The Public Humanities Hub Graduate Committee has created this page as a resource hub for humanities graduate students who are interested in learning more about alt-ac, post-ac, or other diverse career options. We are also sharing resources here for humanities department heads, career counselors, and other advisors in the humanities who can help graduate students navigate an ever precarious career landscape. Below you will find a number of curated resources focused on graduate students.
Quick Access
- Hub-Curated Resources
- How Graduate Students Can Get Involved in the Public Humanities Hub
- How Professors Can Include Graduate Students in Public Scholarship
- Resources for Public Scholarship and Career Training
A note on jargon: in general, “‘alternative academic’ or ‘alt-ac’ is widely used to describe both the idea of a career beyond academe as well as positions outside the professoriate but inside the university, such as grant writing and fundraising. ‘Post-academic’ describes jobs outside university” (Bowness, “What’s up with Alt-Ac Careers?”). Sometimes “Non-academic” or “Non-ac” are used interchangeably with “Post-ac.” Dr. Karen Kelsky recently advocated for the term “Real-ac” because the other terms “continue to center the academic job as norm [but] the tenure track job should be considered the non-normative ‘alternative’” (Kelsky, “Call it Real-Ac”). We have chosen, where possible, to talk in terms of career diversity to 1) attend to the many possible types of work and reasons humanities grads may choose their respective career paths (both within and outside the academy), and 2) to honour the many ways that humanities training is valuable well beyond academe.
Hub-Curated Resources
- Alt-Ac, Post-Ac & Career Diversity: A Humanities Reading List [View List]
- Graduate Student Survey Report: an analysis of results from a graduate student survey conducted by the Public Humanities Hub Graduate Committee in Summer 2020. [Download PDF]
Suggested Viewing
Click the “list” icon in the upper right corner of the video frame to see and navigate through all videos in these playlists.
How Graduate Students Can Get Involved in the Public Humanities Hub
- Join a research network or research cluster
- Give a short public talk in our #HumaniSeries
- Apply for public humanities funding or nominate a public scholar for an award
- Propose a lecture for the Brock House Esther Birney Literary Series
- Attend a Speakers Series or Public Scholarship event
- Tell us about your work! Do you have a public project or publication we can share? Let us know.
How Professors Can Include Graduate Students in Public Scholarship
- Invite students to join a research network or research cluster
- Include students in grants
- Include students in projects and as co-authors in publications, such as op-eds
Resources for Public Scholarship and Career Training
UBC Resources
Funding Resources
Community-University Engagement Support (CUES) Fund: provides funding for charitable organizations in British Columbia to build partnerships and pursue shared projects with UBC. There are two streams: Exploring (up to $15,000 per project) and Sustaining (up to $30,000 per project).
Innovation UBC: Offers funding, consultations, and opportunities for various research/business partnerships and public engagement.
UBC Seed Funds: Funding for business ventures and start-ups
UBC Social Impact Fund: Fund for innovative solutions for social or environmental challenges.
On-Campus Networks/Hubs
Centre for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL): Workshops, community placements, and resources for grants.
Graduate Student Society: Represents and advocates on behalf of all UBC Graduate Students; offers events, classes, and funding opportunities.
Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Network (iGSN): Student-run network focusing on interdisciplinary engagements between UBC graduate students.Offers resources on research communication, travel funding, and opportunities for publications in student journal, INK.
Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster (IHRC): The cluster, comprised of graduate students and faculty from a variety of humanities disciplines, seeks to explore both the forms of representation of the past and their uses: how the past is excavated (literally and metaphorically) and expressed in relation to contemporary practices and concerns. IHRC hosts numerous events and calls for funded projects throughout the year.
Programs, Research Opportunities, and Work Placements
Arts Amplifier: A professional development initiative for arts graduate students and postdocs to launch collaborative projects with off-campus partners and develop paid internship experiences with one-on-one support from a grants editor. The Arts Amplifier’s grants editor will also support Arts grad student and postdoc applicants with grant applications to non-SSHRC funders.
Arts Co-op: Through Co-op placements, grad students use their advanced degrees in work settings that help build valuable skills and experience that will extend and enrich their career options both inside and outside the academy.
EDST | Diverse Career Paths of Educational Studies Alumni: aims to support Educational Studies (EDST) graduate students in exploring diverse career pathways. It stems from a desire expressed by EDST students to learn about careers in education (particularly outside of academia) and to build professional networks that relate to their fields of study.
Public Scholars Initiative: Concerned with the public good, PSI reimagines PhD pathways in all disciplines that legitimize and integrate broader conceptions of scholarship and scholarly products within the core of doctoral education and dissertation research.
Sustainability Scholars Program: Paid internships with on- and off-campus sustainability partners to work on applied research projects.
Workshops, Consultations, and Advising
Career Resources and Career Resources for Indigenous Students, Students of Colour, Students with Disabilities and LGBTQ2SIA+ Students.
Chapman Learning Commons: Offers skills workshops, equipment borrowing services, and technology support.
Centre for Writing and Scholarly Communication (CWSC): Consults on any kind of writing genre for the UBC community, including professional documents and public-facing writing; hosts workshops for graduate writing and weekly online writing communities.
Digital Humanities Advising: Online consultations on DH projects with Advanced Research Computing (ARC) Humanities and Social Sciences Specialist Megan Meredith-Lobay
- Graduate Pathways to Success: Non-credit program that offers a variety of workshops, seminars, and activities around academic and career planning, professionalization, and skills development.
Knowledge Exchange: Hosts a summer institute and online graduate skills workshop (forthcoming).
Research Commons: Includes a Digital Scholarship Lab.
UBC News Services: Offers media training workshops, resources for pitching op-eds, news story coverage, and media outlets for public writing.
Off-Campus Resources
Career Development
Imagine PhD: Career exploration and assessment tool for students in the humanities and social sciences. Offers skills and interests assessments and strategies for career planning.
Versatile PhD: Helps graduate students, ABDs and PhDs identify, prepare for and excel in professional careers.
Funding Resources
BC Arts Council: Offers a number of artist grants and arts-based project grants.
Mitacs: Connects students with business/public sector partners through research grants, internships, and other collaborative opportunities.
SSHRC: Offers several funding programs to establish research connections with non-academic partners.