Graduates of humanities PhD programs finish their degrees with wide-ranging abilities in research, communication, instruction, and project management. For students who have spent many years at research-intensive institutions, however, it is can be difficult to imagine contexts outside of the professoriate where they might apply their training.
As an assignment for English 630: Professional Humanities Careers, doctoral students from across the University of Michigan’s humanities departments brainstormed the following list of organizations as places to pursue humanities careers. By no means exhaustive, the organizations below can nevertheless inspire job-seekers to consider multiple avenues as they chart their post-graduation pathways. If you have any you’d like to add, let us know – there’s a form at the bottom of the page!
- Arts, Culture, and Educational Organizations
- Civic Society and Non-profit Organizations
- Government Units
- Offices and Centers at the University of Michigan
- Research, Writing, and Publishing
Arts, Culture, and Educational Organizations
Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Chicago IL
The Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) is an award-winning, non-profit professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Notable for its vibrant and accessible productions of Shakespeare plays, the theater’s season features hundreds of performances each year, including plays, musicals, and visiting tours. The theater also offers education and outreach programs including student matinee performances, the Chicago Shakespeare Slam, Chicago Public Schools Shakespeare!, and Shakespeare in the Parks. These programs offer free performances to over 30,000 Chicago residents. The theater also provides a variety of resources and trainings for teachers, including free, hands-on workshops, a resource library, and Bard Core, a professional seminar that introduces Chicago Public School teachers to “drama-based strategies for engaging students.” CST is staffed by around 100 professionals from diverse backgrounds. Graduating PhD students, particularly those with an interest in theater and/or early modern literature, may be interested in career opportunities in advancement, marketing, education, and community engagement.
Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), Washington DC
The CIC is an association of over 700 independent colleges, universities and organizations that is dedicated to improving education, financial health and institutional visibility for their members. Their stated mission is to “support college and university leadership; advance institutional excellence; and enhance public understanding of private higher education’s contributions to society.” In addition to organizing conferences and cultivating resources for these institutions, the CIC also designs public media campaigns and helps institutions find and financially afford visiting fellows. The CIC has participated in the ACLS Public Fellow Program for several years, and usually select Humanities PhDs to act in the two-year program as Communications or Development Officers. As Communications Officers, humanities PhDs might help organize a college media conference and a “wide-reaching public media campaign” while Development Officers tackle grant-writing and event-planning for seminars and conferences that focus on faculty training in higher education and fostering undergraduate research.
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit MI
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a major public art museum in metropolitan Detroit. Founded in 1885, the DIA is located on Woodward Avenue in the heart of Detroit’s “museums district” near the Wayne State University campus, which supports a vibrant and artistic community surrounding the museum. Its mission is “to create experiences that help each visitor find personal meaning in art” and is an organization dedicated to public engagement with, and democratization of, the arts. The DIA seeks employees from diverse backgrounds who are committed to creating “a positive, educational environment for arts and culture and a gathering place for everyone in [the museum’s] community.” The DIA’s collection is among the top six in the United States, a hallmark of which is the diversity of its collection (most notably its collection of African American Art and exhibition wing dedicated to that collection). The museum’s mission, programming, and collections offer PhDs from various backgrounds employment opportunities in education, interpretation, and public engagement in an intellectually challenging and dynamic environment (in and outside of the museum walls). The DIA offers graduate students internship opportunities (some of which are paid) to gain hands-on experience.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC
The Folger Shakespeare Library wears many hats; it is the largest Shakespeare archive in the world and houses a plethora of other early modern manuscripts. The Folger also serves as an educational center hosting in-person workshops, lesson plans, webinars, and online field trips for secondary school teachers, as well as seminars and conferences for higher education faculty. The Folger Theater, housed within the center, produces theatrical performances, readings, and family events. In its “Employment” section, the Folger website marked experience with grant writing as highly desirable, as well as “face-to-face solicitation, writing persuasive appeals, effectively working with senior staff, researching corporate and foundation prospects and relationships, and developing strategies to increase funding” (though, for the record, this was for a Development job, so the requirements would likely shift for a job as an archivist or educational coordinator). The Folger offers internships to undergraduate and graduate students in their Central Library, Public Programs, Conservation, Education, and Development departments, though those internships are unpaid.
Honors Scholars Program at Highline College, Des Moines WA
The HSP at Highline College allows enrolled students to develop their own honors projects and prepare to transfer to four-year institutions. Located south of Seattle, Highline serves a population that is nearly 70 percent students of color, representing 35 nations and more than 100 languages. The Honors Program, in concert with the college’s mission, is to support educational equity and access through rigorous education, college transfer advising, scholarship support, and alumni networking. The Honors Scholars Program Director is responsible for the teaching of core Honors classes and arranging an Honors colloquy of visiting speakers. Because the Honors Program requires students to develop their own honors projects within their classes in addition to required core classes, this role would also require faculty collaboration and mentoring to support student success in the program. The director is also responsible for marketing, and growing the program — including fundraising and program advocacy on campus — as well as providing student support and Honors faculty management. This position might be of interest to PhDs who want to find a dual (non-tenure) academic and administrative position. Research skills (including the navigation of IRB, qualitative methods, and data interpretation) and presentation skills would be an asset to help convey both the program’s aims and student outcomes.
Khan Academy, Mountain View CA
Khan Academy is a nonprofit that designs and implements educational resources. The organization’s stated aim is to provide “a free world‐class education for anyone, anywhere.” Their website offers a broad swath of learning resources organized into disciplinary categories, with options to narrow topics down by grade level or for specific contexts like the GRE or LSAT. Resources include videos, powerpoint slides, notes, quizzes, question forums, and prompts. To develop content, Khan Academy partners with both secondary educators and institutions like NASA, MOMA, and MIT. Khan Academy offers jobs as content creators, curriculum designers, and project managers in a wide variety of fields and subjects. Their hiring ads place a premium on candidates with 3-5 years experience in teaching and education, which seems welcoming to graduating PhDs in the humanities. Their current staff includes several PhDs in History, English, and Fine Arts. The company also employs interns in software development, product development, and mobile development. Several of these interns are current graduate students, though the company website does not specify if internships are paid. Reviews of the company on GlassDoor are overwhelmingly positive, though many note that the company is in the midst of a growth spurt.
Newberry Library, Chicago IL
The Newberry Library is an independent research library with core collections in American History and Culture; American Indian and Indigenous Studies; History of the Book; and Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Studies. The library offers a variety of programs and exhibitions in the humanities for students, scholars, teachers, and the public, including a seminar series and Newberry Teachers’ Consortium. The library also partners with Chicago Public Schools for the Chicago Teachers as Scholars program, providing a series of seminars for CPS teachers on a range of topics connected to the library’s extensive collections. The Newberry Library offers a variety of employment, internship, and volunteering opportunities in development, archives, marketing and communications, and operations. Recent openings included a Program Manager for the Center for Renaissance Studies, whose responsibilities would include organizing graduate programs, lectures, seminars, and institutes, researching and writing grant proposals, and serving on library committees.
Northwestern University’s Searle Center for Advancement in Learning and Teaching, Evanston IL
The Searle Center for Advanced Learning aims to enhance learning for undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty at Northwestern University. Activities include “faculty development; graduate student and postdoctoral scholar development; undergraduate academic support and enrichment; and assessment, evaluation, and education research.” The center features a variety of teaching resources to support everything from course design and grading to supporting diversity in the classroom. The center also provides academic support for undergraduate students, including study groups, peer tutoring, and a variety of undergraduate academic events. Searle Center staff provide consulting services for a variety of projects and initiatives across the Northwestern campus, including evaluation services for a digital humanities initiative and professional development workshops for the Department of History. The office is currently staffed by fifteen professionals, many of whom have a background in English literature and who hold PhDs. Recent job opportunities have included a Program Assistant for the Academic Support & Enrichment unit, and an Assistant Director for Diversity and Inclusion.
Tashkent International School, Tashkent, Uzbekistan
The Tashkent International School is an International Baccalaureate school located in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, offering K-12 education to members of the local community. All instruction, except for foreign languages, is conducted in English. The staff is made up of certified teachers from around the world. Students participate in numerous extracurricular activities outside of class. Conversations with faculty at the school indicated that the benefits and pay are fairly good, and their children receive free education through the school. Staff also reported that the school does a number of community outreach events and offers scholarships so that local students who are not from elite backgrounds can receive education at the school.
Civic Society and Non-profit Organizations
Detroit Justice Center, Detroit MI
The Detroit Justice Center is a new organization started by University of Michigan Law professor Amanda Alexander, and is dedicated to ameliorating the impacts of mass incarceration and promoting a more just city. The Detroit Justice Center has three arms to its practice: a legal services practice that caters to Detroiters facing a range of legal barriers that prevent them from participating in Detroit’s economy; an economic equity practice that offers legal support for Detroit community initiatives (including urban farms, small businesses, and housing and work cooperatives); and the Just City Innovation Lab, which aims to change the paradigm of justice from punitive to restorative, by bringing together and amplifying the ideas of thinkers from both within and outside Detroit who focus on finding ways to “divest from jails and prisons and reinvest in the health and safety of our communities.” The Detroit Justice Center recently hired three staff attorneys and an office manager/paralegal, but a humanities PhD could have much to offer the organization by writing grants and applying for funding; coordinating outreach and initiatives with the DJC’s community partners and seeking out more community partners; creating a publication (such as a newsletter) and writing web copy, articles, and press releases; and working with current community partners and area schools and universities to coordinate volunteer and internship programs.
National Immigration Law Center, Los Angeles CA / Washington DC
The National Immigration Law Center works to defend and advance the rights of low income immigrants. Its national headquarters is in Los Angeles and it maintains a second office in Washington, D.C.. The organization’s work involves helping immigrants with DACA, health care, workers’ rights, drivers’ licenses, education, and taxes. NILC’s efforts fall into three main categories: Impact Litigation (conducted in coordination with local and national civil rights groups), Policy Analysis and Advocacy (producing fact sheets, briefing papers, and analysis for policymakers), and Strategic Communications (which both plans communication efforts and conducts messaging research in order to guide the NILC’s own messaging and facilitate effective communication by the spokespeople for allied organizations). Policy Analysis/Advocacy and Strategic Communications clearly draw on the research and communication skills developed by humanities PhD students and offers opportunities of working in service of a public-interest mission. In addition to a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellows position, the NILC also offers a Law/Graduate Student Internship program in D.C. to provide research support for policy analysts.
Chicago Literacy Alliance, Chicago IL
The Chicago Literacy Alliance is an association of 120 organizations focused on literacy needs in the greater Chicago area. The organization’s goal is to foster “creative and effective collaboration” among its member groups, which, it says, serve more than 18 million people per year, of all ages. (This number is greater than the entire population of the Chicagoland area, so I suspect it’s the sum of each organization’s count, possibly including branches in other cities/regions.) Member groups aren’t founded by the Chicago Literacy Alliance, but choose to work in partnership with it. They include 826Chicago, Chicago Books to Women in Prisons, various schools, tutoring organizations, and educational development groups and foundations, the Goodman Theatre, public radio stations, and local youth creative writing programs. The CLA has its own staff that works to develop programming and maintain relationships; its Executive Director, Ken Bigger, has an interdisciplinary humanities PhD from the University of Chicago. Its projects include the Literacenter (a nonprofit, shared literacy workspace in the Loop used by more than 100 organizations); Literaseek (a searchable online database of literacy-related volunteer opportunities in the city); Literatales (a podcast series documenting collaborative efforts among its member organizations); Literacy Nights (which involve 2-3 hours of student programming in reading, writing, and literacy activities); and skill development and networking events for those who work or volunteer in the literacy sector. In addition to offering various internship opportunities, the CLA website also serves as a job board for their member organizations, a central clearinghouse for Chicago-area careers in literacy work
Washtenaw Literacy, Ypsilanti MI
is a nonprofit organization, located in Ypsilanti, Michigan that seeks to eradicate illiteracy through one-on-one adult tutoring. Washtenaw Literacy has been in operation for 40 years, and works with a network of 750+ volunteer tutors and mentors serving Washtenaw County’s community in basic skill training, educational support, and workforce literacy preparedness. Staff executive and program manager positions require tutor training and development, fundraising, budget management, and marketing. Skill and experience requirements suitable to PhDs: grant writing; collecting and making sense of data on populations served, tutoring needs, and tutoring outcomes; translating data and narrativizing the program for fundraising purposes, volunteer recruitment, and community outreach; developing and conducting tutor training curriculum; and creating and driving the vision for program success and expansion.
The Prison University Project, San Quentin CA
PUP is an on-site, degree-granting nonprofit located at San Quentin State Prison in California. Like many prison education projects, PUP started in 1996 in response to the discontinuation of prisoner access to Pell Grants. PUP’s mission is to bring high-quality higher education access to incarcerated individuals and raise awareness about higher education access and criminal justice. PUP currently offer 20 courses a term, serves 350 enrolled students, and has granted over 140 associates degree since its inception, at entirely no cost to students. PUP relies entirely on volunteer instructors with content-area MAs or PhDs from local universities, including Stanford, UC Berkeley, and San Francisco State. In addition to credit-bearing courses, PUP also offers college prep courses and drop-in tutoring for enrolled students. Roles on staff that might be of interest to PhD students include: the English Program Coordinator, the Director of Development and Communications, and/or the Academic Program Director. Skill and experience requirements PhDs bring to PUP include: grant writing and fundraising; collecting and making sense of data on populations served; translating data and presenting the program for fundraising purposes; recruiting and training volunteer instructors from area universities; curriculum development, overseeing syllabi, and instructor mentoring; and working with and teaching students in the program.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle WA
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF or Gates Foundation) is a is a private foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates and launched in 2000. The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The Gates Foundation advocates four core values of optimism, collaboration, rigor, and innovation. BMGF also actively promotes a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in and among its employees. Areas of work and employment positions at the Gates Foundation are numerous and diverse. PhDs can find work in grant creating, curriculum development, advocacy, research, and project development. Employees of the Gates Foundation can expect to receive a good salary and benefits and internships for graduate students are available.
Eurasia Foundation, Washington DC
The Eurasia Foundation is a non-profit group based in Washington D.C. that has several projects in various countries across the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Those projects include, among other endeavors, advancing women’s rights and participation in economic activities in the region, conflict resolution in Donbass, Ukraine, and combating human trafficking in Uzbekistan. They work with local partners and NGOs to develop in-country resources and personnel to advance their core goals of building civil society and equality. Job openings at the foundation note that they are looking for people with knowledge of local languages and cultures and organizational skills.
Government Units
Michigan Humanities Council, Lansing MI
The Michigan Humanities Council is one of 56 state and territories humanities councils in the United States, dedicated to developing programming that connects the local public to humanities education and enrichment opportunities. Working with a humanities council (ed: Emelia Abbe was a Public Engagement Fellow at the MHC in 2017 and Joe Cialdella wrote an Alumni Voice blog based on his time at the MHC as a program officer), PhDs might develop direct initiatives relating to narratives of place and environmental stewardship, literacy, or oral history. The Council also administers grants at various levels to local nonprofits and educational groups, which necessitates administrative and business management skills, as well as the ability to discern the feasibility of and community need for proposed projects. The grant application includes a window for soliciting feedback from the Council. Humanities PhDs employed at the council might have the opportunity to offer this feedback, and draw from their past experience as teachers and project managers
National Park Service
The National Park Service also administers National Historic Landmarks and supports historical research and educational programming. The majority of high-level NPS jobs are limited to applicants internal to the agency (e.g. the federal government, and/or the Department of the Interior specifically) but professional entry-level jobs – here meaning salaried, full-time positions that require higher education and may be either permanent or term positions [i.e. 13-month positions with the potential to extend for up to four years] – are available to the general public. The National Park Service offers specific guidelines for substituting work experience with higher education, which suggests that they are particularly open to job candidates with advanced degrees. Because of the number and types of sites administered by NPS, the spread of job descriptions is similarly varied, but jobs in which a humanities might flourish include Programs and Events Coordinator, who develops and oversees community outreach and education programs; and Education Technician, who conducts historical research and interfaces with the community to develop local history narratives. After establishing oneself as a federal employee, additional job prospects might include supervisory park ranger roles related to history and interpretation; project management; park ethics advisor, etc. In preparation for a job with the NPS, a graduate student might consider applying for a Pathways internship, the Cultural Resources Diversity Internship Program, or the National Council for Preservation Education program, which offer 10-week to 1-year paid internship opportunities for current postgraduate students, as well as recent graduates with advanced degrees. The Department of the Interior also hires fellows from the prestigious and competitive two-year Presidential Management Fellows program.
Offices and Centers at the University of Michigan
Office of Academic Innovation (AI)
This office on U-M’s campus has been growing over the last couple years, especially in response to the recent Academic Innovation Initiative. AI has a growing team of individuals who research, develop, and test technological tools intended to tailor and optimize learning at scale. Learning and assessment tools like ECoach and GradeCraft are already used by instructors and students in some of the university’s foundation courses. These tools and allow students to engage with supplemental learning activities and participate in project-based learning. As an interdisciplinary office, AI employees include individuals with a range of backgrounds (e.g. information and technology, humanities, sciences, etc.). A number of AI employees hold doctorates and those with doctoral degrees tend to be in leadership, mentorship, or research positions. Many of the PhDs employed here also have some experience with an aspect of technology (e.g. MOOCs, user testing, learning management systems). Because user testing and evidence-based technologies are an important component for developing learning tools, experience with quantitative and qualitative research is also important.
Newnan Academic Advising Center (Newnan)
The Newnan Academic Advising Center is home to an extensive team of advisors who work with students enrolled in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA). Newnan’s goal is supporting students as they navigate college life and helping them determine and achieve their academic plans. The center provides individual support from academic advisors, online resources, and a range of workshops to help students create and pursue opportunities at U-M. In addition to general advisors, Newnan also has specialist advisors who can work with students interested in specific areas like pre-health or pre-law. Advisors currently employed by Newnan (ed. one advisor, Trevor Kilgore (History, 2018), is featured as an Alumni Voice) have a range of professional experiences and many also hold advanced degrees. Newnan advisors work to help students make informed decisions and advocate for themselves, while also exploring and maximizing their own potential. Individuals interested in working with students one-on-one and seeing how students grow over time might consider a career in academic advising. In particular, those with a humanities background might also draw on their expertise of prompting students to reflect on how they are citizens of the world, encourage them to make connections between what they are learning in the classroom and society, and how they can further explore future opportunities and act on their interests.
Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT)
CRLT is a teaching center that provides professional development opportunities for graduate student instructors, faculty, and administration across the U-M campus. The center’s goal is to support and enhance teaching in higher education. Professional development (PD) in this area can include multiple-day workshops and training sessions for GSIs, developing curriculum materials that addresses issues like diversity and inclusive teaching practices. Instructional consultants employed by CRLT often create these materials, provide feedback for instructors, and facilitate professional development activities. Most instructional consultants do hold PhDs, and while they might be responsible for general activities across campus, many are also focused on their their discipline (e.g. teaching in STEM). Opportunities also exist to integrate teaching with technology and CRLT instructional consultants provide resources for this topic. Some of instructional consultants come in to CRLT with years of teaching experience as faculty, experience with learning centers at different institutions, or from a postdoc at CRLT. Individuals interested in working at CRLT might wish to consider how they will leverage any teaching experience in higher education or make connections and participate in activities at CRLT (e.g. hourly work to train GSIs) before applying for a full-time position.
Office of Metropolitan Impact, University of Michigan-Dearborn
The Office of Metropolitan Impact employs five staff members at UM-Dearborn and four more in their Detroit office. The office’s goal is developing community partnerships for research, teaching, learning, and service between UM-Dearborn and the Detroit metropolitan community. These goals form part of the Chancellor’s Metropolitan Vision, which seeks to “establish a national reputation as a campus that contributes to the larger community” and to prepare and educate students to thrive within social and cultural diversity. The Office of Metropolitan Impact’s work includes developing faculty resources (by facilitating partnerships and seed grants) and facilitating partnerships between community organizations to connect with UM-Dearborn. The office also works with and maintains Strategic Community Partners — major local nonprofits that are broad-ranging, high-impact regional partners. Their four major programs are UM-Dearborn’s Semester in Detroit, Public Allies Metro Detroit, Poverty Solutions (which includes research, policy, and community/volunteer work), and the Ford Collaboratory (a space for faculty, students, and community partners to work together).
Michigan Library Scholars
Michigan Library Scholars is a three-month internship program offered by the University of Michigan Library to undergraduate and graduate students. The internship offers students the opportunity to work with specialist librarians in completing summer-long projects, but these projects can often be tailored to student interests. For graduate students, the internship provides a way to become acquainted with the functions and work of librarians. Many library positions require an MLS (Masters of Library Sciences) degree, but the PhD can sometimes be used in lieu of that degree. Any potential employer, however, would want the PhD applicant to have familiarity with a modern research library and the responsibilities of a specialist librarian. This internship could be a good fit for a humanities PhD student who is planning on applying for academic library positions. With library experience through programs like this, a PhD can actually be a better candidate for a library position than an MLS applicant with only a couple years of language or specialist knowledge.
Research, Writing, and Publishing
Eidolon
Formerly affiliated with the Paideia Institute, Eidolon is an online journal for writing about Classics (or Classics-adjacent topics) that is aimed at a broad audience. Sample articles include: “Beyoncé, Plato, and the Foundation of the Polis,” “Dare to Speak Its Name: Pederasty and Classical Tropes in Call Me By Your Name,” and “The Body in Question: Looking at Non-Binary Gender in the Greek and Roman World.” Eidolon also regularly publishes articles (tagged “metascholarship”) about the state of the discipline and essays on pedagogy both within and outside the academy. Currently, the Eidolon masthead features an editor-in-chief, associate editor, managing editor, and assistant editor, most of whom have or are working on PhDs in Classics. As these editors vary widely in location, it appears that editorial work is done remotely. In addition to being uniquely suited to editorial work, humanities PhDs could take on myriad roles for Eidolon: handling social media; organizing outreach, events, and panels at places like the annual Society for Classical Studies conference; writing grants and applying for funding; and perhaps even organizing and pitching a collection of print works to publishing houses, or establishing relationships with university presses.
ITHAKA, Ann Arbor MI / New York NY / Princeton NJ
ITHAKA is the umbrella organization for JSTOR, Ithaka S+R, Portico, and Artstor, providing access to scholarly resources to individuals, high schools, colleges, and universities. ITHAKA has headquarters in three locations: Ann Arbor, MI; New York City, NY; and Princeton, NJ. JSTOR in particular hires many humanities PhDs, and offers myriad opportunities for humanities PhDs to use their expertise and interact with communities of scholars in meaningful ways. Positions of special interest to humanities PhDs are in content curation, communications, and content creation. Positions in content curation, such as a licensing editor, work with large commercial publishers as well as university presses and smaller key publications to curate high-quality, holistic views of subjects, bridging publisher needs, library collection priorities, and gaps in disciplinary coverage. Jobs in communications (such as web development, social media management, and education and outreach) use humanities PhDs’ strong communication skills, flexibility, teaching experience, and ability to synthesize information from many sources to create vision and strategy for JSTOR’s websites, to create educational content such as research and teaching guides, and to conduct training and content-focused events. Finally, careers in content creation – likely with the JSTOR Daily, a multi-media online magazine that provides analysis of ideas, research, and current events using the rich library of scholarship on JSTOR – will take advantage of the same research and writing skills that humanities PhDs cultivate throughout graduate school. Contributors from outside the organization are paid for their articles. JSTOR also offers paid internship opportunities.
Academic Studies Press, Boston MA
Academic Studies Press is an independent scholarly publisher devoted to advancing knowledge and understanding in the humanities and social sciences, with an emphasis on Jewish Studies and Slavic Studies. The Press publishes scholarly monographs, series, and anthologies and occasionally publishes literary texts, often in translation. Positions well-suited for PhDs are in the editorial (Acquisitions Editor, Series Editor, etc.) staff, which seek candidates with editorial experience, a record of acquisitions, extensive contacts with a wide array of potential authors, and fluency in the critical literature of and the newest developments in the field(s) specific to the position. Employees in these positions get to design a focused publishing program for the field and consider marketing strategies as well. Other employment opportunities for PhDs may include overall marketing, development, and leadership.
Historic Insight
More a test case for independent freelancing than a place to seek specific employment, Historic Insight is a historical and cultural interpretation firm run by its founder, Erich Obermayr. Obermayr combines his degree in Anthropology with his work background in archaeological fieldwork and project management to offer interpretive text and graphics for historical landmarks and park areas: Interpretive signage, brochures, and web-based media. A PhD in the humanities would be able to bring their ability to synthesize broad swaths of historical information and translate it for the general public to this type of freelance work. Due to the nature of freelance work, the ability to self-market and an interest in independent business ownership is key for this type of humanities career. Additional training in graphic/webdesign and experience working with regional parks or historic sites would also be useful. Obermayr himself also attained his certification in interpretive planning from the National Association for Interpretation, and is part of the American Cultural Resources Association, which includes a directory of its members and the services each offers.