Cultivate and Curate a Living Humanities Ph.D. Model

Establishing a new Ph.D. model for the humanities should not be considered the ultimate endpoint that is reached following a long and difficult journey. Rather, the new model is the beginning point of constructing social change. As we plan for this new model, we must reconsider the space in which we are operating; the resources and information that are available to us (and that can be created); and the attachment points and relationships that bond the process in its entirety. Ultimately, the change processes we will engage in will be sustained through the creation of dynamic, flexible, context-based platforms that are able to adapt and respond to new challenges and environmental shifts.

• How can we build hubs and platforms that better connect faculty and students across different humanities disciplines?
• How can we devise effective data collection and analysis frameworks that can be synthesized into measures that not only quantify but qualify the outcomes of our model?
• In what ways can we tailor assessment methodologies and instruments at all levels to inform and create productive feedback that is then utilized to revise and adapt - and improve the platforms we create?
• What roles and responsibilities should we ask our humanities Ph.D. students to assume as curators of the model?