Report on the Current Status of the Mellon-Funded AHA-MLA Study: Career Paths for Humanities PhDs

Session Abstract

Members of this panel will provide an update on the findings of a joint AHA-MLA project that seeks to broaden our understanding of the career employment options for students enrolled in history and modern language doctoral programs. The project researchers started from a working assumption that students enter the long and arduous course of doctoral education because they seek academic careers. On that assumption, the purposes of the project include (1) developing and disseminating information about long-term employment outcomes for humanists who have undertaken doctoral study in history and language and literature, as well as the full range of settings and occupations where these humanists in fact work; and (2) developing structures that will promote awareness of humanistic expertise and the full spectrum of its occupational applications, whether for current or prospective students in doctoral programs, at the annual meetings and in the publications of the AHA and MLA and similar scholarly organizations and professional societies, or among the public at large.