Are you interested in expanded careers within and outside the academy? 

The Humanities Without Walls (HWW) Predoctoral Career Diversity Workshop is a three-week virtual summer workshop for doctoral students interested in learning about careers outside of the academy and/or the tenure track system. Through a series of workshops, talks, and virtual field trips, participants learn how to leverage their skills and training towards careers in the private sector, the non-profit world, arts administration, public media and many other fields. All aspects of the workshop will be remote, virtual, and online in nature. Watch videos from previous workshops.

Each fellow will receive a $5,000 stipend. All fellows are expected to attend all online workshop sessions and be active participants in the asynchronous and synchronous elements of the virtual workshop for its entirety.

Humanities Without Walls is a consortium of humanities centers and institutes at 16 major research universities, including the University of Michigan. The consortium is funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and it supports humanities doctoral students to think of themselves as agents of the public humanities and showcase opportunities beyond the walls of the academy in an uncertain academic job climate.

In this virtual roundtable, hear from HWW fellowship alumni Linda Garcia Merchant, Kei Hotoda, and Ira Murfin about their experiences post-fellowship and the ways in which the Career Diversity Workshop informed their career exploration and development. You’ll also learn how to apply for the 2021 virtual workshop.

Deadline: Applications, recommendation letters, and queries should be submitted to the U-M Institute for the Humanities (humin@umich.edu) by October 31, 2020. Additional details and application materials are available on the Humanities Without Walls (HWW) website.

Eligibility: All applicants must be enrolled in a doctoral degree program in a humanities or humanistic social science discipline. Applicants may be at any stage of their doctoral work, but they cannot have already received the doctoral degree at the time the workshop takes place. Applicants cannot have a graduation date on or before July 1st, 2021. International students are eligible to apply, but are responsible for confirming their registration and eligibility status at their home universities; neither HWW nor the U-M Institute for the Humanities will issue visa paperwork.

Application requirements: Interested doctoral students in the humanities should submit their applications to humin@umich.edu by October 31st, 2020. Combine and submit all application materials as a single PDF file. Please do not submit your applications directly to HWW.

The application file should contain:

  • A completed application cover sheet
  • A narrative (1,000 words maximum) explaining the applicant’s intended career trajectory and addressing the following questions:
    • What does “career diversity” mean to you and what do you know about career diversity in graduate education?
    • Why are you interested in attending the workshop?
    • What kinds of knowledge and skills are you seeking from the workshop? 
    • How do you envision sharing what you learn at the workshop with your colleagues, department, campus, and beyond?
    • What experiences have you had in applied or public humanities or public engagement?
    • What do you hope to achieve as a result of attending the workshop?
  • CV (two pages maximum)
  • Two letters of recommendation. One letter should be from the applicant’s primary adviser/dissertation chair; both should emphasize the applicant’s fit for this workshop

Applications, recommendation letters, and queries should be submitted to the U-M Institute for the Humanities (humin@umich.edu) by October 31, 2020.