In connection with Public Pathways: Lessons about PhD Careers from 10 Years of Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows, the following is a list of recent resources, events, and programs related to PhD career diversity from ACLS member societies. This represents only a small fraction of the full range of support the learned societies provide for emerging scholars in their fields.
In addition to these resources, faculty and administrators interested in making change on a curricular level may wish to explore both the report’s recommendations and some case studies on curricular change at the graduate level from our Building Blocks for a New Academy project.
Patrick O’Shea, now a principal researcher at FrameWorks Institute, described in a focus group conversation how all he had wanted to do was tell people’s stories and it was that goal, rather than academic employment per se, that had guided his PhD work in Latin American cultural studies.
—from Public Pathways: Lessons about PhD Careers from 10 Years of Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows
Photo: Patrick O’Shea F’15 and Jennifer Cossyleon F’19 discuss their fellowship experiences at the 2023 ACLS annual meeting.
American Anthropological Association
Anthropology Careers and Employment
Anthropology Careers & Employment (ACE) is the official career site of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). As well as a job board, ACE also hosts career resource articles that explore a wide range of careers. Additional resources, including webinars, are linked here.
sNAPAshots: Conversations with Professional, Practicing, and Applied Anthropologists
The National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA), a section of the AAA, shares videos of interviews with members about their careers.
The Anthropology Career Readiness Network
Supported in part by AAA, this volunteer network has a mission of improving career preparation in anthropology departments.
American Association of Geographers
Your Professional Journey
While not exclusively focused on those with PhDs in geography, the Your Professional Journey page on the website of the American Association of Geographers offers a wide-ranging exploration of possible careers by sector, including profiles of individuals, skills and role titles, and lists of employers.
American Academy of Religion
“Careers beyond the Academy” (audio recordings)
The American Academy of Religion’s “Applied Religious Studies Committee” regularly hosts conference sessions and webinars about career diversity. Gathered in the linked SoundCloud are audio recordings of presentations at the Annual Meeting of the AAR (accessible to non-members.)
“Beyond the Professoriate”
AAR has partnered with Beyond the Professoriate (an e-learning platform that has developed resources to aid students, post-docs, and mentors in demystifying the job market—both academic and beyond) to offer access to the platform to AAR members.
American Historical Association
Career Diversity for Historians
The AHA’s Career Diversity for Historians initiative is working to better prepare graduate students and early-career historians for a range of career options, within and beyond the academy. It includes resources for both students and faculty, including sample syllabi, personal narratives, and more.
The Career Diversity 5 Skills
A toolkit to help historians identify and develop core skills they will need to work outside of (or within) the professoriate: communication, collaboration, quantitative literacy, intellectual self-confidence, and digital literacy.
Where Historians Work
Where Historians Work is an interactive, online database that catalogs the career outcomes of historians who earned PhDs at universities in the United States from 2004 to 2017.
The AHA’s Career Contacts program facilitates informational interviews between current PhD students and history PhDs who have built careers beyond the professoriate. These PhDs work in a variety of fields, including academic administration, non-profit management, public policy, archives and libraries, K-12 teaching, as well as a range of positions in the federal government and private industry.
American Musicological Society
Sustainable Mentorship Program
The Sustainable Mentorship Program (applications due by May 31 for the 2024-25 cohort) provides robust, year-long mentorship, professional development, and networking support to individuals with advanced training in musicology and related fields. This program includes a stream devoted to “Diverse Careers: Identifying and Finding a Career for You.”
American Philosophical Association
Beyond the Academy Guide
Beyond the Academy is a guide on careers for philosophers outside the professoriate. Created and regularly updated by the APA Committee on Non-Academic Careers, the guide includes information on launching a non-academic career, information for faculty and departments about how to support students and colleagues pursuing careers beyond the academy, and profiles of philosophers in various non-academic careers. It also contains links to other resources, such as recordings of APA Live online events focused on non-academic careers.
Non-Academic Career Mentors
The APA Committee on Non-Academic Careers organizes this mentorship program, in which philosophers working outside academia volunteer to connect with and in some cases mentor philosophers interested in careers beyond the academy.
Nicole Ivy (F’15), a fellow at the American Alliance of Museums, now an assistant professor at George Washington University, always knew she wanted to do something both publicly engaged and academically engaged.
—from Public Pathways: Lessons about PhD Careers from 10 Years of Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows
American Political Science Association
APSA’s Career Paths Series
APSA’s Career Paths series explores the wide range of career trajectories that political science PhDs can take and provides specific career advice for graduate students entering the job market, as well as other political scientists at all career levels who are looking for new career opportunities.
APSA’s “Exploring Applied Career Options”
APSA’s landing page for Applied Career resources, including recordings of past webinars and workshops.
American Sociological Association
Resource Page
The Careers with a Sociology PhD page from the American Sociological Association links to a number of useful videos and webinars (available to members only) about careers for sociologists both inside and outside academia.
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Exploring Career Diversity Program
The ASEEES Exploring Career Diversity Program is a service that matches professionals with SEEES MA/PhDs employed beyond the professoriate with graduate students and recent MA/PhDs who are interested in broadening their career horizons. The program provides the opportunity for a one-time informational interview or conversation with professionals in non-academic fields.
Exploring Career Diversity Conversation Series
Recordings of some panels from this series of career diversity discussions are available to members through the website.
Linguistics Society of America
Linguistics Career Launch
Linguistics Career Launch brings together workshops and events (July 15-26 in 2024), a podcast featuring interviews with linguists working outside academia, and resources for career exploration.
Modern Languages Association
Connected Academics, a Mellon-funded initiative, helped prepare doctoral students to use their humanistic training in a broader range of humanities occupations. While the program is now complete, it resulted in a range of very helpful resources. These include, among others, a guide to doctoral career planning for PhD programs and faculty and a career exploration activity packet for graduate students.
MLA Job List Blog
The MLA Job List Blog publishes articles related to job searches and professional development in the broader humanities professions, including posts about the nonacademic job search and diverse career pathways.
Organization of American Historians
Webinars on Professional Development
The Organization of American Historians has a publicly available set of recent webinars on professional development, including one on preparing for the non-academic job hunt.
Society for American Music
Career Connections Initiative
The Career Connections initiative serves as a resource for members of the Society for American Music at any point in their career path. It connects those seeking advice with SAM members from a variety of backgrounds and careers who can assist them with short-term information about a skill, possible career path, research area, or other query.
Society for Classical Studies
Careers for Classicists: Graduate Student Edition
An online guide to a variety of careers for those with classics PhDs published by the society in 2018.
Society for Ethnomusicology
SEM Public Ethnomusicology Mentoring Program
SEM’s Public Ethnomusicology Mentoring Program pairs individual senior colleagues working in public/applied ethnomusicology with individual early-career colleagues interested in pursuing similar professional paths outside the academy. Mentors are available for one-on-one consultations with their mentees monthly or every other month over the course of a year.
Related News and Programs
In connection with Preparing Publicly Engaged Scholars: A Guide to Innovation in Doctoral Education, the following is a list of recent resources related to public scholarship, graduate education, and tenure and promotion requirements.
Alison Turner F’22 shares her experience working as a Research and Data Coordinator at Operation Shoestring through the ACLS Leading Edge Fellowship Program.
News Article
December 20, 2023
Public Pathways: Lessons about PhD Careers from 10 Years of Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows provides insights into career paths for humanities PhDs beyond the college classroom through the lens of a postdoctoral fellowship that placed nearly 200 humanities and interpretive social sciences PhDs in government and nonprofit organizations across the United States.
Frederick M. Ranallo-Higgins F’22 shares his experience working as a Buddhism Public Scholar and Associate Editor at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
News Article
December 18, 2023
In concert with advice and recommendations in the report itself and resources from our member societies, we share these past job postings from the fellowship. The positions were taken up by fellows across the humanities and interpretive social sciences, from theatre history and criticism to English, German studies, and history. Consider these postings one possible stepping off point in exploring the wide range of jobs outside of academia.
