UNI Humanities Hub lecture to highlight career potential of humanities degrees

‌The lecture, "Set Up for Success: Making Your Humanities Degree Work," will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 21, in Maucker Union Ballroom A, with the talk beginning at 5 p.m. Light refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public.

The event will serve as the kickoff event for the newly established UNI Humanities Hub, which will bring together students, faculty, community members and humanities professionals through events, programs and opportunities designed to highlight the value and impact of the humanities.

Townsend's lecture will examine data showing how humanities graduates are doing considerably better than public perceptions often suggest - finding work across a wide range of occupations, achieving strong earnings and reporting high levels of job and life satisfaction.

The lecture will then move from data to practice, focusing on the skills a humanities education develops, how students can identify and demonstrate those skills to employers and how they can begin building a deliberate path from graduation to a career.

Townsend brings extensive experience researching and communicating about the humanities. He is director of Humanities, Arts, and Culture Programs at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prior to joining the Academy, he spent 24 years at the American Historical Association, where he served as director of research, publications and IT. He is the author of "History's Babel" and more than 200 articles on various aspects of history and the humanities.