In the news, Inside Higher Ed covers the AHA’s new “Tuning” history project, and Gettysburg College reports on the co-winners of the 2012 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize. Also find links to tracking history PhDs, careers for historians outside of academia, and how historians are using social media. Finally, read about a student’s discovery of a forgotten Malcolm X speech and a video on George Washington’s frustration with portrait painters.

• “Tuning” History
  Inside Higher Ed explores the AHA’s new “Tuning” history project, supported by a grant from Lumina Foundation, to articulate the core of historical study and to identify what a student should know and be able to do at the completion of a history degree program.
• 2012 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize
  Gettysburg College reports that AHA member Elizabeth D. Leonard has won the 2012 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for her book, Lincoln’s Forgotten Ally: Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt of Kentucky (Univ. of North Carolina Press). William C. Harris is a co-winner of the prize for Lincoln and the Border States: Preserving the Union (Univ. Press of Kansas).

Insights

• Historians Face New Pressures to Track Ph.D.’s
  The Chronicle’s article “Historians Face New Pressures to Track Ph.D.’s” includes some fascinating data on placements of 2010 history PhDs from top-rated programs. By our math, their chart shows 40% of the PhD recipients are now in tenure-track posts, 23% are adjuncts, 14% are in postdoc positions, 4% are in other sorts of academic but non-teaching jobs, 6% are in nonacademic positions, and 13% are unemployed.
• What’s Been Lost in History
  In this opinion piece, Thomas Bender, professor of history and university professor of the humanities at New York University, considers careers paths for historians outside of academia.
• Academic Networking 2.0: Historians and Social Media
  Michael D. Hattem, a PhD candidate at Yale, explains how “historians are utilizing social media for both professional networking and scholarly development.”
• The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia
  Timothy Messer-Kruse, professor in the School of Cultural and Critical Studies at Bowling Green State University, details his experiences editing a Wikipedia entry on the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. Messer-Kruse has published articles and books on the subject, but ran into issues with Wikipedia’s "undue weight" policy when trying to share his expertise.

Archives

• George Washington and the Paparazzi
  A short video from the National Archives focuses on a letter written by George Washington expressing his frustration with being asked to sit for portraits.
• Brown U. student uncovers lost Malcolm X speech
  A trip to his university’s archives led Brown University student Malcolm Burnley to uncover a recording of a Malcolm X speech he gave at Brown in 1961.

Contributors: Elisabeth Grant, Vernon Horn, and Robert B. Townsend

This post first appeared on AHA Today.