What We Offer
VH@Duke Internship Program
Secure a competitive, paid semester-long or summer internship that will give you new perspective on research interests, or enable you to explore a potential career avenue.
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Doctoral Innovation Grants
Collaborate with your department’s leadership to secure special grants to enhance academic training in your areas of focus.
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Customized, One-on-One Advising
Reach out to Dr. Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, Director for Graduate Student Advising, for support in navigating academic and professional trajectories.
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Collaborative Research
Find teams, partners and resources for your scholarly pursuits, including Bass Connections, Story+, writing support and research funding.
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Professional Development
Learn about key resources at Duke and beyond that can help you cultivate versatility and launch your career.
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Insight, Advice & Stories
See the VH@Duke blog for perspectives from the community of versatile humanists at Duke.
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Mentors and Networks
Connect with Duke alumni, current students, faculty, and others to support your academic and professional growth.
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About VH@Duke
In 2016, Duke University received an NEH NextGen PhD implementation grant to enrich humanities doctoral training. The resulting program, Versatile Humanists at Duke (VH@Duke) was a collaboration between the Office of the Provost and Duke Graduate School. The program's mission was to help doctoral students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences thrive while in graduate school, and to help prepare them for a variety of roles—in higher education, government, business, the non-profit sector, or wherever their talents and inclinations might lead.
This website documents the work of the project (concluded in 2019), which served as a catalyst for PhD program innovation at Duke on a much greater scale. Current Duke doctoral students in humanities and humanistic social sciences may continue to reach out to Dr. Maria LaMonaca Wisdom for advising and coaching support. Anyone interested in learning more about this project (especially after perusing the documents below) is welcome to reach out to Dr. Wisdom, or to Dr. Edward Balleisen, faculty PI and Duke's Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies.
Read about VH@Duke in Change: The Magazine of HIgher Learning
Blog
Your Skills Are Not Transferable
At least, not in the way you might think. Ashton Merck (PhD ’20, History) shares her take on “transferable skills” after a year of job searching.
Making the Most of Duke, Summer 2021
What’s available for your academic and professional development across Duke this summer? Ed Balleisen, Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies, provides an overview for PhD students who would like to explore beyond their core research agendas.
Bringing Allyship and Activism into the Community College Classroom
Takeaways from a Mellon-funded collaboration between Duke doctoral candidate Caiomhe Harlock and Durham Tech professor Jason Moldoff.
Getting past “Alt-Ac”
When you say you want an “alt-ac” career, what do you really mean? And how can you find it?
The Ten Million Dollar Question (Academic Job Searches, 2020)
Just how bad will the academic job market be this fall?
What Spaces Do You Need?
This reflection springs from a series of pandemic summer conversations I had with Duke doctoral students, and a key takeaway: We need three spaces in which to do our best work.
Dear Destabilized Writer
Struggling to keep writing in the time of Coronavirus? Doctoral candidates Nicole Gaglia and Kelly Tang offer a reflection and resources to help you regain momentum.
“Giving an A,” or Cultivating Human Connections Online
How can you be both kind and present to everyone you encounter in a virtual space?
Cultivating Versatility as a Future Faculty Member
If you thought “versatility” was only relevant for nonfaculty job seekers, think again.
Team-Teaching the Humanities at a Community College
The opportunity to team-teach with a Durham Tech faculty member provided doctoral student Maggie McDowell with unusually rich and multifaceted pedagogical training.