Australian Historical Association Carly Millar and Mark Peel Report

Australian Historical Association 2005–6 History Curriculum Review: Honours and Postgraduate Coursework Programs Final Report to the AHA Executive Carly Millar and Mark Peel Introduction   This final report is submitted to the AHA Executive in response to the Heads of History request that the second curriculum review conducted by the Australian Historical Association should address Honours and postgraduate coursework programs.[1] The review encompasses every university history program offering this level of study in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Fiji. It is based upon data gathered from 57 departments and schools in 44 tertiary institutions (see Appendix 1).[2] Five stand-alone Ancient History programs and three History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) programs were included in the review.[3] We would like to express our appreciation to the 56 informants who sent questionnaire responses (52) and email replies (4).[4] Coordinators gave generously of their time and expertise in responding to our survey, offering their personal insights and drawing on their own experiences of teaching Honours and postgraduate coursework students. As some noted, the survey required careful and sometimes lengthy responses; we hope our summary does them justice.   The project was initiated in late November 2005 by the AHA, which successfully sought financial support from several History programs. An interim report was prepared for the AHA Executive meeting on 17 March 2006. The final report was then read at the AHA Heads of History Meeting, held at the Australian National University in Canberra on the 3 July 2006.   Since 1999 the UK-based magazine History Today has published an annual survey of the range of options open to students wanting to study History at postgraduate level. The 2005 review identifies its target audience by asking readers: If you have recently finished your first degree course and want to look at history in a little more depth, or perhaps want to go back to proper studying after a break of several years, what will you do and where will you do it?[5] There is no Australian equivalent of History Today’s survey. Indeed, to the best of our knowledge this is the first review of the Honours and postgraduate coursework curriculum in Australia. There have been no previous studies of New Zealand history curriculum, according to the New Zealand Historical Association, nor any involving tertiary history in Fiji and Papua New Guinea.   The main objective of this second curriculum review was to gather comparable information on the Honours year and postgraduate coursework offerings in all universities. Our aim is to provide university historians with a context in which to place and consider their own programs, offerings and plans, and also with suggestions, models and ideas that have been attempted or are being trialled in other institutions. We have also been guided by the issues on which they have focused; some areas of the survey elicited little response, so these play little part in our report. We pay particular attention to course structure, recruitment and preparation, as well as curriculum and interdisciplinary initiatives. Many of the problems and concerns highlighted by the AHA undergraduate curriculum review of 2003–4 were again emphasised by the respondents. With many History programs currently or potentially affected by faculty restructuring or funding cuts, concerns about staffing levels and maintaining student enrolments once more featured prominently in the survey. Accordingly, while we are interested in the current condition of Honours and postgraduate coursework programs, we also asked coordinators to evaluate the strengths and weakness of those programs and to hazard a guess as to how they might look like in the future.   In most institutions, the Honours and postgraduate coursework programs represent alternative pathways; the former is still strongly identified as a stepping-stone to postgraduate degrees by research, as well as offering significant advantages in and of itself, while postgraduate programs are likely to take students in a variety of directions. Some offer a different way into postgraduate research, others focus more explicitly on important vocational skills and employment opportunities, and some aim to do both for different students. While students undertaking Honours and postgraduate coursework programs may often end up in the same classrooms, it makes sense to maintain a focus on their differences in this report, not least because most of our respondents emphasised them. Postgraduate Coursework Degrees   On the evidence of this survey, there is a far greater sense of enthusiasm and accomplishment across the board in the teaching of the Honours year as opposed to postgraduate coursework degrees. This is perhaps because many institutions no longer offer postgraduate coursework programs, or respondents felt such programs were in decline. If anything, postgraduate coursework definitely seems to be in a state of flux, with many programs redesigning courses, phasing out unsuccessful initiatives and trying out new ideas. Many coordinators felt disheartened by the low number of enrolments in many of their postgraduate coursework degrees, and variously described their programs as ‘dead’, ‘in crisis’, or ‘permanently on hold’.   Some survey respondents argued that newly developed coursework Masters programs were simply a calculated means to attract fee-paying students and raise revenue. It is certainly the case that postgraduate coursework has been widely remodelled and redeveloped to suit new groups of potential students and to attract new avenues of funding. It is also true that some groups of potential students have not materialised and that some programs have proved either unattractive or hard to market. Other respondents were more confident about the outcomes and integrity of postgraduate coursework programs tailored to specific ends, sometimes as vocational training and experience for history professionals, or to specific groups of students pursuing an area of personal interest. Among the former, public history programs have played a very important role at some universities. Of the latter, an excellent example is the Graduate Diploma in Humanities (History) offered by the University of Tasmania. The diploma course aims to tap into an identified market of older students, many with professional qualifications but not History degrees, who are interested in studying Tasmanian history. Similar programs exist or are being planned in areas such as family and local history, or biography and life-writing.   The survey suggests that History departments should be extremely wary of developing postgraduate coursework programs solely to cater for ‘markets’ and access additional sources of funding, rather than responding to genuine student interest. Hopes of a quick return are often dashed, some risks will not work out, and it may also take a good deal of time—and much labour by coordinators—for programs to gain regard, professional connections and numbers. As the respondent from the Ancient World Studies and Ancient History Honours program at the University of Sydney argues, if universities continue to regard postgraduate coursework programs as simply ‘a way of making money, then our program will die. It has to be seen as valuable in its own right as well.’ Moreover: Fees for postgraduate programs make them attractive to faculties and unattractive to those who want to do them. I find a high fee in Arts is detrimental as it would be better to have lots of students paying a lower fee than hardly any students paying a high one. Yet postgraduate history coursework programs – be they a postgraduate diploma or Master of Arts – clearly serve a very important function. The graduate diploma in history at the Australian National University is a stand-alone course for students who wish to study or continue studying history after their first degree and ‘it is particularly useful for those who did not take a History major in that degree’. Most postgraduate coursework is designed to build on knowledge acquired in a bachelor degree. The Graduate Certificate/ Graduate Diploma program in Applied and Local History offered by the University of Queensland is aimed at people wishing to ‘utilise their historical expertise in the community or workplace’, working specifically as a historian (in local, family, public or academic history), teacher, librarian, public servant, journalist, curator, or freelance writer. Heritage professionals such as architects, planners, archaeologists and anthropologists with an interest in historical approaches also benefit from this qualification. One program suggests that in the future they might aim their postgraduate coursework offerings at secondary teachers who want to retrain in History. In the main, it would seem that most universities are both phasing out generalist postgraduate coursework offerings and avoiding overly adventurous market-seeking programs in favour of those aimed at specific, sensible markets.   Collaborations with outside institutions are increasingly common. Macquarie University now offers an MA unit in conjunction with the University of Leipzig as part of an EU-funded Erasmus Mundus consortium in Global Studies. Since 2002, the School of History and Politics at the University of Adelaide has offered a Graduate Program in Gastronomy,[6] in partnership with the Paris-based Le Cordon Bleu, and since 2001 Graduate Studies in Art History,[7] which is a unique collaboration between the University and the Art Gallery of South Australia. These are all successful partnerships.   While postgraduate coursework seems to be in decline, one coordinator expressed their concern that an Australian PhD degree without a coursework component, as in the American system, will make it extremely difficult for doctoral graduates from Australian universities to compete for academic positions in the United States. While numerous Australasian institutions offer a mix of coursework and research at Masters level—with a thesis taking up perhaps a half or two-thirds of the whole degree—this is less common at doctoral level. The Australasian PhD tends to require original research and a lengthy dissertation, but the American system generally requires the candidate to, in addition, complete a two- to three-year period of coursework, gain competency in one or two foreign languages, and complete written and/or oral examinations in a range of historical fields. From the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of NSW comes the following comment: Our current postgraduate programs, like those throughout the Australian University system, are deficient by international standards thanks to Federal rules inhibiting stronger coursework component in PhDs and other postgraduate research degrees. Furthermore, special regulations against including advanced undergraduates and postgraduates in the same subject make offering smaller, specialised courses suitable to research students economically unfeasible. A postgraduate degree from an Australian university will [be substandard] until Canberra changes these self-defeating regulations. Perhaps in response to this sentiment, the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University has ‘pioneered a singularly successful form of graduate coursework to supplement the Australian PhD’. The RSSS program only offers PhD courses by research, but over the last decade, has enhanced the research degree with ‘short, intensive, unaccredited coursework options’. They see this development as a ‘distinct set of initiatives in postgraduate education’. The process was begun with the Visiting Scholars Program offered by the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the ANU, which itself followed a pioneering national postgraduate student workshop in urban studies developed by the ANU’s now-closed Urban Research Program.   The RSSS courses are now offered in three areas: Environmental History, Indigenous History, and Biography. The National PhD Workshops are open to all Australian doctoral candidates in the humanities and social sciences; they are free-of-charge and successful applicants are offered travel and stipend scholarships. The courses run for one to two weeks bi-annually, and bring together 16–35 students from a variety of disciplines. Designed to ‘enhance the research experience and performative capacities’ of students, and also to build networks, the RSSS feels that students have come to regard their workshops as ‘formative experiences’ in their candidature. Feedback has been so positive that many students and supervisors consider the program to be an ‘essential part’ of the PhD degree: ‘the courses have been welcomed by other universities because they enrich the graduate experience of all’. The courses are not accredited ‘except in an informal way’ and they are not typical, semester-long subjects. However, the RSSS makes a strong case for the importance of their workshop initiative, arguing that they offer a ‘distinct model for the Australian PhD’: ‘somewhere between formal, extended coursework and a research-only degree’. In this way, doctoral students are able to experience intensive coursework without the necessity of extending their degree requirements or period of candidature. They also represent something of a compromise: ‘complement[ing] a research PhD without changing its fundamental structure’.   Clearly, there is some interest, at least within the Australian universities, in the future relationships between postgraduate coursework, Honours and research programs. Some institutions are developing ways for students to move into research from a coursework MA, or are diverting students into shared coursework and research Masters rather than Honours programs. These initiatives could restore some direction to postgraduate coursework programs in some institutions, but their implications for Honours programs—and for postgraduate coursework programs that do not take preparation for further research as their main rationale—will need to be carefully considered. The Educational and Vocational Value of the Honours Year   If most respondents felt somewhat ambivalent about the state of some if not all of their postgraduate coursework programs, the opposite was true for Honours. The following comment encapsulates the high esteem in which fourth year programs are held: ‘Honours is still one thing in which most in the Faculty and University still believe’. Many would agree with the Ancient History program at Victoria University of Wellington’s observation that Honours ‘provides a singular opportunity for specialisation’ and ‘remains a good bridge between undergraduate work and genuine postgraduate research study’.   Although all Honours programs tend to be ‘labour intensive rather than income generators’ – and offering a varied range of Honours subjects can be expensive ‘in terms of staff time and commitment’ – as Flinders University argues, the ‘undoubted rewards’ of the Honours year ‘continue to make it worthwhile’. Indeed, the sentiment most frequently expressed in the survey responses was the immense pride with which coordinators regard their Honours graduates. From Queensland University of Technology: Our graduates have passed muster with the best and have gone on to do fine post-graduate work (whether here or elsewhere). Many of them are now pursuing careers in their chosen fields. This would seem to indicate that the Honours program is fulfilling its mission in a challenging environment. The University of Ballarat offered a similar sentiment: ‘although our [Honours] program is tiny compared to the major Australian universities, I am proud of the high quality of our small but very significant number of history graduates’.   Most programs acknowledged that the majority of their Honours students would go on to seek full-time employment after fourth year, and underscored the vocational skills and career opportunities with which the Honours year equips its graduates. Most history department websites and Honours handbooks draw attention to the value of the Honours year to potential employers. The University of Adelaide handbook describes Honours as the ‘Gateway to Your Future’; it ‘keeps your options open, and strengthens opportunities in a range of fields’. Indeed, the ‘well-recognised edge’ that Honours graduates have over students with a pass degree is emphasised, because ‘employers appreciate the advanced training in research and analysis’ provided by fourth-year Honours.[8] From the University of Canterbury came the observation that their best graduates have ‘no trouble finding jobs in archives, museums or government departments.’ Another coordinator commented that ‘I hope that employers will continue to appreciate the skills our students have acquired, whatever the period of history they have studied’. Ideally, the history program at the University of NSW aims to raise awareness in the wider community of what an honours degree is, why it is so valuable and what honours graduates are capable of. The planning, heritage and museum sectors, for example, are sorely in need of good historians. Vocational placement and professional experience are generally not a part of the Honours experience. Internships offered at the University of NSW with local council oral history projects, the Historic Houses Trust and with the Centre for Migration History at the Powerhouse Museum were only available to pre-Honours undergraduate students. The University of Tasmania is one exception with the introduction in 2006 of a Cultural Environments and Heritage Honours placement scheme, where Honours students complete a 26-hour placement at, for example, the State Library of Tasmania, Port Arthur Historic Site, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Students write a thesis on a topic agreed to by the university and cultural institution. There is one History Honours student enrolled in this program this year. Vocational placement is a larger component of some postgraduate programs, however, with the Masters in Public History at Monash University providing a good example. The Curriculum   At fourth year, students are engaged in what is very likely to be their most sustained piece of writing to date. Most history Honours programs require a thesis of between 12,000 and 20,000 words. Those programs that do not have a thesis usually offer a ‘research essay’ of around 10,000 words as a highly recommended unit of study, or as a core subject: this is the case at the majority of New Zealand universities.   Most coordinators felt that while the thesis provides good basic training for further historical research, the coursework subjects undertaken in the Honours year were also of critical importance. These coursework subjects enable students to develop conceptual, theoretical and methodological skills, and improve their thesis writing by helping them ‘make the leap to more substantial pieces of writing and research’. In addition to developing scholarly skills, special subjects also cultivate important transferable skills such as ‘time management, problem-solving, and written communication’. In general, most departments offered—or hoped to offer—a mix of broader theoretical and methodological subjects and more specialised investigations of particular approaches, national histories or themes. There was a good deal of disagreement about the number of Honours subjects a student should study in addition to their thesis. In an effort to minimise the Honours load, several programs had reduced the number of coursework subjects from four to three, or from three to two. If at all possible, programs aim for a fair balance between the coursework and thesis components. Here, it was argued, the structure is ‘flexible enough’ to enable students to ‘develop research expertise in the discipline’, while also ‘providing them with exposure to the other research cultures present in the School’.   Nearly everyone would agree that the dissertation is the most important ingredient in the Honours year. As one respondent commented: ‘For those students wanting to go on to postgraduate research, it remains necessary that they complete a sustained piece of writing and research at fourth year level in a form recognisable to us as a “thesis”’. Yet the majority of programs had either recently reduced the length of their thesis to make it more manageable for fourth-year students, or expressed a desire to do so. This reflects the widespread acknowledgement that for most students the transition from writing three or four thousand-word research essays in third year to a thesis of between 10,000 and 20,000 words in fourth year is a very substantial and challenging one.   One idea, currently being investigated at Monash University and elsewhere, is to provide more guidance to potential Honours students in terms of thesis project identification and development. Recognising shifts in the scope and nature of the undergraduate curriculum and undergraduate student study and reading habits, the aim is to develop a form of ‘recruitment’ into projects and thesis topics. This might also see students using particular research collections or exploring questions derived at least in part from their supervisor’s research agenda. This is not entirely novel, of course, and will need careful oversight, but it does overcome what some coordinators and academics see as some students’ diminishing capacity to identify viable, feasible projects that address key gaps and opportunities in the discipline.   Progress and assessment have also received attention. It is common practice for two examiners to independently mark Honours theses. Many smaller programs make use of an external examiner from another university. Larger departments have implemented an Honours panel that convenes at the end of each year to moderate the grading of theses. They also usually have a ‘satisfactory progress’ stipulation. At the University of Melbourne, if a supervisor reports unsatisfactory progress by the end of first semester, the student in question may be required to explain themselves before their supervisor and a second member of staff by presenting a twenty-minute progress report on their thesis. The survey respondents emphasised how lonely and isolating the Honours year can be for their students, and highlighted the importance of regular contact between staff and students, including seminars and fortnightly supervisory meetings. Interaction between student cohorts was also felt to be extremely important to the overall success of the Honours year, in terms of boosting the morale of the group and fostering a sense of friendship and collegiality between students. The Honours year is usually a very stressful year for students, and combining typically two or three coursework subjects with a thesis was described as ‘a big load’, especially ‘if the thesis topic blows out, as it often does when students are enthusiastic, able and hard-working’. To help ease the pressure of the Honours year on students, several programs have had a non-assessed, but very successful and worthwhile, ‘General Seminar’ in place for many years. This seminar functions as a thesis and writing workshop, as well as a ‘cohort building exercise’.   One or two respondents suggested alternative forms of assessment to the thesis ‘cornerstone’. ‘It might be a complete travesty to the concept of a “dissertation”’, was one comment, ‘but I feel that non-traditional forms of assessment may well be a fillip to history honours programmes’. These new forms of assessment would only apply to those students who do not intend to advance to postgraduate study in History and who view their Honours year as ‘the pinnacle of a four-year undergraduate degree’. It was proposed that these different forms of assessment should consist of ‘more “real world” applications and research outcomes, such as websites [and] exhibitions’. Of course, such changes would present significant problems for academics unused to teaching in this manner, and also in ranking and assessing students’ creative output alongside the traditional thesis. One Honours coordinator proposes that it is worth beginning a conversation about how the traditional dissertation might be supplemented or replaced by other outcomes that might teach students just as much about the application, interpretation and reinvigoration of history, if not so much about writing itself. Honours was traditionally conceptualised as a master-apprentice model, whereby academics have trained students in historical research and writing and prepared them for postgraduate research degrees. It is now recognised that most students will not continue on to postgraduate study after Honours. Still, the value of the thesis as an intellectual and vocational exercise seems undimmed, with most coordinators insisting on the benefits of the specialised case study’. On the evidence provided, however, it would seem that students need help with making the ‘conceptual shift’ between the broad sweeps of many undergraduate subjects and such a specialised and focused case study. One respondent felt that it was: precisely the challenges of thinking, and writing and researching about ‘global’ issues within the parameters of an actual case study that need to be made more explicit and articulated for students. In that sense, Honours coordinators and perhaps especially Honours supervisors are having to respond to those changes in the undergraduate curriculum we identified in the earlier survey.   For a program of such importance to many departments, there seems to have been surprisingly little group planning of the Honours year. Where change has been implemented it has usually been as a result of faculty-wide reforms, rather than the product of any program-driven review. With the notable exception of a few programs, planning seems to be fairly informal. Monash University was unusual in reporting that ‘the way in which the undergraduate program prepares students for Honours and postgraduate coursework programs is constantly under review’. Despite this widespread lack of official planning, History programs both large and small showed evidence of adaptability and resourcefulness. Recruitment   Our survey respondents focused very much on recruitment into Honours. A number observed that it was difficult to recruit their undergraduates into postgraduate coursework programs, especially fee-paying ones. In that sense, those programs relied much more upon the marketing provided by their universities and faculties, as well as written and web information they could generate and disseminate themselves, in order to attract students from a broader audience. At most institutions, postgraduate coursework is marketed as an alternative path towards research or in terms of discrete vocational or professional benefits and outcomes. At Macquarie University, to take one example, the MA by coursework is advertised among secondary school teachers.   Recruitment into Honours generated much more comment. In general, programs expected to find most of their Honours candidates from within the ranks of their own majoring students; as yet, attempts to draw candidates from other universities at Honours level are relatively few, especially in comparison to some departments’ strenuous efforts to draw in postgraduate research scholarship candidates.   While many history programs begin to actively recruit stronger students for Honours at third-year level, an equal number emphasised the importance of encouraging promising candidates in their first and second years of study. As the respondent from Curtin University of Technology described it, introducing the possibility of Honours early on can ‘create a changed horizon of expectation towards which students can aim’. Most of the larger departments capitalise on this by sending a personal letter of congratulations to students who earn at least a Distinction in first-year History. They are invited to consider undertaking Honours in fourth year and to seek advice about meeting the prerequisites for admission to Honours. Some departments reported that a decade or more ago they had recruited an ‘elite cohort’ of students into an ‘Honours school’ at second and third-year levels but had later abandoned the concept. However, a couple of programs expressed renewed interested in beginning to ‘stream’ students into Honours before fourth year.   Another essential recruiting tool is the information session held by most programs for third-year History majors interested in proceeding to fourth-year Honours. The following format is both typical and effective: before students enrol in Honours they are strongly encouraged to attend an ‘Information Meeting’ held toward the end of each year. Staff members who teach in the Honours program attend this session. The initiative is designed to ‘demystify’ the Honours year, by providing prospective students with information about the thesis and coursework offerings. Some departments also distribute handbooks for intending Honours students. At this meeting, students begin the process of securing a supervisor for their thesis topic. After this information session, interested students meet with the Honours coordinator and administrator to discuss their eligibility, thesis topic, supervisor, and coursework subjects. Word of mouth is also crucial: individual staff members play a crucial role in encouraging their best students to proceed to Honours. At a personal and informal level, teaching staff inform students about Honours and encourage the best students to undertake fourth year. In general, it seems that efforts by larger bodies—departments, schools and faculties—are best conceptualised as a support and endorsement—and not a replacement—for those personal interactions.   The ANU offers a number of scholarships to Honours candidates, but this is certainly not common at fourth year. Some departments can encourage their students to compete for faculty and university scholarships, and changes to the scope of financial support for Honours students will very likely occur at that level. Using results from a separate investigation into Arts Honours programs, Mark Peel’s recent recommendations to Monash University’s Faculty of Arts identified financial considerations—especially ‘another year of HECS’—as a crucial factor in students’ decisions, along with the lack of support for fieldwork and research materials. Students endorsed a broadening of financial support, including the provision of a larger number of research support grants and small ‘HECS relief’ payments, rather than a smaller number of high-value scholarships. In terms of recruitment, the new four-year badged degrees – for example the Bachelor of International Studies – seem to discourage students from doing Honours, as this becomes a five-year degree and thus another year of HECS. That survey also made clear that the Honours year faces increasing competition from double degrees that do not easily permit a specialised year of History. There seems to be a strong case here for increasing diversification, perhaps through the development of ‘double honours’ (an interesting History and Education pairing could be imagined, for instance, or History and Law) as an extra but highly relevant year for double degree candidates. Preparation   There was a general sense that many students are under-prepared for the Honours year. This is perhaps related to the reduced prerequisites to enter fourth year. Most History Honours programs require a Credit average with some results at Distinction level in the History major. In recent years many faculties have lowered the level of academic merit needed for Honours from a seventy per cent to a sixty or sixty-five per cent grade average. One respondent noted that their university is considering making all students eligible to undertake fourth-year Honours regardless of their grade average. This was described as a ‘pernicious’ development should it eventuate.   From the University of Newcastle comes a common response: students are ‘inadequately prepared for honours and postgraduate work in so far as they are relatively unreflective about the practice of history and unaware of major theoretical developments’. Just under half of all programs already include a compulsory methodology or historiography course in their Honours program. The University of Waikato is a good example of this, with the ‘History and Theory’ course producing excellent results from students who go on to write highly theorised work. Of those Honours programs that do not include a compulsory theoretical subject, a significant number would like to add a full-semester ‘Theories and Practices’ course, a ‘Historiography’ subject, or a history-based ‘Research Methods’ unit to their Honours year. This raises some serious questions about whether undergraduate history majors lack adequate preparation for Honours, and obviously reflects the perception that many possess a lack of familiarity with historical methodology. In response to this problem, the Department of History at the University of Western Australia would rather ‘provide more depth’ at undergraduate level ‘than change the Honours programme as such’. The key to preparing students would be ‘introducing theoretical issues about history more explicitly at the undergraduate level’, and thus staff would have ‘more time to delve into complex issues with students’. The University of Newcastle echoed this sentiment: ‘some dedicated theory and method teaching might usefully be introduced earlier in the history curriculum, with a view to preparation for the honours programme’. Many would agree with the suggestion that preparation for the Honours year needs to start much earlier. Another coordinator commented that all students need to ‘encounter the fundamental approaches and theories that shape historiography’ in the first three years of their undergraduate degree, as this would lead to a ‘higher level of engagement in the honours year’.   A number of respondents suggested that students find it difficult to make the transition to the Honours thesis and ‘theoretical focus of historiography’, due to the reduction in the ‘depth, assessment and time’ for undergraduate units at most universities. Some programs have dispensed with a compulsory ‘Pre-Honours’ methodology subject as a requirement for admission to fourth year, in the hope of boosting Honours enrolments. The same informants add that such a move has rarely made much difference to student numbers. Several smaller programs would like to run a theoretical-historiographical course but do not have the History enrolments to justify running it. Many more respondents praised the usefulness of a methodology subject, even if it is only ‘strongly recommended’ to students rather than being made compulsory. As one coordinator contends, such courses ‘open up the possibilities of active, original, exciting research which students may not have realised before’. Another initiative is a strong differentiation between second and third-year assessment tasks in subjects that have both year levels enrolled. This is the case at Monash University where Some – but not all – undergraduate subjects offer third year students a greater choice in their assessment tasks, giving them the option, for example, of preparing one, longer, major piece of work as their assessment for that subject. This usually involves feedback from the coordinator or tutor at a critical stage, encouragement to explore different forms of presentation, and the development of more intensive research skills. Traditional Teaching Methods and New Technologies   Approximately half of the history programs surveyed thought that new technologies had made very little impact upon Honours teaching. As the respondent from the Ancient History program at Victoria University of Wellington writes, the traditional approach works well as the ‘on-line material merely supports the Socratic systems in place’. While nearly every program expressed a willingness to experiment with on-line teaching and learning, there was an overwhelming sense amongst the survey respondents that face-to-face teaching and interaction at fourth-year level was by far the most appropriate method. The Honours program at the University of NSW summed up this widespread feeling: As our Honours class is generally relatively small (around 20–25) face-to-face teaching and learning as a group is practical and preferable. Students generally develop a group identity and are generous in helping one another. So we haven’t to date used on-line teaching at honours level. Many postgraduate coursework programs made use of online teaching software such as Blackboard, however. The MA by coursework at Macquarie University is taught entirely externally, and includes the use of recorded lectures and a web hub. Other postgraduate coursework programs have employed WEBCT and similar distance learning modes, so working professionals could better access lectures and instruction. Many postgraduate subjects are fully on-line in order to be available to regional students. Regional universities reported video-conferencing between campuses in their teaching. Most Honours and postgraduate programs now include library training sessions where students learn about e-resources and electronic databases.   The support of traditional methods does not preclude change and innovation at Honours level, however. The History department at the University of Sydney reports that The flexibility of our honours program, especially the general and thematic seminars that only fourth-year honours students may take, does lend itself to innovative forms of teaching and assessment. In 2006 the Sydney program offered an ‘adventurous’ seminar on History and Hypertext which explores ‘hypertext and the internet as a medium for history’. While only three students enrolled in the course, which meant it had to be cancelled, it seemed to us the kind of pioneering work that is likely to succeed in time. The availability of documentary material for Honours projects is certainly increasing exponentially through different sources such as the internet and databases that provide new means of locating and accessing material and data. A prerequisite subject for Honours offered at third-year level at the University of Wollongong capitalises on these new resources. ‘HIST325 Theory and Method of History’ has been substantially revised to take account of web-base archives. It also has a ‘hands-on’ component with excursions to university archives and the State Library.   In part because this was a survey of curriculum, Honours student supervision received relatively little comment. In future reviews, which are likely to focus on teaching practice and assessment, it would be useful to canvas opinions on supervision. While postgraduate research supervision has received much attention from universities, many of which now bristle with codes of practice and supervisory conduct, reporting mechanisms and accreditation and training programs, it seems that the supervision of Honours research—and perhaps also of research components of postgraduate coursework degrees—remains less formal. To the extent that training and reporting have improved postgraduate supervision, Honours supervision has probably also been affected. It is possible that Honours supervision in some departments is benefiting from greater collective involvement and attention, but this is an issue to which History departments should perhaps give attention. Interdisciplinary Combinations   Corresponding to the undergraduate curriculum review of 2003–4, the issue of encouraging History students to move into other disciplines was again highly contested, whether it involved Combined Honours degrees, or employing an interdisciplinary approach in the teaching of fourth year and postgraduate coursework. By and large, respondents were effusive about the benefits of interdisciplinary combinations for students, but many also expressed their concerns about the increased level of difficulty and other dangers. Nearly all of the larger history departments reported a ‘steady trickle’ of Honours students who have combined their studies in History with another humanities discipline. This has either taken the form of enrolling in one or more special subjects from another discipline or taking joint Honours in History and one other discipline. Most commonly, History Honours has been combined with Political Science or English, but also occasionally Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology or a European or Asian Language. Each discipline usually makes somewhat reduced demands for successful completion of the year, for instance, a reduced word-limit for research essays and fewer coursework assessment tasks. The two convenors from each discipline will usually organise the joint examination of the thesis.   Many coordinators perceived the benefits of interdisciplinarity to be primarily intellectual, as students ‘learn to think and research across disciplinary boundaries’. While ‘solid disciplinary grounding’ is still provided, students gain access to ‘other modes of thought and exploration’. By having a second thesis supervisor in another department, joint Honours students also receive extra supervision and the ‘advantages of a broader perspective’.   A serious concern about joint Honours, however, is its effect on students’ historical training and the depth of their knowledge of the discipline. As the respondent from the Ancient History program at the University of Western Australia states, the ‘obvious problem’ associated with students taking joint Honours is that they ‘simply know less about the discipline and the necessary background, because their preparation has not been as focused. I have certainly witnessed that.’ On the evidence of coordinators’ personal experiences, Combined Honours students are positioned at either end of the scale, either performing exceptionally well or rather poorly in their fourth year. This would appear to be the result of the extra demands that Combined Honours makes upon students. More work than straight History Honours is usually involved and this can make it tough for students to satisfy the requirements of different disciplines. While highly able students will rise to the unique challenges posed by covering two disciplines, and become deeply engaged in the Honours year, weaker students may simply flounder. As argued by the University of the Sunshine Coast, staff must ensure that students are not disadvantaged by having to ‘demonstrate achievements across more than one discipline’.   Some programs faced problems due to different weightings given to units and research work across faculties in their postgraduate coursework programs. Others reported difficulties in Combined Honours in ‘securing compatible joint supervision for the thesis’ and making certain that the thesis topic is ‘appropriate to both disciplines’. Students usually have one thesis marker from each discipline, and thus another legitimate worry is the risk of the two marks being wildly discrepant due to different approaches and expectations between the disciplines. If there is disagreement over a thesis mark, then there is the chance that the joint Honours student will receive a lower final grade. As the Honours program at the University of NSW argues: ‘What is acceptable and encouraged in one discipline may not be in another’. One respondent cited a personal example where her co-supervisor from Politics was ‘startled to discover the student used narrative to argue and analyse her topic’. The History program at Victoria University of Wellington added further food for thought, arguing that multiple supervisors is not the best approach as ‘much educational research indicates that students learn best in yearlong courses taught by one academic, working as much as possible on an individual-to-individual basis’.   Flinders University described their experiences of joint Honours as all ‘amiable’, but the complications encountered are ‘sufficient to make it clear that successful, more formalised interdisciplinary programs are hard to set up’. Despite this observation, several programs cited the development of new subjects offered across disciplinary or faculty boundaries between History and, for example, English, Media, and Medicine. Macquarie University reports such endeavours to be a ‘huge success’. This is also ‘quite common’ at the University of Western Australia, where History students enrolled in cross-offered Honours and postgraduate coursework subjects attend the same seminars as students from other departments and faculties, but produce different assessment. Such ventures are not without complications and one respondent felt it was ‘critical’ that teaching staff involved are able to ‘speak across and to all the disciplines involved, and that the assessment reflects disciplinary practices’. It was remarked that the success of offerings between departments and across faculties was ‘not impossible’ but ‘usually relies on the enthusiasm of the individual staff members involved’. The advantages were felt to be the benefits of exposing History students to those from other disciplines, which is a ‘very useful way of highlighting the methodological and theoretical specificities of the History endeavour’. The HPS programs are, by their very nature, interdisciplinary, and have long-offered Honours and postgraduate subjects to other departments and faculties. While it was generally thought that cross-disciplinary undertakings were ‘stimulating and successful’, they admitted that the ‘administration of such programs is always really difficult’.   Smaller programs were far more inclined to be positive about interdisciplinarity, often because during the ‘lean years’, teaching history in a program combined with other disciplines was the only way for the subject to survive. Such programs generally appear to have had sufficient time to tease out obstacles associated with multidisciplinary approaches and to build on the successful elements. Griffith University has been interdisciplinary since its creation in the mid-1970s, and concurs that interdisciplinary honours and postgraduate programs have ‘overcome those problems most commonly encountered in such ventures’. At Curtin University of Technology, where historians have also always taught interdisciplinary Honours, there have been ‘no real problems but many successes’. They predict that even more interdisciplinary offerings will be available to students in the future and this is a positive development for the history program: ‘many of us are enjoying this part of [the changing syllabus] enormously’. The University of Ballarat have had interdisciplinary links ‘forced’ upon them by small enrolments, but describe this trend as ‘a real boon!’ The History program there has found links between history, literature and anthropology to be ‘particularly fruitful’. The HPS program at the University of Melbourne attributes its continued survival partly to its interdisciplinarity: As a small department we are always vulnerable to the threat of amalgamations and restructuring, although our unique interdisciplinary role has so far enabled us to remain independent. Whether that will continue, especially as we have a new Dean who may have [a] different view, remains to be seen. Not all small history programs were enthusiastic about cross-disciplinarity, though. Charles Darwin University expressed their regret that there will be ‘less room for disciplinary specialisation’ as the university places ‘stronger emphasis on interdisciplinary/ multidisciplinary Bachelor of Arts Honours course’. Due to declining student numbers in History and Arts subjects generally, Edith Cowan University has recently moved from discipline-based History Honours and postgraduate coursework to cross-disciplinary programs. The reported shortcomings of the new program are that it must necessarily remain ‘rather general’, not all topics are relevant to all students, and staff must be careful not to mark research essays ‘according to a set expectation for a particular discipline’.   Many of the larger departments have long viewed interdisciplinarity as a potential threat to the preservation of the discipline of history at their university, and sometimes with good cause. The University of Newcastle details the potentially adverse effects of interdisciplinary endeavours that portend the downsizing or amalgamation of history departments: ‘There is considerable concern about the institution’s commitment to the humanities and social sciences, and I fear there will be increasing pressure to run larger, more resource-efficient honours programmes across several disciplines’. Some of this lack of receptivity to other disciplines is surely the result of the long battle many departments have fought to maintain their History program as a distinct discipline. The response from the University of Canterbury reflects this sentiment: We have a tough fight ahead to maintain History as a separate school, and have already started more active marketing through the secondary schools, which this year has paid off with an increase at first-year. But our retention rate, which used to be very strong, has slipped, especially at second-year, because the College of Arts now has such a smorgasbord of 'sexy' and frankly easy courses on offer to a stable or shrinking pool of students. History is perceived, in the schools as well as here, as a 'hard' subject. It's far easier to get A grades in American studies or Cultural Studies or Feminist studies, for much less effort, and students are only human after all. They like easy options. Another coordinator was particularly blunt about the reality of this threat: ‘the current fashion for Cultural Studies will tempt managers to dilute the disciplines (under the guise of interdisciplinary teaching) and downsize the traditional humanities’. Some larger History departments, meanwhile, admitted that their institutions were ‘conservative’ and thus had been to slow to ‘foster interdisciplinary ventures’. Strengths and Weaknesses   Many coordinators cited poor enrolments in postgraduate coursework as the least successful feature of their offerings and curriculum. Smaller programs often noted tiny Honours student cohorts and poor recruitment levels from third- year history as their most serious problems. For Charles Sturt University, the size of Honours classes tends to militate against ‘the extent to which students can benefit from the intellectual stimulation that larger Honours programs can more easily provide’. Smaller history departments also have more limited areas of supervision on offer. The University of Ballarat observed that ‘It is sad to have to send brilliant students off to other universities, but that is the reality’. Groups comprising only a few historians also complained of not enough emphasis on methodology and ‘no serious attempt’ in their faculty or university to ‘cultivate historians’.   The larger departments pointed toward staffing pressures, unpredictable student enrolments, lack of flexibility and capacity to offer a broad range of subjects as major weaknesses. La Trobe University highlighted the fact that students are requiring ‘higher marks each year to secure scholarships, and this means we risk losing excellent scholars’. Students’ failure to grasp major theoretical and historiographical approaches is also a weakness in many programs. Adelaide observes that ‘the demise of theory and method in History has left the program weaker’. The University of NSW reports the widespread problem that students can begin Honours without ever having ‘considered or attempted any original research with primary documents’. Some troubles were specific to an individual program: one coordinator criticised the ‘confinement by academic bureaucracy and pedagogic values of older staff out of touch with modern conditions’. Another spoke of the ‘constant challenge to maintain a sense of cohesion’ in seminars with a ‘mixed age group, part-timers, full-timers and mid-year entries’. Another university cited ‘interdisciplinary disagreements over thesis marks’ and the need for procedures to be put in place to ‘acknowledge disciplinary differences’ and resolve marking discrepancies.   Respondents mentioned relatively few curricular initiatives to address or develop specific vocational outcomes for Honours students, though these were more developed in postgraduate coursework programs. The Honours program at the University of NSW would like to see more stress on vocations – the honours students not planning to continue to postgraduate research often have no idea what they will do after they complete this degree, and they don’t seem to realise what an honours degree in history actually equips them to do. Preparing students for post-undergraduate options – whether it be full-time work or postgraduate study – remains a tricky balancing act for most programs. As HPS at the University of Sydney sees it, more emphasis needs to be placed on vocational training. Programs must offer subjects at both undergraduate and Honours level that fulfil the dual function of helping students to gain entry to higher degree research, as well as preparing them for specific jobs. Part of the answer may lie, we feel, in a diversification of Honours programs, perhaps with different mixes of thesis, subjects and vocational or ‘hands-on’ experiences. In that sense, it is important—perhaps especially in larger schools and departments—that Honours and postgraduate coursework programs are developed and managed with an eye on their interconnections and what they might share, as well as what makes them different.   In terms of the strengths, the thesis component itself was praised by a majority of programs as a major success, in the sense that it afforded an opportunity to students to complete an independent research project with a ‘structured programme of support and guidance’. From Adelaide: ‘The thesis component distinguishes Honours, and underpins the program’. From the University of Queensland: ‘The research thesis is still the core of Honours, and is the secret of success’. One coordinator liked the fact that the Honours program ‘offers a supportive yet critical environment in which students can become good historians’. Larger departments felt that access to staff expertise and ‘a well-developed culture of responsible supervision’ were major strengths, as was the calibre of their graduates. As the La Trobe Honours coordinator remarks: ‘the best La Trobe students write and research well and can compete against graduates from any university’. Other important ingredients for success were ‘the level of enthusiasm engendered among Honours students both individually and as a group’ and the presence of ‘an open, experimental learning environment’. Smaller programs cited their interdisciplinary research methods, and building students’ experience in major pieces of independent research as their strengths. They have experienced success in fostering ‘the very close networks built up between our post-graduate students, who are aware of what each other is interested in, and help each other with research tips’. The existence of a general seminar for all Honours students has also been a great success, providing ‘extra assistance in terms of managing the project and building support relationships between students’. The Wish List   We asked Honours and postgraduate coursework coordinators what their group would most like to have included in the curriculum that is not taught now, in terms of areas, methods and approaches, adding the qualification: ‘if there were no constraints, if staffing was not an issue, and in an ideal world’. The Australian National University replied that ‘in such an [ideal] situation…we’d have colleagues fighting each other to offer Honours special subjects.’ The University of New England makes the salient point, however, that ‘the key constraint is what can be fitted into the time available’. Creating a practicable program does not so much ‘depend on staffing but rather [on] what those enrolled can manage within the Honours program’.   At Honours level, La Trobe University expressed the universal wish: ‘a broader range of special subject options would be desirable’. Small history programs used to ‘get around’ limited Honours subject offerings by ‘allowing students to take units at other universities’. This avenue is now ‘almost impossible for students’ due to recent changes to ‘requirements about paying up-front fees’. Thus, in an ideal world, the University of Ballarat argues that ‘students should have free access to Honours coursework units offered by other public universities’. The HPS program at the University of NSW would want postgraduates and advanced undergraduates to share HPS and History subjects like historiography and historical epistemology: Alas this economically and intellectually productive possibility is foreclosed by Australian government rules forbidding mixing advanced undergraduates and postgraduates, while the fiefdom system prevailing in virtually [all] Australian universities discourages ‘sharing’ of students across Schools (since one inevitably will do the work while the other ‘profits’). Again this is a systematic constraint caused by longstanding Education Ministry policies. Other programs would choose to expand their range of MA coursework subjects, most notably in the areas of world history, feminist history, pre-modern history, contemporary European history, Asian history, United States history, Latin American history, South African history, Pacific history, intellectual history, and historiography. The lamentation of the University of Canterbury is probably a common feeling: If only we had the staff we had twenty years ago!  Then we had a nice balance of course-offerings in New Zealand, American, Asian and European history with clear pathways for students to take their interests in those areas through to honours and thesis work. Now it is very fragmented and patchy, with huge gaps in what used to be a comprehensive historical training in those fields. As discussed above, a significant number of programs would want to add a ‘History and Theory’, ‘Historiography’, or ‘Research Methods’ subject to their Honours syllabus or make it compulsory, the aim being to instil in students a ‘consistently sound knowledge of the theory, method and practice of history’. The University of the South Pacific articulates this particularly well: There should be a strong component at both undergraduate and postgraduate level on trends in historical thought and writing, the theory of history, practical issues in reconstructing the past and composing historical texts, and lots of opportunity to try out different ways of doing it. The University of NSW suggests introducing sessions in Honours ‘on the role of history and historians in the wider world – linking this with vocational information as well as encouragement to proceed to post-graduate work’. With ‘unlimited funding’, the respondent at James Cook University would like to implement a visiting scholar program which would expose the students to different methods, understandings and models of research and presentation. I would also like to send them to a professional museum for a week or two where they would learn how to present research in different ways (and learn how to extract the essential message from that research!) The School of History at the University of New South Wales would most want graduates to ‘know why their history degree is valuable and what it is useful for – they w[ould] be able to market themselves and thus raise historical consciousness in a range of sectors’.   The Ancient History program at the University of Western Australia would like to have a ‘series of regular seminars which imparted specific skills…some of them with hands-on experience, as general preparation for further research. As it is, our students have to pick these up piecemeal.’ New postgraduate programs in public history and heritage were also very popular choices. Flinders University expressed some interest in introducing some ‘well managed interdisciplinary topics’, while the University of Waikato suggested a unit on ‘new modes of doing History’, for example, digital histories. The introduction of a core methodology subject of the History of Science/ Environment, or the History of Technology, with a focus on computing and communications technology, was a popular choice with the HPS programs. Most New Zealand programs made consolidating their core offerings in New Zealand history a priority. The University of Papua New Guinea would most like to ‘recruit an Oral History expert’ so that he or she could ‘introduce programs in that field and get our students to return to their communities and write their histories’. The University of the South Pacific would ideally adopt a proper honours degree beginning in second year for an elite cohort, and not a tacked-on 4th year’. This degree would include a small dissertation, based on primary sources. This correspondent argues that there should be ‘a qualitative difference between the student who experiences and honours programme and one who does not. Honours is about elitism! The Future   Dramatic change is a distinct possibility for many of the larger history departments over the next few years as pressure mounts for their respective institutions to consider the introduction of an Australian version of the Bologna Process.[9] This model would replace a four-year BA (Hons) degree in history with a 3-2-3 degree structure: a three-year generalist Bachelor’s degree, followed by a two-year MA and a three-year PhD. Forty-five European nation states have demonstrated their support for the Bologna model, favouring the harmonisation of academic degree standards in the European tertiary education system, a move that is hoped will make the EU more competitive with North America and Asia.[10] The Bologna Process shares similarities with the American system of undergraduate generalist education and postgraduate professional training. If such a system is developed in Australia, vocational degrees previously offered at undergraduate level such as law, medicine, engineering, nursing and education will only be offered as postgraduate programs.   This restructure of the university degree program would affect the current framework of postgraduate studies. While it seems to provide a possible new place for two-year postgraduate coursework programs, it might spell the elimination of the Honours year or other one-year offerings. As the Australian tertiary education system seems to be moving in this direction, a number of survey respondents expressed doubts about the future of their current programs. The University of Melbourne has already announced its commitment to the ‘Melbourne Model’, based on the Bologna Process, in its ‘Growing Esteem’ strategic plan.[11] The first of these ‘new generation’ degrees will be introduced in 2008, by 2012 all new students will commence Melbourne Model degrees, and by 2015 the new system will be in place.[12] It seems increasingly likely that other Australian universities will follow suit and also implement major restructures.   From Macquarie University came the following observation: A lot depends on wider reforms to do with full fee places, and whether universities in Australia move towards the Bologna model. I suspect they will, and that honours will become part of an MA that is itself more firmly tied to the PhD path. The history department at the University of Melbourne echoed this sentiment: The model does call for increased emphasis on postgraduate research (a two-year MA followed by a three-year PhD). It is unclear at this time how honours will fit into the new scheme. It may become the first-year of a two-year MA program or it may disappear altogether. At the very least, the introduction of a generalist undergraduate degree promises to be a positive thing for history enrolments, because ‘emphasis [is placed] on Arts and Science as initial courses’. Thus, the pool of undergraduate students wanting to study history, and take humanities and social science subjects generally, would increase. A generalist undergraduate degree would not necessarily bode well for the survival of smaller history departments and the breadth of offerings, however. Even a large institution such as the University of Melbourne aims to have ‘fewer courses and subjects, [as well as] a range of well-defined pathways into graduate study’.[13]   Nevertheless, the small multidisciplinary HPS program at the University of Melbourne remains confident about the future: [The] Bologna model... should boost our undergraduate numbers…from which students will advance into more specialist professional courses as postgraduate studies. Whether the rise in undergraduates will lead to a boost in Honours or postgraduates is not clear, but I would expect it will – there is an oft-quoted statement that HPS is one of the best-kept secrets in the university, and once students find it many of them love it. Still, the amalgamation of the Honours year into a history MA would be seen as a great loss by many academics: while the MA that replaces the fourth year of a history degree would still fulfil the important function of providing a suitable preparation for a research degree, there would be no ‘culmination year’ in which students who do not intend to go on to further study extend their analytical skills, increase their employability and enhance their knowledge of the discipline.   Some programs argued against the likelihood of the Honours year being endangered in the near future. For the majority of survey respondents, however, the prospect of these far-reaching changes is still too much of an uncertainty for the moment to seriously contemplate. Many would agree with Queensland University of Technology that the future is ‘anyone’s guess’, or, alternatively would offer the other common response – they expect the program will remain ‘much as it is today’.   Regional universities such as the University of New England predicted that they would ‘increasingly be making use of on-line delivery to improve access for external students’. Southern Cross University reported that they, too, would make better use of technology to deliver materials. Additionally, all units are likely to be externalised and ‘the number of honours students studying off campus will increase’.   Funding cuts, low student enrolments, and declining staff numbers remain the three key reasons for any sense of anxiety about the future. From the University of Waikato: ‘With severe cuts to our staffing (we are now 5.5 FTEs) and limited offerings, we are in crisis and survival mode’. From Queensland University of Technology: ‘The current funding climate does not look promising, so holding the line may well be the order of the day’. Ongoing concerns about the loss of staff prevented many coordinators from being overly sanguine about the future of their Honours and postgraduate coursework offerings. For a significant number of programs, both large and small, staff constraints may mean that only two or three special subjects will be offered to Honours students, rather than a previously broader range. As at the University of Queensland, the loss of five staff over the last five years has left the history program with a ‘limited capacity for new initiatives’. Staffing restraints at Charles Darwin University will also mean that any prospect of the development of a postgraduate coursework program in History will be stymied. Moreover, even where Honours enrolments are ‘holding firm’, such as at La Trobe University, academics are concerned that ‘if staff numbers continue to decline students might not want to invest in taking history honours’. Of course, staff growth is usually dependent on having sufficient student enrolments to justify new appointments. The University of Canterbury expressed a common worry: If we can't increase enrolments to justify new staff appointments, I fear we shall be swallowed up in another round of restructuring and merged into a larger school, as has happened in so many other places. Even though enrolments in Honours tend to fluctuate from year to year, generally speaking, there has been no major decline in numbers at the larger universities since 2003. Rather, it would seem that the general perception of a downturn in enrolments can be traced back to the early and mid 1990s, when the number of Honours students peaked at several universities. Some respondents suggested that perhaps this trend was counter-cyclical and tied to opportunities for History BA graduates in the job market.   As was true in the findings of the 2003–4 AHA Undergraduate History Curriculum Review, the smaller history programs felt most imperilled. Several thought that if their current situation does not improve they were in danger of becoming ‘teaching only’ universities, without Honours or postgraduate programs. James Cook University reported that their Honours program is vulnerable because of ‘the threat to research in regional universities generally’: ‘If we end up without postgrads, the temptation would be to chop out honours and History would end up doing service teaching’. Edith Cowan’s University’s prediction was even more dire: in the next five years, their history program would be ‘slim and maybe non-existent’. The Australian Catholic University (Victoria) contended that ‘it’s hard to be optimistic unless there is a major change in the job market’. The small postgraduate history program at the University of Papua New Guinea will also struggle to carry on into the future: ‘With dwindling student numbers and scarce resources the constant threat of termination is ever present. If I am still here in 5 years time, I will let you know I have survived’. Nor is the news particularly encouraging from the University of the South Pacific: History at this university is critically under-developed for a combination of reasons on both the supply and demand sides. Changing this significantly is likely to require a longer tenure here than most academics are able or willing to devote to the place. We have to attain critical mass in both staff and student numbers before things will improve significantly. One solution to the growing pressure on resources has been the development of revenue-raising postgraduate coursework programs. Flinders University reported the common conclusion that in the future ‘our search will continue to find a clear way to attract substantial numbers of fee paying grad students’. The University of Tasmania concurred that a new coursework Masters in History might be introduced with the proviso that ‘a genuine need and market’ first be identified. The University of Adelaide surmised that postgraduate coursework offerings will increasingly be subject to ‘the vagaries of international student demand’. Should that demand collapse, then so will ‘relatively non-vocational’ programs. Adelaide predicts that vocational coursework programs, such as their Graduate Studies in Gastronomy, will thrive as federal government policy ‘increasingly push[es] vocational and professional training into the full-fee postgraduate coursework environment’.   Some coordinators expressed a general sense that Honours programs will become more simplified. They envisaged that the length of the dissertation will be shortened and the workload in special subjects and seminars reduced to ‘respond to the changed learning environment of the undergraduate unit structure, and increasing work commitments of students’ (UWA) and ‘to make it a more manageable transition for students used to writing shorter pieces of work’ (Monash). The Ancient History program at the University of Auckland foresees the abandonment of yearlong courses, and more focus on the seminar structure rather than ‘traditionally taught courses’. In line with these modifications, the postgraduate research degree may need to offer ‘more introductory training in the first year of the programme in theory, methodology and research practice generally’ (UWA). Although the present and future position of postgraduate coursework is far less certain, and seems in part more dependent upon the vagaries of education policy and education markets, it is clear that, for the moment at least, Honours programs still form a key part of Arts education, both as a capstone to an undergraduate degree and as a pathway to higher degree research. Overall, we think that the survey respondents have helped us identify two important challenges. The first is the development of well-conceived, intellectually stimulating and (often) vocational postgraduate coursework programs that creatively respond to and nourish the evident public interest in many forms of history. A number of the departments represented here show how this can be achieved. The second is meeting and sustaining student interest in the intrinsic intellectual worth of an Honours program in history. We think a lot of university historians would endorse this view from the University of Adelaide: The demise of Honours is regularly anticipated, and just as regularly the anticipations come to nought. Honours will survive because it is robustly independent of labour markets and vocational training: students have a unique opportunity to concentrate on an area of interest to them, and to undertake a sustained piece of research, and know it. They also know that they will probably enrol in a vocational program of some sort after Honours, probably in an area totally unrelated to History. That challenge involves curriculum planning, at fourth year but also in the second and third years of the undergraduate major. In smaller institutions, it will often mean tackling the problems and opportunities of interdisciplinary Honours work. It means inventive responses to issues of recruitment and retention. For everyone, it will also involve reflecting upon the nature of the thesis, the relationship between research and coursework, and how Honours links to a range of outcomes. What is most striking, however, is the pleasure that university historians are likely to take in meeting that challenge. Endnotes [1] The first history curriculum review, conducted in 2003–4, covered undergraduate history curricula, with special focus given to the history ‘major’. The final report is available from the AHA website at http://www.theaha.org.au/new.html. See also Carly Millar and Mark Peel, ‘Canons Old and New? The Undergraduate History Curriculum in 2004’, History Australia, vol. 1, no.3, December 2004. [2] Some institutions, including the Australian National University, and the Universities of Melbourne, New South Wales, and Sydney, provided us with several questionnaire responses, in accordance with the distinct history programs operating in different faculties of their university. [3] These are listed in Appendix 4: List of Survey Respondents. [4] Several of the larger history departments sent two separate survey responses: one addressing their Honours program and the other their postgraduate coursework offerings. [5] Peter Furtado, ‘Postgraduate History 2005,’ History Today, 55 (2), 2005, p. 54. [6] This includes a Professional Certificate, Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma or Master of Arts in Gastronomy. [7] In addition to the Professional Certificate, Graduate Certificate, Graduate Diploma and Master of Arts by coursework, the Graduate Studies in Art History program also offers an MA and PhD by research. [8] ‘Honours History: The Gateway to Your Future’, Discipline of History, University of Adelaide, at http://www.arts.adelaide.edu.au/historypolitics/pdf/hist%20hons%20handbk.pdf. Accessed 4 June 2006. [9] For more on the Bologna Model, see Department of Education, Science and Training, ‘The Bologna Process and Australia: Next Steps’, April 2006, at http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/D284E32F-98DD-4A67-A3C2-D5B6F3F41622/9998/BolognaPaper.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006; Group of Eight, ‘The Bologna Process and Australia’, Submission to the Department of Education, Science and Training, May 2006, at http://www.go8.edu.au/policy/papers/2006/Go8%20on%20Bologna%2019.05.06.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006. [10] Group of Eight, ‘The Bologna Process and Australia’, Submission to the Department of Education, Science and Training, May 2006, at http://www.go8.edu.au/policy/papers/2006/Go8%20on%20Bologna%2019.05.06.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006. [11] University of Melbourne, ‘Growing Esteem: The University of Melbourne Strategic Plan, 2006’, at http://www.unimelb.edu.au/publications/docs/strategic_plan2006.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006. [12] As the Honours program in History at the University of Melbourne will not be affected by the new system until 2011, it will continue unchanged until 2010. After this the future of Honours is unclear: at best, it may remain as a transition stage, or it will be retained indefinitely. [13] University of Melbourne, ‘Office of the Vice-Chancellor – Growing Esteem Strategic Plan 2006: The Path to 2015 – What will the University look like in 2015?’ at http://growingesteem.unimelb.edu.au/strategicplan/2015.html. Accessed 2 June 2006. Appendices Appendix 1: Honours Program Requirements Appendix 2: Honours Enrolment Figures Appendix 3: Postgraduate Coursework Programs on Offer Appendix 4: List of Survey Respondents Appendix 5: Sample Survey Bibliography General Dickinson, A., ‘History Using Information Technology: Past, Present and Future’, Teaching History, 93, November 1998, pp.16–21. Drake, F.D. and W.M. Lawrence, ‘Reinvigorating the Teaching of History through Alternative Assessment’, The History Teacher, 30, February 1997, pp. 145–73. Seixas, P., ‘Forces for Change in the Teaching and Learning of History’, Canadian Social Studies, 32 (2), Winter 1998, pp.44–68. Seixas, P., ‘Beyond “Content” and “Pedagogy”: In Search of a Way to Talk About History Education’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31 (3), 1999, pp.317–37. Australia Bonnell, Andrew G., ‘The Present and Future of History: History in Australian Universities: A User’s Guide,’ AHA Bulletin, 8 (2), May 1996. Deacon, Desley, ‘A “Global Shift” in the Research School of Social Sciences, History Program Profiles No.1: RSSS, ANU,’ AHA Bulletin, 96, June 2003. Department of Education, Science and Training, ‘The Bologna Process and Australia: Next Steps’, April 2006, at http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/D284E32F-98DD-4A67-A3C2-D5B6F3F41622/9998/BolognaPaper.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006. Group of Eight, ‘The Bologna Process and Australia’, Submission to the Department of Education, Science and Training, May 2006, at http://www.go8.edu.au/policy/papers/2006/Go8%20on%20Bologna%2019.05.06.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006. Macintyre, Stuart, ‘“Funny You Should Ask That”: Higher Education as a Market,’ Evatt Foundation website, available at: http://evatt.labor.net.au/publications/papers/28.html. Accessed 30 April 2004. Macintyre, Stuart, ‘History’, Knowing Ourselves and Others: The Humanities in Australia into the 21st Century: Canberra: National Board of Employment, Education and Training, 1998, pp.139-150.  Also available at: http://humanities.org.au/review/b14_macintyre.html. Accessed 20 April 2004. Roe, Jill, ‘Comment: The Health of History,’ 2000. Available at: http://www.pr.mq.edu.au/macnews/showitem.asp?ItemID=132. Accessed 19 February 2004. Taylor, T, J. Gough, V. Bundrock, & R. Winter, ‘A Bleak Outlook: Academic Staff Perceptions of Changes in Core Activities in Australian Higher Education’, Studies in Higher Education, 23 (3), 1998, pp.255–68.   University of Melbourne, ‘Growing Esteem: The University of Melbourne Strategic Plan, 2006’, at http://www.unimelb.edu.au/publications/docs/strategic_plan2006.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2006. United Kingdom Bates, David, ‘Postgraduate Courses 1999,’ History Today, 49 (2), 1999, pp.54–59. 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