What I Did This Summer: My Mellon Fellowship Experience at the Wright Museum

Originally written by Marie Stango for the Public Humanities section of the Discover Rackham blog in November 2015 How can scholars located in the academy make their skills and work relevant to the broader community? This question is a big one for many scholars in the humanities, particularly in my field, history. It is also a particularly…

Towards Career Clarity: Opportunities for Humanities Students

Originally written by Laura N. Schram (Public Humanities Initiatives, Rackham Graduate School) for the Public Humanities section of the Discover Rackham blog in November 2015 Do you have a career path that you are interested in learning more about? Is there an organization that you would like to collaborate with on a small project? If so, Rackham…

“May the shadow of the moon fall on a world at peace”: Working at the Arab American National Museum

By Mika Kennedy, Doctoral Candidate in English Language and Literature At time of writing [August 2017], I’m in rural Nebraska. I left the Interstate many miles ago, and the towns here follow the rail line. They are punctuated clusters of buildings and gas marts, and billboards celebrating Sinclair Oil. There’s going to be a total solar…

Learning to Integrate: Exploring Environmental Humanities During My Mellon Fellowship

Catherine Fairfield

By Catherine Fairfield, Doctoral Student in English and Women’s Studies For the last eight weeks, I’ve been taking part in the Rackham Mellon fellowship entitled was “Connecting with Environmental Humanities”. This involved working with the University of Michigan Library to develop strategies for the library to support the community of environmental humanities at our institution. The primary…

Collecting Records, and Archival Experience Too: Mellon Fellowship at the Bentley Historical Library

By Matt Villeneuve, Doctoral Student in the Department of History The inestimable historian Barbara Tuchman once remarked that “To a historian, libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.” For those of us at the University of Michigan, we should add one more attribute to Tuchman’s list: laboratory. The historical library as laboratory – a place for…

Learning About Digital Publishing and Collaboration at Michigan Publishing

Elina Salminen

By Elina Salminen,  Ph.D. Candidate in the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology This spring and summer, I have spent two months at Michigan Publishing, a part of the UM library system and home to the University of Michigan Press and Michigan Publishing Services, working on a project combining digital publishing, product development, and…

How to Make the Most of Brief Career Immersions

U of M’s Dr. Laura Schram has been guiding graduate students through internships and career “immersives” for several years. In her latest Inside Higher Ed essay, Dr. Schram shares some best practices for students planning to engage in brief immersive experiences. Her advice can help students make these experiences as useful as possible for their…

On the Usefulness of Graduate Student Internships

A history PhD student at the University of Mexico writes about her skepticism when she first learned about internships for graduate students offered through the American Historical Association’s Career Diversity Initiative. When she realized the potential benefits of connecting with historically-minded people and institutions, using historical expertise to enhance public dialogue and cultural preservation, and…

Professional Development at Northwestern University

The Graduate School at Northwestern University offers small grants for departments, faculty, and graduate students for a range of professional development initiatives. Some involve redesigning graduate curricula or designing new programming, and others support graduate students directly through paid professional development opportunities.