UNM Career Diversity for Historians
The American Historical Association-Mellon Foundation initiative on Career Diversity and the History PhD is designed to diversify the career opportunities of History PhDs. In the first phase of this initiative, the pilot programs were UNM, along with UCLA, Columbia, and University of Chicago. These programs modeled how history departments could simultaneously train better future faculty and ensure graduates are highly marketable for well-paid jobs outside of the professoriate. UNM’s History Department already has an excellent record of its alumni finding rewarding jobs both within and outside academia, and this initiative celebrates and builds upon those successes. The AHA is currently implementing a new phase of Career Diversity Fellowships at numerous other universities in order to implement broadly some of the lessons learned in the pilot program.
Over the course of the AHA-Mellon initiative, we have worked to restructure graduate training, initiated new problem-based courses that apply historical inquiry to real-world issues, created internships for students to use critical thinking, writing, research and language skills in nonacademic settings, and developed new teaching and research partnerships with colleagues in law, business, architecture, engineering, cultural resources, and health sciences. We still have much left to accomplish. Our faculty are thinking critically about new approaches to the PhD program and how it can better fit the professional and academic needs of our graduate students. Our alumni are taking the lead in creating an association for our graduates that will provide mentoring, camaraderie, and new opportunities for alumni, students, and faculty alike. We are refining graduate workshops and training that we piloted during the initiative. Most importantly, our Department continues to prepare students for diverse careers.
Contact Information:
UNM Career Diversity for Historians
Dr. Shannon Withycombe
Mesa Vista Hall 2062
swithycombe@unm.edu
