{"id":107888,"date":"2025-11-18T12:43:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/?page_id=107888"},"modified":"2026-03-02T13:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:49:14","slug":"doctoral-futures","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/teaching-learning\/graduate-education\/doctoral-futures\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctoral Futures"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<h3>About Doctoral Futures<\/h3>\r\n<h4>Reimagining Humanities PhD Programs<\/h4>\r\n<p>The AHA, in partnership with the American Council of Learned Societies, the Modern Language Association, and the Society of Biblical Literature, has launched Doctoral Futures. This three-year initiative (2025-28) aims to reimagine humanities PhD programs with new structures, policies, and academic cultures that will better prepare the next generation of knowledge producers. The program is made possible by a grant from The Mellon Foundation, with additional funding by the ACLS endowment.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acls.org\/doctoral-futures\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Learn More <\/a><\/p>\r\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Image of a studio microphone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/jonathan-velasquez-c1ZN57GfDB0-unsplash.jpg\" alt=\"Image of a studio microphone\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<h5>Doctoral Futures at AHA 2026<\/h5>\r\n<p>During AHA26, AHA podcast <em>History in Focus <\/em>host Daniel Story sat down with Stacy Hartman from the ACLS to discuss Doctoral Futures.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/podcast\/doctoral-futures\/\" target=\"_self\"> Listen Now <\/a><\/p>\r\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Bird\" src=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Bird-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Sarah Weicksel standing behind a quetzal bird surrounded by books\" width=\"1800\" height=\"2400\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<h5>Collaborating for the Next Generation<\/h5>\r\n<p>In <em>Perspectives on History<\/em>, AHA executive director Sarah Weicksel discusses the new Doctoral Futures initiative.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/perspectives-article\/collaborating-for-the-next-generation\/\" target=\"_self\"> Learn More <\/a><\/p>\r\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Stock_2024_NewspaperStand\" src=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Newspaper-stand-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A black and white photo of a convenience store with newspaper display racks labeled &quot;The Irish Times&quot; and &quot;International News&quot; on either side of the open door.\" width=\"2400\" height=\"1600\" \/><\/figure>\r\n<h5>Launch Announcement<\/h5>\r\n<p>Read the press release announcing the initiative&#8217;s launch.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/news\/acls-launches-new-doctoral-futures-initiative-to-assess-and-reimagine-humanities-graduate-education\/\" target=\"_self\"> Learn More <\/a> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Il90a25k3Mo?si=QaF6VjI07WpB0oY3\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>&#8220;I am excited to co-chair the AHA&#8217;s committee alongside deputy director Dana Schaffer. As two historians who ourselves have had varied careers, we look forward to working with the committee members to reimagine doctoral education. It is my fervent hope that through this initiative the AHA will help to ensure that all PhD students have the support that is essential to imagining a variety of fulfilling career pathways, and that society continues to benefit from the richness of humanistic knowledge.&#8221;<strong>Sarah Weicksel<\/strong>Executive Director, American Historical Association<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<blockquote>&#8220;The future of doctoral education in many humanities fields in\u00a0the United States is bleak. We must find practical ways to fight austerity, help PhD students thrive when academic jobs are scarce, and engage them in the urgent mission of attracting the next generation of undergraduates to humanistic study. Through the three-year course of Doctoral Futures, we will work collaboratively with our academic society partners to improve the graduate experience in the humanities for all students, including first generation college graduates and those from traditionally underrepresented groups. This initiative is aligned with our advocacy for changes in the faculty merit system, so that we better reward the necessary work of keeping undergraduate degree programs robust and growing.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<strong>Joy Connolly<\/strong>President, American Council of Learned Societies<\/blockquote>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3>Project Leadership &amp; AHA Committee<\/h3>\r\n<h4>AHA Leadership<\/h4>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/person\/sarah-weicksel\/\">Sarah Weicksel<\/a>, AHA executive director, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/person\/dana-schaffer\/\">Dana Schaffer<\/a>, AHA deputy director, serve as committee chairs for the initiative.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.acls.org\/doctoral-futures\/acls-project-leadership-staff\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Learn More <\/a><\/p>\r\n<h4>Post-Degree Pathways<\/h4>\r\n<p>Led by the AHA, participants will consider how we might realign humanities graduate education with the need for advanced educated professionals with humanistic skills and perspectives, inside and outside academia.<\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Rachel Arteaga<\/strong>, University of Washington<br \/><strong>Danielle Fossler-Lussier<\/strong>, Ohio State University; Imagined Futures Graduate Professional Development Initiative lead<br \/><strong>Stephanie Kirk<\/strong>, Washington University in St. Louis<br \/><strong>Annie Maxfield<\/strong>, University of Texas at Austin<br \/><strong>Quincy Mills<\/strong>, University of Maryland<br \/><strong>Maggie Nettesheim-Hoffman<\/strong>, Marquette University &amp; Humanities Without Walls<br \/><strong>Adam Seipp<\/strong>, Texas A&amp;M<br \/><strong>James Van Wyck<\/strong>, Princeton University<br \/><strong>Matthew Villeneuve<\/strong>, University of Wisconsin-Madison<br \/><strong>Daryle Williams<\/strong>, University of California, Riverside<\/p>\r\n<h4>Career Diversity for Historians<\/h4>\r\n<p>The AHA&#8217;s Career Diversity for Historians initiative (2011-22) began as an inquiry concerning career outcomes and evolved into a broad-based exploration of the culture, practice, process, and purpose of history PhD programs. Over the course of three grants from the Mellon Foundation, the AHA collaborated with 40 PhD-granting departments-a quarter of the history PhD programs in the United States-to better align doctoral education with changing professional opportunities within and beyond the academy and to better articulate the value of history and historical thinking.<\/p>\r\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/teaching-learning\/graduate-education\/improving-graduate-education\/\" target=\"_self\"> Learn More <\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About Doctoral Futures Reimagining Humanities PhD Programs The AHA, in partnership with the American Council of Learned Societies, the Modern&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12428,"parent":2146,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-107888","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","has-featured-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107888"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112932,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/107888\/revisions\/112932"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historians.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}