In Putting the Humanities PhD to Work Katina L. Rogers grounds practical career advice in a nuanced consideration of the current landscape of the academic workforce. Drawing on surveys, interviews, and personal experience, Rogers explores the evolving rhetoric and practices regarding career preparation and how those changes intersect with admissions practices, scholarly reward structures, and academic labor practices—especially the increasing reliance on contingent labor. Rogers invites readers to consider how graduate training can lead to meaningful and significant careers beyond the academy. She provides graduate students with context and analysis to inform the ways they discern their own potential career paths while taking an activist perspective that moves toward individual success and systemic change. For those in positions to make decisions in humanities departments or programs, Rogers outlines the circumstances and pressures that students face and gives examples of programmatic reform that address career matters in structural ways. Throughout, Rogers highlights the important possibility that different kinds of careers offer engaging, fulfilling, and even unexpected pathways for students who seek them out.

Despite representing the largest ethnic minority group in the United States, Latina/os are underrepresented in graduate school and continue to fall behind in doctoral achievement when compared to White, African American, Asian American, and Native American populations (Pérez Huber et al., 2015). The Latina/o attrition rate indicates significant obstacles in Latina/o educational pathways throughout the postsecondary system. This study explores the personal and academic experiences of Latina/o terminal master's degree students in order to unpack the potential of the terminal master's degree as a pathway to the doctorate for Latina/o students pursuing programs in the humanities and social sciences. A terminal master's degree refers to an academic master's earned at an institution that does not offer doctoral work in that field of study. This study builds on research recognizing the need for expanded diversity efforts in the doctoral and professoriate pathways. Using Critical Race Theory, Community Cultural Wealth, and Domains of Power as theoretical perspectives, particular attention was paid to how the intersection of race, culture, and socioeconomic status influenced the participants' experiences and how institutional norms and policies shaped their educational trajectories. Drawing on interview responses from five terminal master's students and four Latina/o doctoral degree holders who pursued terminal master's degrees from a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), the study identified four broad themes - fifteen subthemes - centered on the 1) process of selecting a graduate program; 2) institutional failures and self-advocacy; 3) institutional context around challenges and support structures; and, 4) the impact of race/ethnicity within a Hispanic Serving Institution. These findings might affect recruitment, retention, and completion strategies for institutions that enroll or aspire to enroll Latina/o graduate students.

In order for the United States to maintain the global leadership and competitiveness in science and technology that are critical to achieving national goals, we must invest in research, encourage innovation, and grow a strong and talented science and technology workforce. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation explores the role of diversity in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce and its value in keeping America innovative and competitive. According to the book, the U.S. labor market is projected to grow faster in science and engineering than in any other sector in the coming years, making minority participation in STEM education at all levels a national priority. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation analyzes the rate of change and the challenges the nation currently faces in developing a strong and diverse workforce. Although minorities are the fastest growing segment of the population, they are underrepresented in the fields of science and engineering. Historically, there has been a strong connection between increasing educational attainment in the United States and the growth in and global leadership of the economy. Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation suggests that the federal government, industry, and post-secondary institutions work collaboratively with K-12 schools and school systems to increase minority access to and demand for post-secondary STEM education and technical training. The book also identifies best practices and offers a comprehensive road map for increasing involvement of underrepresented minorities and improving the quality of their education. It offers recommendations that focus on academic and social support, institutional roles, teacher preparation, affordability and program development.

This timely volume challenges the ongoing underrepresentation of Latina women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and highlights resilience as a critical communal response to increasing their representation in degree programs and academic posts. An Asset-Based Approach to Advancing Latina Students in STEM documents the racialized and gendered experiences of Latinas studying and researching in STEM in US colleges, and centers resilience as a critical mechanism in combating deficit narratives. Adopting an asset-based approach, chapters illustrate how Latinas draw on their cultural background as a source of individual and communal strength, and indicate how this cultural wealth must be nurtured and used to inform leadership and policy to motivate, encourage, and support Latinas on the pathway to graduate degrees and successful STEM careers. By highlighting strategies to increase personal resilience and institutional retention of Latina women, the text offers key insights to bolstering diversity in STEM. This text will primarily appeal to academics, scholars, educators, and researchers in the fields of STEM education. It will also benefit those working in broader areas of higher education and multicultural education, as well as those interested in the advancement of minorities inside and outside of academia. Elsa M. Gonzalez is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Houston, USA. Frank Fernandez is Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Mississippi, USA. Miranda Wilson earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Houston, USA.

A guide for grad students and academics who want to find fulfilling careers outside higher education. With the academic job market in crisis, 'Leaving Academia' helps grad students and academics in any scholarly field find satisfying careers beyond higher education. The book offers invaluable advice to visiting and adjunct instructors ready to seek new opportunities, to scholars caught in "tenure-trap" jobs, to grad students interested in nonacademic work, and to committed academics who want to support their students and contingent colleagues more effectively. Providing clear, concrete ways to move forward at each stage of your career change, even when the going gets tough, 'Leaving Academia' is both realistic and hopeful.

This book identifies and challenges assumptions about the doctorate and the discourses associated with it. The editors and contributors subvert and transform the de facto assumptions that frame the ways in which 'the doctorate' is spoken and written, and thus underpin approaches to planning, conducting and evaluating doctoral research. Giving voice to doctoral students and supervisors, the book opens a pathway for their own stories: why students entered doctoral study, the understandings and experiences they gleaned from it, and the implications for their own character. The book questions what kinds of discourses help to construct contemporary doctoral research, and how these might be de- and reconstructed, and asks what doctoral study might look like in the future. Academics, students and practitioners alike will find an avenue into rigorous research design from reflective and insightful scholars who provide a voice for doctoral strategies for success.

This timely book demonstrates why there needs to be a more thoughtful and collaborative effort on the part of K–12 schools, as well as institutions of higher education, to provide better college access to students from low-income communities. Building on a 10-year case study of a successful school-university partnership, the authors examine the supports, mentoring, and resources needed to transform the college opportunities and life chances for under-represented urban youth. Featuring first-hand accounts from student participants, the book documents how the model provided college access to some of the most selective and prestigious universities across the nation. Because this partnership situates college access within a social justice framework, it is one of the more unique programs in the country. “Few social problems are of more pressing importance than the challenge of increasing access to higher education. Howard, Tunstall, and Flennaugh carefully outline those problems and give us our marching orders. Historical. Empirical. Well-written. Thoughtful. Provocative. This book is useful for all of us concerned about access and equity in education.” —William G. Tierney, professor & co-director, Pullias Center for Higher Education, University of Southern California “This book represents a moral and ethical call to any of us who believe in an educational pipeline for liberty, humanity, possibility, and justice for all—everyday!” —H. Richard Milner IV, Helen Faison Professor of Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh Contributors: Irene Atkins, Bree Blades, Jon Carroll, Whitney Gouche, Tr’Vel Lyons, Justyn Patterson, Jerry Morrison, Michelle Smith, Ashley V. Williams