Writing on Graduate Education,
Graduate Student Professional Development & Academia
The Reimagined PhD: Navigating 21st Century Humanities Education (Rutgers University Press, 2021).
“This powerful collection reveals many facets of the humanities PhD in the 21st century. The editors and authors beckon readers to attune themselves to engrained disciplinary biases that stifle opportunity and innovation, and to remember that the well-worn narratives about challenges in the humanities often obscure local possibilities.” –Julie R. Posselt, author of Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty GatekeepingOrder from Rutgers UP using code RFLR19: 30% discount & free shipping.
Excerpts from Books
Humanities and the Public Sphere, Volume Nine of the Culture & Civilization Book Series (Routledge, in progress, expected publication date: Fall, 2021)
“In the Service of Humanity”:
Public Spheres and the Past, Present, and Future of Graduate Education.”
“If the humanities are to have a resurgence in the public sphere, graduate students can and should lead the charge. If they are to do so, graduate education in the humanities must adapt to our historic moment, by putting public engagement in the center of the training of graduate students, and rewarding work that is public-facing in ways we currently do not. This chapter will look at the ways a variety of humanities departments have already begun this pivot, and points towards steps that still need to be made.”
In Leaving the Grove: A Quit Lit Reader (Syracuse University Press, 2022.)
“Academia is an Ecosystem, Not a Container: Rethinking (with) Quit Lit.”
“To reimagine academia for the twenty-first century, we need new metaphors to describe its variegated nature. Here’s a suggestion: let’s conceive of the academy and the worlds it intersects with as an ecosystem. Doing so allows us more readily to imagine careers that blend academia and other sectors, and find descriptors worthy of them.”
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Articles
Academia is Not a Container.
Nov 2, 2020 – Inside Higher Ed
“Let’s resist simplistic language when describing the careers of people who exist in much more complicated relationships to higher education than our current crop of metaphors allow. Instead of thinking academia as a container, let’s come up with better metaphors. More important, let’s use them to together reimagine the future of the Ph.D.”
Graduate Students Need to Think Differently About Time.
Sep 9, 2019 – Inside Higher Ed
“I am more and more convinced that the ways the brain shifts during Ph.D. training can shift the world. The competencies that emerge out of this crucible equip Ph.D.s for the 21st century in ways unmatched by any other form of training. The Ph.D. clearly has a problem with time, however. Doctoral training shouldn’t take as long as it does, nor should it be as hard as it is to find a job that values the Ph.D.”
From the Basement to the Dome: Navigating a Time of Change in Ph.D. Career and Professional Development.
Apr 29, 2019 – Inside Higher Ed.
“The national conversation around Ph.D. career preparation in the humanities and social sciences has transformed in the last 10 years — a transformation that has accelerated even more rapidly in the last five years.”
What’s Wrong with English Department Websites
Oct 9, 2018 – Inside Higher Ed
“Clear communication is supposed to be the business of English departments. If you look hard enough — and maybe ask around — you’ll eventually find an English department website that communicates clearly. But you don’t have to look hard for clunkers. Pull up a random English department website and you’ll find sentences that don’t speak to students (or their parents). English departments are putting out website copy that ranges from forgettable to laughable.”
How Advisors Can Bolster Their Career Guidance
Jun 10, 2018 – Inside Higher Ed
“Many graduate advisers who want to help advisees feel ill-equipped for the new normal of graduate training. So how might you best approach a task for which you feel under-prepared? Begin by recognizing that advising Ph.D.s today requires teamwork. You’ll never be able to stay abreast of employment trends or master nonacademic cover letters. But you need not — and should not — do this work alone. Good advisers follow the spirit of this passage from the Hippocratic oath: “I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’ nor will I fail to call on my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.”
Needed: A New Graduate Adviser-Advisee Relationship
Nov 27, 2017 – Inside Higher Ed
“I am more and more convinced that the ways the brain shifts during Ph.D. training can shift the world. The competencies that emerge out of this crucible equip Ph.D.s for the 21st century in ways unmatched by any other form of training. The Ph.D. clearly has a problem with time, however. Doctoral training shouldn’t take as long as it does, nor should it be as hard as it is to find a job that values the Ph.D.”
Blue-Collar Ph.D.: A Conversation About Class and the Professoriate
Aug 10, 2017 – Inside Higher Ed
“Clear communication is supposed to be the business of English departments. If you look hard enough — and maybe ask around — you’ll eventually find an English department website that communicates clearly. But you don’t have to look hard for clunkers. Pull up a random English department website and you’ll find sentences that don’t speak to students (or their parents). English departments are putting out website copy that ranges from forgettable to laughable.”
How to Pick a Great Graduate Adviser
Dec 5, 2016 – Inside Higher Ed
“Many graduate advisers who want to help advisees feel ill-equipped for the new normal of graduate training. So how might you best approach a task for which you feel under-prepared? Begin by recognizing that advising Ph.D.s today requires teamwork. You’ll never be able to stay abreast of employment trends or master nonacademic cover letters. But you need not — and should not — do this work alone. Good advisers follow the spirit of this passage from the Hippocratic oath: “I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’ nor will I fail to call on my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.”
The Importance of a Coherent Public Profile for Graduate Students
Aug 15, 2016. Inside Higher Ed
“The “continuing grassroots recalibration of graduate education means that today’s graduate students are in a kind of limbo, between an older model that rewarded insularity and a developing model that increasingly values engagement (i.e., by rewarding it during hiring and promotion).So, in this interregnum period, what is a graduate student to do? My advice: establish a public profile for yourself and don’t let that profile drift.”
Blue-Collar Ph.D.: A Conversation About Class and the Professoriate
Aug 10, 2017 – Inside Higher Ed
“Clear communication is supposed to be the business of English departments. If you look hard enough — and maybe ask around — you’ll eventually find an English department website that communicates clearly. But you don’t have to look hard for clunkers. Pull up a random English department website and you’ll find sentences that don’t speak to students (or their parents). English departments are putting out website copy that ranges from forgettable to laughable.”
How to Pick a Great Graduate Adviser
Dec 5, 2016 – Inside Higher Ed
“Many graduate advisers who want to help advisees feel ill-equipped for the new normal of graduate training. So how might you best approach a task for which you feel under-prepared? Begin by recognizing that advising Ph.D.s today requires teamwork. You’ll never be able to stay abreast of employment trends or master nonacademic cover letters. But you need not — and should not — do this work alone. Good advisers follow the spirit of this passage from the Hippocratic oath: “I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’ nor will I fail to call on my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.”
The Importance of a Coherent Public Profile for Graduate Students
Aug 15, 2016. Inside Higher Ed
“The “continuing grassroots recalibration of graduate education means that today’s graduate students are in a kind of limbo, between an older model that rewarded insularity and a developing model that increasingly values engagement (i.e., by rewarding it during hiring and promotion).So, in this interregnum period, what is a graduate student to do? My advice: establish a public profile for yourself and don’t let that profile drift.”
James M. Van Wyck, Ph.D. 