Humanities Works

Major at your own risk. That’s often the public perception of students who choose to study philosophy over finance or English over engineering. However, students with humanities majors are building skill sets that are highly valued by global employers. This award-winning, multi-year collaborative project with faculty, administrators, and staff from the Center for Career Exploration & Success (CCES) helps to bridge the gap between classroom content and professional preparation.

Challenges

  • Conception that the Career Center is only for business majors
  • Skepticism about getting a job with a humanities degree

Goals

  • Improve career-readiness
  • Professionalize training in the liberal arts
  • Build bridges between the Career Center and faculty champions

Humanities Works 3.0

2020–2021

Faculty are making classroom-to-the-world linkages more substantial and visible. They will be modifying an existing course to include an applied or public component in relation to careers and transferable skills. Faculty are expected to participate, with their students, at an end-of-semester event showcasing their assignment in front of students, faculty, alumni, and/or employers.

Faculty Participants

  • Michael Hatch
  • Rosemary Pennington
  • Andrew Offenburger
  • Katie Johnson

News and Awards

Hardship or Hope? Miami students study the American Dream in small-town Iowa

By Shavon Anderson, university communications and marketing

Humanities Works 2.0

2019–2020

Faculty were charged with creating print and digital media, as well as a customized career advising plan, for their respective departments. This career advising plan was embedded into their overall humanities curriculum for the entire academic year. As a part of this work group, the faculty were charged to create a departmental brochure communicating career-related information.

Faculty Participants

  • Damon Scott, Global and Intercultural Studies
  • Erik Jensen, History
  • Erin Edwards, English
  • Mark McKinney, French and Italian
  • Marisol del Teso-Craviotto, Spanish and Portuguese
  • Mack Hagood, Media, Journalism, and Film Studies

Departmental Brochures

News & Awards

Award-winning collaboration “HumanitiesWorks” uses data to disprove public perception

By Shavon Anderson, university news and communications

2019 Career Services Innovation Showcase - First Place

Awarded by The Career Leadership Collective

329% increase

in humanities majors attending Fall Career Fair

266% increase

in career advising appointments for humanities majors

96.4%
success rate

humanities major employment or grad school

32%
increase

in humanities classroom presentations

Humanities Works 1.0

The goal is to create, within individual department and programs, a system of advising that better enables humanities students to prepare for the future. The aim is not to transfer the work of career services to departments and programs, but rather to create better procedures for ensuring that humanities students take advantage of offerings already in place at Miami.

Faculty Participants

  • Erik Jensen
  • Patrick Murphy
  • Zara Torlone
  • Jonathan Strauss
  • Mark McKinney
  • Liang Shi
  • Tiffany Belka
  • Keith Fennen