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The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of 28 universities taking part in a major national initiative to transform graduate education in the humanities.<\/p>\nThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of 28 universities taking part in a major national initiative to transform graduate education in the humanities.<\/p>\n
Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the initiative looks beyond \u201cthe academic-focused future we\u2019re accustomed to training graduate students for,\u201d said NEH Chairman William D. Adams in a statement on Aug. 11. \u201cIf graduate programs wish to make a case for the continuation of graduate education in the humanities, they\u2019re going to have to think about the professional futures of their students in entirely different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Institute for the Arts and Humanities<\/a> Director Mark Katz worked with colleagues from across the university to propose \u201cRe-envisioning the Humanities PhD,\u201d a year-long campus-wide conversation on graduate education in the humanities, which will be funded by a $25,000 NEH planning grant and matched by UNC. \u201cOur intention is that this initiative will lead to far-reaching and much-needed change, and in the process offer a national model of creative, collaborative reform,\u201d Katz said.<\/p>\n The project is organized around four main themes, each of which will be explored by committees of faculty, administrators, graduate students and alumni:<\/p>\n Careers.<\/strong> Graduate programs in the humanities have traditionally trained students solely for university professorships. This committee will investigate the wide range of career options for which humanities PhDs are qualified. According to IAH Coordinator for Faculty Programs Philip Hollingsworth, a member of the core committee that will oversee the project, \u201cThe grant will provide future graduate students better professionalization and make them much more desirable candidates in the academic, alternative academic, and non-academic\u00a0job markets.\u201d<\/p>\n Collaboration.<\/strong> In conjunction with broader efforts to \u201cde-silo\u201d the university and academia in general, this committee will explore ways to promote collaboration in the humanities, including co-authored publications, team-based research and teaching, and partnership with disciplines outside the humanities. UNC science and health affairs faculty and graduate students will join the conversation.<\/p>\n Curriculum and Dissertation.<\/strong> What should humanities PhD programs teach? What is the purpose of a dissertation? This committee will ask these simple but challenging questions with an eye toward discovering what works in traditional approaches to graduate education in the humanities, what does not, and how we might improve the way we instruct and evaluate graduate students.<\/p>\n