Alumni Placement
Employment Outcomes for Doctoral Graduates
Sara Dolan, Associate Dean for Professional Development
Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship
The Graduate School, in partnership with other academic units, sponsors a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship program for exceptional graduates who would like to gain one additional year of teaching experience before entering the academic job market. This program offers salary and benefits, along with funding for travel and support for preparing job application materials. This year, we have nine Postdoctoral Teaching Fellows, up from eight last year with the addition of a Fellow in the School of Education. Another direction for growth has been in professional development opportunities: A partnership with the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, which serves Baylor’s postdoctoral research fellows, now brings together fellows from across the university for workshops on teaching as well as research, and social events to facilitate networking, peer support, and career development. This partnership has also opened membership in the National Postdoctoral Association for the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellows, affording them access to additional resources.
The Graduate School hopes to offer a greater number of these positions in 2023-2024. These Fellows teach a 4-4 load, which provides a great service to the departments in which they are placed. The College of Arts and Sciences, the Honors College, and the School of Education all fund Fellows who have demonstrated excellence in their classroom teaching, and we hope to broaden the reach of the program in the next year.
2022-23 Postdoctoral Teaching Fellows
Arts & Sciences - English Department
- Dr. Aaron Hatrick, Ph.D. in English
- Dr. Molly Lewis, Ph.D. in English
- Dr. Aubrey Morris, Ph.D. in English
Honors College
- Dr. Michael Gonzalez, Ph.D. in Political Science
College of Arts & Sciences
- Dr. David Roach, Ph.D. in History
- Dr. Sam Young, Ph.D. in History
- Dr. Mads Reynolds, Ph.D. in Mathematics
- Dr. Jacob Randolph, Ph.D. in Religion
School of Education
- Dr. Sean Strehlow, Ph.D. in Higher Education Studies & Leadership
Alumni
Our doctoral graduates are flinging their green and gold afar, and many begin their careers in academic positions. According to Academic Analytics, of 449 alumni in their database, 227 are in academic positions, and 75 of those are tenure track positions. Our doctoral alumni are increasingly competitive for R1 positions, as shown in this graphic (Figure 1). Although tenure track academic positions, especially at R1 institutions are not the chosen career path for all of our graduates, these numbers give an indication of how our graduates are gaining more esteem by our peers in the academy. “Alt-Ac,” or careers outside of traditional academic positions, is more and more often the path of choice for PhD graduates. As the academic job market becomes more precarious, these jobs in industry, the non-profit sector, and in government are increasingly attractive.
Figure 2 shows the decreasing percentage of graduates choosing employment in academia, complemented by the increasing percentage choosing employment in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. The Graduate School has worked with the Baylor University Career Center to help students identify these career path options, to begin preparing for these non-academic positions from the beginning of their graduate education, and to apply for these positions. Because our aim is to successfully place our graduates in careers that “fit” well, we do not view these positions as “less than” academic positions. Rather, we work to advertise the benefits of non-academic careers to students and faculty. This is an area for growth, as well, in the coming years.