2023

Muhlenberg Receives $29,900 Grant to Support Humanities Internships Initiative

A proposed partnership between humanities faculty and the Career Center earned a Vocation Across the Academy Grant from the Council of Independent Colleges.

By: Meghan Kita  Wednesday, August 9, 2023 11:05 AM

Senior Lecturer of Religion Studies and Director of Advising Sharon Albert with students in the fall of 2019. Photo by Paul Pearson

The Council of Independent Colleges selected Muhlenberg to receive a $29,900 grant to support the development of a program to facilitate humanities-supervised for-credit internships.

The program will encourage humanities majors to undertake for-credit internships supervised by humanities faculty, with financial support for unpaid or low-paid internships. It will also create a faculty learning community, in partnership with career services staff, in which faculty will gain a better understanding of how internships function, recognize how humanities coursework provides a foundation for a wide variety of career and life goals and learn to more directly articulate for students the career competencies they are learning in humanities courses.

“We in the humanities tell students that with a degree in English or philosophy or religion they can do anything, but we often don’t do a very good job of helping them see how to get from here to there,” says Senior Lecturer of Religion Studies and Director of Advising Sharon Albert. “The work of this grant will help us to do that better, and will open the door for students to make real-world connections.”

The program will be led by Albert and Professor and Chair of Philosophy Tad Robinson, with support from Executive Director of Career Services Sean Schofield. The three-year grant will most immediately fund the faculty learning community, with the first cohort set to meet four times this fall. Next summer, some students supervised by the learning community cohort may enroll in for-credit internships.

“This is an excellent example of how collaboration between faculty and Career Center coaches bolsters student success in career preparation, helping students make an impact now and into the future,” says Provost Laura Furge.

Students interested in learning more may reach out to Albert, Robinson or Schofield.