Season 2: #6 - Katina Rogers, Futures Initiative, CUNY Grad Center

Topics Discussed in this Episode:Katina's journey from comparative literature Ph.D. to advocate for transforming graduate education.The role of foundations in shaping scholarly fields.The need for graduate training to shift to be more intentional about what post-Ph.D. career paths might look like.The significance of professional associations for setting norms and expectations in disciplines, from adjunct wages to evaluation and dissemination of scholarship.Universities should receive enough public funding that they don't need to rely on private support.Private funding is not a solution to the challenges of higher ed today.The Mellon Foundation's shifting priorities to support community colleges and access oriented institutions is important to ensuring that private funding doesn't reinforce hierarchies and prestige.A key problem in discussing graduate education in careers is that the conversation gets separated from questions of equity, inclusion, and labor structures.Even institutions that prioritize access can be governed by structures that govern elite institutions, even when they don't serve the values of the institution.Failure to re-evaluate alignment of structures and values leads to status quo acceptance of everything from requirements for tenure and promotion to what a dissertation might look like to what graduate education and faculty careers look like.The importance of revisiting tenure and promotion criteria when strategic planning to ensure faculty are positioned to help with university goals.Within CUNY, as at many institutions, the structure of the institution becomes increasingly white and male in areas of more traditional prestige.The importance of the humanities for community college students at a time when vocational education is being emphasized.Hope can be understood as a discipline that we practice.Resources Discussed in this Episode:Johns Hopkins University PressFutures InitiativeCUNY Humanities AllianceHASTACCUNY Graduate Center's Master's Program in Digital HumanitiesAlfred P. Sloan FoundationScholars' LabBethany NowviskieAbby Smith RumseyMellon FoundationModern Language AssociationPutting the Humanities PhD to WorkDuke University PressKen WissokerMaggie DebeliusSusan BasallaSo What Are You Going to Do With That? Sara AhmedOn Being IncludedLuke WaltzerKaysi HolmanDavid OlanGraduate Education at Work in the WorldMelissa DeshieldsMicah GilmerFrontline SolutionsCathy DavidsonWhy Can't They Write? Killing the Five Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities Music Credits: “Come Right Here” by Tendinite, licensed under a Creative Commons 4.0 CC-BY-NC-ND license.