments at all–those survey results only apply to psci departments. HWC is right that it is shocking for any LAC to be on that list, but I would note he has an outdated list–we were ranked 13 on the most recent one and the only LAC (excluding Dartmouth, which is much bigger and a truly great department). You know if we were not on the list David would be saying that we were nowhere in the national rankings, not that we just missed and we surely had 25 or thirty votes.

So, what did we get by all this discussion? “Given the evidence that McAllister and Burke have now provided (and which we did not have before we started this conversation), I am now happy to report in bold:

Student Y is better off at Williams for the study of American Foreign Policy than she would be at Swarthmore.”

Wow, that is what it is all about; getting david to give his blessing? The evidence was all there for anyone who cared long before yesterday. Jessica Chapman was hired 18 months ago and her course have long been listed in course catalogues. The number of courses we offer has long been public knowledge. The fact that we have had 3 ex-presidents of SHAFR teach here over the last four years has been pointed out before. Our major conferences over the last few years have been all over the Williams website.

All the best,

JM

Professor of History Marjorie Murphy is an expert on teachers unions and the author of Blackboard Unions, The AFT and the NEA, 1900-1980 (Cornell University Press, 1990), which traces the history of the unionization of public school teachers. More generally, Prof. Murphy can comment on the past and future of American public education, American labor history, public sector unionism, and women’s history

“the whole premise of a LAC is that we think there are a lot of paths to a critical knowledge about a specific area of study.” [quote from Burke]

I’d even put the issue more broadly than that. If you are (a) really, really, really single-mindedly focused on a very narrow substantive area as a high school senior, and (b) don’t change that focus within your first year of college (probably multiple times), you are a rare bird indeed. And if you are that rare preternaturally-focused bird, the idea of a liberal arts college likely isn’t all that appealing — you are probably better off going to a school that has the best graduate program in that area, with numerous leading scholars in the field, and spending much of your frosh and soph years ingratiating yourself with that group so you can convince one of them to serve as a rabbi as you prep for grad school.

The most important thing you learn at Williams and Swarthmore is nothing remotely substantive. It is how to acquire, process, synthesize, and effectively share knowledge. In this day and age, it is relatively easy, if you have the intellectual tool kit and the will, to become an expert in a very narrow field: the internet has made access to a huge array of knowledge on almost anything just that easy to come by. I don’t think focusing on a narrow sub-field of a single area of study, and making that focus dispositive, or close to dispositive, in your college search is advisable for the VAST majority of applicants to a place like Williams. Odds are, when you are exposed to a wider variety of brilliant thinkers focused on broader spectrum of intellectual arenas available to you in high school, your own interests will shift radically from what you previously found so compelling.

In sum, I’d say there are not only a lot of paths to critical knowledge about a specific area of study, but there also a lot of paths to determining what specific area of study is critical to know about. Almost none of those paths conclude prior to matriculation at college.

BTW, I think people use department rankings as a crutch because they simply don’t know how to go about comparing colleges any other way. I think it’s worth a cursory look at departments. For example, if you think you might like engineering, then you want to choose a school that actually offers engineering. On the other hand, if you are not sure, then you want to choose a school that offers something besides engineering, too!

EDIT: Quoted for truth:

The question of where a student would be better off, what’s a better course of study and all that is a messier one and not terribly profitable in my view for all sorts of reasons–the whole premise of a LAC is that we think there are a lot of paths to a critical knowledge about a specific area of study.

The question of where a student would be better off, what’s a better course of study and all that is a messier one and not terribly profitable in my view for all sorts of reasons–the whole premise of a LAC is that we think there are a lot of paths to a critical knowledge about a specific area of study.

These rankings were published in the March/April 2007 Issue of Foreign Policy Magazine based on surveys of foreign policy professionals. It’s shocking for any LAC to be on this list because it is so heavily weighted toward the graduate programs included in the same survey:

Top 20 International Relations Undergraduate Programs

1. Harvard University 48%
2. Princeton University 46%
3. Stanford University 30%
4. Georgetown University 28%
5. Columbia University 28%
6. Yale University 23%
7. University of Chicago 21%
8. University of California-Berkeley 12%
9. Dartmouth College 11%
10. George Washington University 10%
11. American University 10%
12. University of Michigan 9%
13. Tufts University 8%
14. Swarthmore College 8%
14. University of California-San Diego 8%
16. Cornell University 6%
17. Brown University 6%
18. Williams College 5%
19. Duke University 5%
19. Johns Hopkins University 5%

As I think about it, your comment #23 is an example of the sort of purple-stars-in-their-eyes hero worship that seems to occasionally afflict many alums, myself included. I have no doubt that you had an amazing time at Williams. That is not in dispute. The issue is, what sort of time would you have had if you had gone to Amherst? You think that the professors there are idiots? You are certain, without having spent a moment looking at their course catalog or talking to students who studied foreign policy there that your experience at Williams was better? Please, try to maintain a bit of objectivity.

And, even though we have made some progress, we still have differences like:

McAllister: “They [Swarthmore] have no one on their faculty who could or would claim to teach any of them.”

Burke: “My colleague Marjorie Murphy does teach some U.S. diplomatic history in addition to U.S. social history and labor history; primarily her offerings in this area are the aforementioned History 49 Race and Foreign Affairs, and also History 134 which is an Honors seminar in U.S. diplomatic history.”

Either Professor Murphy is qualified to teach a class on diplomatic history or she isn’t. Who is right?

And, now that I look at your comment, I see how confused you are.

A Williams professor has provided pretty compelling evidence that the IR field at Williams is excellent. A Swarthmore professor on his blog has said McAllister’s assessment of relative strengths seems basically right.

This is just not true! Burke is ready to grant something about the (very?) small subpart if international relations that is devoted to just the US, but he is not granting a claim about all of international relations.

You really need to read more carefully.

Given the evidence that McAllister and Burke have now provided (and which we did not have before we started this conversation), I am now happy to report in bold:

Student Y is better off at Williams for the study of American Foreign Policy than she would be at Swarthmore.

Satisfied? I stand by my analysis that the TRIP survey tells us little if anything of interest. Note that there is a bit of a shell game, for those paying attention, whereas the TRIP survey asks:

“What are the five best colleges or universities in [Country X] for undergraduate students to study IR?”

There is a difference, obviously, between the specific sub-field of American foreign policy and the broader topic of international relations (IR). You really think that Burke, or any other Swarthmore professor, would be so quick to concede on that point.

I also think that your reading of Burke is somewhat selective and that we have yet to hear from Amherst. Further investigation and discussion is still called for.

You might also like Prof Burke on “From ABD to the Job Market.”

Besides, if you’re only 3-4 years into Grad School & expect to be in the job market in 1-2 years, you have a lot to be proud of.

http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/permanent-features-advice-on-academia/abd/

(And, Ronit, thanks for putting in the links above.)

A Williams professor has provided pretty compelling evidence that the IR field at Williams is excellent. A Swarthmore professor on his blog has said McAllister’s assessment of relative strengths seems basically right.

Every student from the last 15 years that has posted on this thread speaks to the strength of the Williams program (having not commented until now, I will formally add my name to the list as somebody incredibly grateful for the inspiring work James, Michael MacDonald, Marc Lynch, James Wood and Bob Jackall did in courses I took related to international relations, military history and US anti-terror policy).

Why can’t you just say you’re wrong? Sheesh…

And deprive the academic community of a great professor? No way.

Besides, I look forward to seeing you arguing with DK under a moniker that links with your (future) department. Notice how everyone perks up around here when a prof drops in?

DAMN YOU EPHBLOG!!!

Should I go to graduate school?

I doubt that David is naive, but perhaps his next post will begin with “I am shocked.” After a further perusal of the Swarthmore history catalogue it turns out that they have no one on their faculty who could or would claim to teach any of them. As far as I can tell, the Swarthmore history department offers not a single course in the history of american foreign relations. This does not mean, of course, that they are not a great department but all we are debating here are offerings in American foreign policy.

As for the question raised in this post, I will say that I am confident that DK does not secretly hope that Williams is inferior in this regard to Amherst or Swarthmore — I think the opposite is true, in fact, and he just wants lots of evidence and/or is just being his usual difficult self. But everything else Prof McAllister said is compelling — I’m sold. Moreover, I am surprised no one mentioned the elephant in the room, the fact that Williams, alone among its peer, has the Political Economy major, not to mention the Leadership Studies concentration.

1) HIST 262 Fall 2009 The United States and the World, 1776 to 1914

2) HIST 263 Spring 2010 The United States and the World, 1914 to the Present

3) HIST 360 Spring 2010 The Spanish-American Wars (D)

4) HIST 311 Fall 2009 The United States and the Middle East

5) HIST 473 Spring 2010 The United Stated, Revolution, and the Postcolonial World

6) HIST 321 Fall 2009 History of U.S.-Japan Relations (D)

7) HIST 370 Fall 2009 America and the Vietnam War

8) HIST 345 Spring 2010 “In Our Own Backyard?” U.S. and Latin American Relations

9) PSCI 120 Spring 2010 America and the World After September 11

10) PSCI 420 Fall 2009 Senior Seminar in International Relations and Comparative Politics: The War in Iraq

11) PSCI 382 Spring 2010 The Art of Political and Historical Inquiry: American Foreign Relations

I have yet to look at the Swarthmore course catalog. Although I have nothing but the highest regard for James, a longtime friend of EphBlog, I would be shocked if they only offered one course that was as related to US foreign policy as these 11. Am I naive?

UPDATE: List fixed thanks to info from Professor McAllister. Thanks!

Any critic who thinks that students interested in American diplomatic history and public policy suffer at Williams needs to swing by Griffin sometime this fall. While I can assure that you’ll be impressed, you won’t see me there. That’s because, like several of my other friends involved in the group, I’m delving into government and public policy now that I’ve graduated. My career interests–along with those of another friend who’s going for an MPP at M.I.T., and another who’s going to become a journalist in the Middle East, and another who’s looking at think tanks and Capitol Hill–were indelibly shaped by my academic experiences in the History and Political Science departments at Williams and my extracurricular involvement in Kaplan. So, as far as I’m concerned, the proof is in the pudding.

David is not “eager to believe that student X is better off at Williams for the study of American foreign policy than she would be at Amherst”-the opposite is true. What he wants to believe is that student x is much worse off and there is no way to prove otherwise.

That is just not true. I say above as I have said many, many times in the past.

Student X is better off at Williams for the study of math than she would be at Amherst.

Student Y is better off at Williams for the study of art history than she would be at Swarthmore.

I have been those claims in bold so that they are easy for you to read. What more do I have to say? How can I convince you that, when Williams is truly superior in some subject, no one is more eager than I am to shout that from the rooftops? One of the most read posts at EphBlog is my paean to the superiority of a Williams undergraduate education to Harvard.

But, at the same time, I am a realist. Student X is not better off at Williams relative to Amherst/Swarthmore for every single subject. I am happy to have a discussion about whether or not that is the case for American foreign policy. I hope it is. Really!

As to the evidence, I see nothing overly compelling with regard to TRIP on your points 1-3. (Let me know if you want the full response.) But your point 4) is quite compelling!

Final tally: Williams 11, Amherst 2, Swarthmore 1. Of course, somehow none of this will count as evidence.

Perfect. To the extent that these are fair comparisons, then they would provide plenty of evidence that, in fact, student X with an interest in US foreign policy is better off at Williams. Indeed, it is precisely these sorts of course counts (along with some knowledge, at least in MATH, of professor reputations) that makes me confident in my claims above.

But would a Swarthmore faculty member really agree that they offer just one course in US foreign policy next year? I also suspect that they might insist on averaging offered courses over 4 years. Further investigation is called for.

First, let me start by acknowledging my own basic stupidity for responding to this at all. We all know the game here and the only smart thing to do is to abstain. David is not “eager to believe that student X is better off at Williams for the study of American foreign policy than she would be at Amherst”-the opposite is true. What he wants to believe is that student x is much worse off and there is no way to prove otherwise. But since I have come this far:

1) The TRIPS survey is the gold standard of surveys of the study of international relations in the United States. There are no other comparable surveys. We have no business being in that survey at all–we don’t directly teach graduate students, we turn out comparatively few IR students each year compared to virtually every other place on the list. Nevertheless, we are tied with MIT and Cornell on that list and just below Tufts, University of Michigan, and Duke. There are no other liberal arts colleges on that list—and let’s look at the schools not on the list; no other NESCAC schools, NYU, UPENN, Brown, Wisconsin-Madison, Pomona, Oberlin, UT-Austin, UCLA, and so on. Are we supposed to beat out Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, Columbia, Berkeley, Michigan, Tufts, and Duke–all places that turn out far more undergraduates and graduate students and who also have far greater numbers of faculty who vote in these surveys?

2) Of course, in the land of David Kane there are many factors that could account for the fact that we appeared on the TRIPS survey. First, all of our votes come from Williams alums who are biased. The fact that such a high number went on to study IR at a grad level, if that is the case at all, would seem to say something highly positive about IR at Williams (wow we are almost 2% of the profession!)but not for David Kane. From there it is just a short step to suggesting that all Williams alums obviously vote for our program (“school loyalty”) but that the alums of other undergraduate and graduate programs do not vote for schools they have been associated with. As for those who are not alums, David has that covered as well; “I doubt that many/most non-alumni votes had a reasonable justification for their votes.” Out of all the places these non-informed scholars could have chosen, somehow they managed to vote out of the blue for Williams College!

3) The TRIPS survey does not directly measure “whether or not a student would be better off studying American foreign relations at Williams versus Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, and so on.” Unfortunately, the IR profession does not precisely specify their questions to suit Ephblog. Of course, by these sorts of standards how could any evidence resolve the question of whether any particular student is better off anywhere? College or University X may have only one faculty member who specializes in this area, but perhaps they are a simply fabulous teacher who does exactly what a students wants to learn about. College or University Y may have five faculty members with impressive CV’s but who are also lousy teachers who spend all their time with graduates? None of this can be discerned by outsiders.

4) Let’s end this debate with a direct comparison and a challenge. The direct comparison is between the study of US foreign relations at Amherst and Swarthmore–our two direct competitors. Let’s imagine an incoming student next year with an interest in American foreign policy had to choose between the schools simply by reference to course offerings. Based on my own glance at the catalogues, a student at Amherst can take one course next year in history “Case Studies in American Diplomacy” and one psci course “American politics/American foreign policy.” A student at Swarthmore can choose between four courses in history on topics such as the Cold War, US foreign policy since 1945, Race and Foreign Affairs, and US History: Race to Globalism. Sounds ok until you check and see that none of those four courses is offered next year-so no courses in history in AFP next year. There is one psci course “American foreign policy.”

So, Amherst is at 2 and Swarthmore is at 1. Well, at Williams one could take 8 courses in History next year by a modest count; Jessica Chapman’s survey both semesters, courses by Paul Chamberlin on the US and the Middle East and the US and Revolutionary Movements, a course on US-Japan relations, a course on US-Latin American relations, a course on the Spanish-American war, and a course on America and the Vietnam War (McAllister and Randall Woods). I know Randall is a “visitor” but he is also a past president of SHAFR–the leading organization of AFP scholars in the country (as was Marc Stoler and Michael Hunt–previous visitors brought here by the Stanley Kaplan program in AFP–that’s right we have an entire program that students can concentrate in). In psci, we have another 3 or four courses in AFP. Final tally: Williams 11, Amherst 2, Swarthmore 1. Of course, somehow none of this will count as evidence.

4. Finally, the challenge for david is to just admit he is wrong here.

All the Best,

JM