Theresa Koenigsknecht, Exhibitions Research Assistant, Indiana Historical Society
Proposal Type: Structured Conversation
Abstract: The Graduate Student and New Professional Committee has developed a consumer’s guide to public history programs. This guide is intended to help history undergrads as they navigate the grad school landscape, finding the program that best suits their interests and needs. Structured conversation will solicit advice on how this resource can best reach its intended audience and discuss next steps in helping new grad students make the most of their public history program.
Seeking: Is the public history field edging toward a job crisis? How do we prepare new graduate students to assess the uncertainty, risks, and opportunities as they begin their trek into a graduate program? In response to Bob Weyeneth’s The Perfect Storm, the Graduate Student and New Professional Committee has developed a consumer’s guide for choosing a public history program. This resource, the Public History Navigator (#PHNav), is intended to equip history undergrads with information as they consider graduate school and provide guidance on researching and prioritizing what programs best suit their professional goals. In addition, this guide will help students gain realistic expectations for options within public history programs, as well as, what to expect as they embark on a career in the field. The guide will be published in the fall of 2014. We hope this tool will enable students to navigate their education as effectively as possible and be just one part of a multi-layered and long lasting initiative to address the challenges in finding employment in the field. We are proposing a strategic conversation session to present the final product to the NCPH membership and get their feedback on the purpose and abilities of the Public History Navigator. Most importantly, the committee would like to discuss the best way to reach our main audience – history undergrads, and what the next steps should be in terms of educating those are interested in attending a public history master’s program.
The conversation will be facilitated by Michelle Antenesse and Theresa Koenigsknecht. We will present the content of the guide and then conduct an active conversation with the audience to discuss on-going efforts to ensure that we have a well-informed student body applying for, participating in and graduating from public history programs.
Related Topics: Teaching
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to share contact information for other people the proposer should reach out to, please get in contact directly: Theresa Koenigsknecht, theresakoenigsknecht[at]gmail.com
If you have general ideas or feedback to share please feel free to use the comments feature below.
I think this will be a very useful conversation for graduate students. Would it be possible/worth it to somehow piggy back with Speed Networking (if that is on the schedule) or a graduate student meet up?
Denise,
I think it’d be great to arrange the sessions in a way that really draws in the speed networking crowd (including both types of participants) since we are hoping to get a wide range of attendees to gain input on how make this guide accessible. A graduate student meet up would also make sense, we are hoping to plan an informal brown bag/dine around of some sort so really appreciate your input!
I really like the idea of a structured conversation. I think that this would be an effective way to harness some of the social media discussion generated by the launch of the Public History Navigator and consider the issues in greater depth than one can in 140 characters. It could also be a productive way for those interested in creating dialogue among faculty, grad students, prospective graduate students, and new professionals to begin the conversation.
Thank you Modupe,
That’s exactly what we are hoping for. Great idea on expanding on the conversations already initiated via social media.
Do you have any suggestions for general questions or themes we might ask to get that dialogue going?