In fall 2018, the University of Iowa received a four-year, $1,341,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the Obermann Center’s creation of a degree in the Graduate College in collaboration with humanities departments that choose to participate. The goal of the Humanities for the Public Good initiative is to prepare students for diverse careers, specifically in the non-profit sector, public policy, government, libraries, cultural administration, technology, publishing, and institutional education and research. The program will explore benefits of campus-community partnerships, team-taught courses, and funded summer internships and externships.
March 7, 2019: Mentoring with Diverse Humanities Careers in Mind—ImaginePhD Workshop for UI Faculty, Graduate Students, and Staff, led by Jen Teitle (Graduate College) and UI graduate students Brady Krien (English, CLAS) and Aiden Bettine (History, CLAS)
March 8, 2019: National Experiments in Career Diversity: Humanities for the Public Good Working Symposium — An all-day symposium that featured 12 visiting speakers:
- Maureen McCarthy, Council of Graduate Schools
- Edward Balleisen, Duke University
- Stacy Hartman, PublicsLab, City University of New York and former director, Connected Academics, Modern Language Association
- Jenna Lay, Lehigh University
- Beth Boehm, University of Louisville
- Molly McCarthy, Humanities Institute, University of California–Davis
- Ryan McBride, English Department and Center for Public Service and Director, Graduate Program in Community Engaged Scholarship, Tulane University
- Kathryn Temple, English Department and P.I., Mellon-funded Connected Academics, Georgetown University
- David Nugent, Anthropology, and Co-P.I., Luce Foundation-funded Global Skills: New Rubrics, New Structures Project, Emory University
- Jason Puskar, English Department and P.I. NEH NextGen Planning Grant, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
- Glenn Wright, Graduate School Programs Office and Co-P.I. NEH NextGen Planning Grant, Syracuse University
- Kelly Anne Brown, UC-wide Humanities Research Institute, University of California–Irvine
- Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, Graduate Student Advising and Engagement in the Humanities, Duke University
May 17, 2019: How to Stop Giving Graduate Students Bad Advice—A Mentoring Workshop, led by Bruce Burgett and Miriam Bartha (University of Washington-Bothell)
“Something else I really appreciated about the [Mentoring Graduate Students] workshop was the cooperation between not only grad students but also faculty at different career stages. As a junior faculty member, it was inspiring for me to see Full Professors and an Associate Dean participating actively and looking to others for advice and alternate perspectives. More incorporation of this mix of faculty in general in workshops and events would be really great.”
Becky Gonzalez (Spanish and Portuguese, CLAS)
