Professor Emeritus of English | Harvard Ph.D | Former Senior Director of Mellon Foundation Initiatives | Higher Education Journalist | Lecturer at Northwestern
Chicago
Joined February 2009
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I’m getting back to writing on higher education, and social media is important for identifying the issues, sending up low-investment trial balloons, taking some hits, and developing a more considered AND provocative approach to medium-length, higher-visibility columns and essays.
I’ve been away because of major shifts in my personal and professional life.
But I am beholden to no one now, and what I write is the hard truth as much as I can see it based on decades inside higher education and the humanities, both of which I love, irrationally, and want to reform.
There are at least two kinds of people I do not understand:
The ones who park backwards, and the ones who wear watches with the face on the inside of their wrist.
William Pannapacker retweeted
This is a good thing. Humanities PhDs have been massively overproduced for a long time. It was irresponsible of universities to keep minting them, assuring their recipients, "There's always a place for good people in this field." There's not and there hasn't been for a long time.
William Pannapacker retweeted
Instead of contracting, massively, the humanities need to reinvent themselves:
Critical AI
Ethical Entrepreneurship
Thought Leadership
Pipelines to employment
What else?
William Pannapacker retweeted
“The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by [Stanford] in the humanities and arts has fallen 56% since 2003. This decline, from 324 in 2003-2004 to 143 in 2025-2026, has continued even as the overall number of undergraduate degrees granted has increased.”
William Pannapacker retweeted
In the old days, doctors would just drill holes in you to see if it helped
William Pannapacker retweeted
A problem: As public opinion solidifies around the idea that those working in the arts and humanities gain no proportionate remuneration for their labour, the population at large may map that perception of poor outcomes for practitioners of the arts and humanities onto the disciplines themselves. The prejudice has always existed that these areas of human endeavour are soft, unimportant, even useless. If society does not provide even modest ways forward for the vast number (and not the few) who take an interest in these fields then the general understanding of arts and humanities as a waste of time will only entrench.
William Pannapacker retweeted
Feel blessed I went to a small liberal arts school and my classes were 8 mentally ill people sitting in a circle competing to say the smartest thing
William Pannapacker retweeted
“Recent college graduates are now more likely to be unemployed than the workforce as a whole, a reversal of the usual pattern, and roughly 4 in 10 are working in jobs that don’t require their degrees,” by @ariel_kalil in the @chicagotribune:
chicagotribune.com/2026/09/2…
William Pannapacker retweeted
It is essentially impossible to get professors to agree on anything. So the fact that, in my experience, there is a near industry-wide consensus that student abilities are in free fall suggests that we are in the midst of a real cataclysm and not a moral panic.
William Pannapacker retweeted
If you're entering college or know someone who is, PLEASE know that a degree doesn't magically grant you a job (and it hasn't for a long time)
At a minimum, you should have some form of professional experience every summer, working your way up, like:
Freshman year - 10 hours a week at an unpaid internship that will teach you office skills, 30 hours a week at whatever job pays (landscaping, lifeguarding, etc.). On your resume, only list the unpaid internship for that summer, let people assume it was more than 10 hours (but obvs be honest if they ask).
During Freshman year, get some campus leadership roles, TA-type positions, and things like that as applicable. Put yourself out there, people should know you!
Sophomore year - Try to get into a more serious internship, likely also unpaid (sorry) unless you're in STEM or business/finance. This one should be more of a name brand that people in your region would know. Supplement with other work as needed like you did last year.
During your sophomore and junior years, also take on projects for professors and departments. This spreads out the people who can be references and gives you broader experience to reference in interviews.
Junior year - start networking for this EARLY, like a year+ early, it is the main one that matters. Ideally this will be paid, but the most important part is that it's somewhere that could hire you/a strong enough brand that it could get you hired elsewhere.
Senior year - the ideal situation is a return offer from your junior year placement. If not, rotational programs, analyst programs, and the like are your friend (and typically involve very early applications)
None of this is set in stone, but the main thing you need to avoid is an empty resume by senior year
That is how a lot of people are entering the job market and it is absolutely brutal
William Pannapacker retweeted
Maybe I’m just old school, but being on time still matters to me. If we agreed to meet at 6:00, I’m probably getting there at 5:50. Making somebody sit around waiting for you isn’t fashionable lateness. It’s rude.
William Pannapacker retweeted
if academics are "wealthy" it must be because they have outside incomes.
the only individuals at universities who are wealthy are football coaches -- (millions of dollars a year)--some presidents-- hardly professors.
accusing Bernie Sanders when he is likely the least "wealthy" of anyone in congress, let alone T***p's totally corrupt cabinet, is something of a joke.
MAGAs seems content with their cult leader making literally billions of dollars in a single year as US president. hoping that works out well for them.
