NEH Grant Facilitates Rethinking of Humanities Doctoral Education
Graduate education is evolving at institutions across the country, and programs within the Dietrich School are no exception.
A new proposal for improving graduate education at Pitt called “Humanities Careers: Re-Imagining Doctoral Education in the Humanities” recently received funding from The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The award is nearly $25,000 and will be matched with funding from the Dietrich School. This funding supports a collaborative, faculty- and student-driven process of rethinking graduate education from within the Humanities doctoral programs.
Universities and funding institutions have recognized that graduate training needs an adjustment as most PhD alumni do not pursue tenure-track careers within research universities. As a result, the traditional apprentice-style programs that are available at most universities no longer meet the needs of most students. While the deep disciplinary training received through traditional programming is indispensable, modern students require an additional, broader skillset that suits their diverse career aspirations.
With this new funding, students and faculty across 14 Humanities departments will collaborate to identify ways to optimize training and professional development in support of a wide range of careers.
“Humanities PhDs already pursue high-impact, satisfying careers across many employment sectors, but graduate education has not yet fully acknowledged and adapted to this reality,” says Holger Hoock, the J. Carroll Amundson Professor of British History and the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies in the Dietrich School, to whom the award was granted.
The goal of the re-imagining process is to determine ways that Humanities doctoral education can serve students that pursue careers both within and outside of academia. This process seeks to combine deep disciplinary training while fostering core competencies that are valuable across sectors. Training will also focus on enabling students to leverage the high-level competencies they are already receiving for success toward diverse career aspirations.
“Our charge is to spark transformative, not incremental change,” explains Hoock. “We want to think capaciously about the broader importance of Humanities PhDs and the societal impacts of humanistic training.”
A year-long planning process will draw information from individuals with different careers and perspectives. The goal of this process will be to identify what changes could be made, and how those changes may be implemented.
A planning committee has been assembled of more than 40 people including Pitt faculty members, graduate students, alumni, and other interlocutors across and beyond campus. It is divided into three working groups that cover each of three planning themes: curricular reform, public-facing humanistic scholarship and partnerships, and alumni engagement.
The planning process will determine measures that, through deep disciplinary training, hone core competencies that facilitate broad professional development. Ultimately, the information from this planning process will be presented as actionable recommendations that can be used by departments to inform internal changes to curriculum and training.
“Humanities PhDs develop high-level skills in synthesizing, organizing, analyzing, interpreting and communicating large amounts of information,” says Hoock. He emphasizes the need for more opportunities for students to practice skills including creative problem solving, project scoping and management, assessment, collaborative work, communication to non-specialist audiences, entrepreneurship, and negotiation – competencies that are valuable across sectors.
“The academy of 2020 or 2025 is itself radically different from that of 1975 or even 2000, requiring a much broader set of skills,” he remarks. “Superior research training in R1 doctoral institutions such as Pitt and orienting students to diverse careers are mutually enhancing missions.”
Some departments have already taken steps toward addressing the diverse career paths of their students, and the planning committee will seek to build on these efforts. For example, departments have encouraged their students to employ individual development plans (IDPs) to help identify the values, skills, career aspirations, and training needs of each student.
Hoock says, “We can build on the pioneering, if as yet isolated, efforts in several programs such as History of Art and Architecture, Film and Media Studies, or Music, diffuse best practices, and inspire scalable programming.”
While the award is intended to support the planning process, the committee anticipates releasing early educational resources, including an online platform for students to connect with alumni and other versatile humanists for mentorship. A website called Humanities Careers will host these resources as well as other useful pieces of information like informative blog posts and details about the members of the planning committee.
“With Humanities Careers we seek to model a student-centered, outcome-focused, transparent, collaborative process,” Hoock explains. “Our agenda is closely aligned with University- and school-wide priorities including producing research that welds inquiry and impact; strengthening the University community by strengthening life-long alumni connections, and strengthening the Pitt community’s relations to the region.”
The NEH grant will support the graduate programs’ movements as they adjust to serve a wider range of student ambitions. These efforts aim to prepare students to function successfully as disciplinary and professional leaders.
“Our commitment to diverse and inclusive excellence entails an ethical imperative and strategic necessity for programs to support all students’ career aspirations – whether they envisage pursuing high-impact, satisfying careers in academia, the public sector, industry, or the non-profit world.”