This grant seeks to equip international students of color enrolled in the DU-Iliff Joint Doctoral Program (JDP) to function in the U.S. racial context through a critical race learning/orienting retreat at the beginning of their studies, followed by a workshop with domestic students of color at the end of the first year. This grant process will also help international and domestic students of color form community in the doctoral program by exploring racial-national intersectional identities in a critical race context.

There is an increasing challenge of placing students in fulltime, tenure track teaching positions.  To address this situation, the DU/Iliff Joint PhD Program proposed a project to explore ways we can prepare our graduates for careers which lie outside the usual classroom context. We identified three potential venues where pedagogy plays a significant role and career opportunities are increasing: 1) curators and directors of education in museums associated with religious sites or controlling significant collections of religious artifacts; 2) academic technologists who assist faculty with developing their technological skill and the design of online courses; 3) hybrid positions in higher education where administrative work is combined with pedagogical roles (e.g., directors of service learning, teaching and learning centers, or study-abroad programs).  Most of these positions either require a PhD or give preference to individuals who hold PhDs. Many are particularly suited to the religion scholar. 

We engaged in the following kinds of activities to enable this exploration: 1) inviting speakers who currently work in one of the three arenas named above; 2) discussions among faculty so that we can use our collective wisdom to imagine how our own teaching would need to change and how this could impact our current curriculum; 3) workshops and programmatic consultations with other departments and teaching and learning resources of the university to explore the curricular options for students interested in pursuing careers outside of fulltime classroom teaching.

A Part Yet Apart_Grant.pdf

Opportunities for a Lifetime of Teaching_Grant.pdf

https://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu