The American Historical Association has received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue, expand, and enhance its “Career Diversity and the History PhD” initiative. Our long-term goal is to establish a new norm: that doctoral graduates in history (and by extension the humanities) know how to pursue a wide spectrum of career opportunities that includes the professoriate, higher education administration, cultural institutions and other nonprofits, government, public education, and the private sector. This $1.6 million grant will fund pilot projects at four universities, anchored by a suite of national activities implemented by the Association. These pilots will take place at UCLA, Columbia, Univ. of Chicago, and Univ. of New Mexico.branches6
Expanding the employment horizons and qualifications of history PhDs is not just a matter of finding jobs for our students. We are also interested in widening the presence and influence of humanistic thinking in business, government, and nonprofits. Implicit assumptions about historical context inform thousands of decisions made every day in nearly every institutional context, and we believe that a substantial proportion of those decisions are made without recognition of those historical assumptions, and certainly with very little actual historical knowledge.
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