This week, we continue our series on humanities PhDs who are now working full-time off the tenure track. We interviewed former Broadly Textual Pub contributor Melissa Welshans, an alumna of the English PhD program at Syracuse University, where in 2017 she defended her dissertation on gender and sexuality in the institution of marriage in early-modern England. Now, she holds the position of Assistant Director of the Center for Fellowship & Scholarship Advising at Syracuse University.
What is your job?
I am the Assistant Director of the Center for Fellowship & Scholarship Advising at Syracuse University. I work under our director, Jolynn Parker, to advise students regarding nationally competitive fellowships and scholarships such as Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Gilman, Truman, and more.
What made you want to look for a career off the tenure track?
At first, it was a lack of tenure track job opportunities in the geographic location in which I wished to live. As I continued to reflect on my personal and career goals, I was increasingly finding that the tenure track didn’t provide the kind of work/life balance that I desired. You can read more about my process in my previous Pub post, “We’re All Smart Enough: A Pep Talk for PhDs on the Job Market.”
How did you get your job?
I initially heard about the opportunity through my advisor, who is friends with the director of my new department. I then submitted an application through the university’s centralized hiring process, and completed two rounds of interviews: one informal, and the other in-person.
What kind of job counseling or advice did you seek out?
All kinds! I worked with my advisor to discuss possible non-tenure track opportunities. I attended career workshops organized by my university’s graduate career services and my department. I attended conference panels and workshops about career development. I followed blogs like Karen Kelsky’s The Professor Is In. And I generally kept in touch with colleagues who had received their degrees but found employment off the tenure track.
What does your average day look like? What kinds of decisions do you make?
On an average day I am at my desk by 8:30am, answering emails and checking out my to-do list. I read drafts of student application materials, and offer feedback on the fitness of its content for the particular application, as well as things like grammar and punctuation. Scholarship application materials (especially personal statements) are their own genre, and so I help students get acquainted with what that genre requires. Then I might meet with students to discuss either fellowship opportunities for which they might be eligible, or their current applications for particular fellowships.
I work on publicizing workshops and information sessions hosted by our office. I might also be managing a writing workshop where students conduct peer-review to help each other revise their application essays. I coordinate with other campus offices and departments to organize events. If needed, I update our website. I post to our department Instagram. At some point, I eat lunch (usually at my desk) but I also often take an afternoon walk with a coworker. And then I’m out the door at 5:00pm!
We are currently busier than normal due to the many fellowship and scholarship deadlines in September and October, so I have been completing about one hour of work at home in the evenings. But it’s temporary.
What skills do you use in your job?
I use my writing, editing, and teaching skills daily, as well as my skills in multitasking and managing projects over a long period. I also make great use out of my event planning skills. My experience with WordPress also came in handy, as that is the platform that houses our department’s website. The skills I had to pick up were largely content-based. I needed to (and continue to) familiarize myself with the scholarships and fellowships that our office advertises to students. I also needed to reframe my pedagogical strategies for the product-based nature of our work.
What, if anything, might you have done differently during your PhD career to set yourself up to transition into a career off the tenure track?
I would have been more honest with myself early on about what I did or did not like about the work I was doing in graduate school, and seriously considered alternative careers. I also would have conducted informational interviews with individuals who had the types of jobs I wanted off the tenure-track to get a better sense of how I could build my resume for those careers.
How do you see your job or your field more generally changing in the future?
I am in a growing profession (something new after being on the English tenure-track job market!). Fellowship and scholarship offices will continue to grow as more universities realize the value of our service, as well as decrease the number of tenure-track faculty — the people who used to informally do the kind of work that fellowship offices now provide. Since that problem isn’t going away, I actually look forward to the creation of more offices like ours at Syracuse University, especially at institutions with underserved student populations.
What advice would you give someone considering a career off the tenure track?
Informational interviews! If you want to continue working in a university setting, look for the types of jobs offered at your university or the kinds of universities you want to work at. Then, reach out to the people who hold jobs you’d be interested in.
