What do we want doctoral education to look like in 2037? 
How can we sustain the disciplines we value in a changing economic and institutional landscape? 
What opportunities can we offer our graduate students to prepare them for rewarding work?   

Join American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) president Joy Connolly and the Doctoral Futures team for a day of action-oriented conversations about the future of doctoral education. 

Doctoral education is worth preserving: it produces knowledge workers and institutional leaders for all sectors of the economy. In an environment where funding is reduced and cohorts are shrinking, graduate programs must adapt — while supporting students and preserving the skills and dispositions cultivated in our disciplines. Solutions to these challenges will look different across institutions and programs — but collaboration across institutions is key to a workable future.   

Funded by the NEH and Mellon Foundation, the ACLS' Doctoral Futures Initiative has been reimagining the humanities PhD, taking stock of new ideas and best practices and assembling strategies that work. It’s now time for the Doctoral Futures Initiative to take its findings on the road.  

We invite you to bring a team from your institution that could include graduate alumni working inside or outside the academy, faculty, graduate studies chairs/directors, graduate students, career advisors, and program staff and administrators.  

We are keen to form a network rooted in regional solidarity, and we hope that our day of conversation will leave you with new ideas and sustainable strategies for moving doctoral education forward.

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