The Summer Institute provides humanities graduate students with opportunities to expand their humanistic toolkits through a series of professional development workshops. The yearly Institute focuses on a theme, centering on specific challenges faced by humanists worldwide to enhance graduate student training and experience to address these issues.
Summer 2026 | May 4-8
Leading through the Humanities: A Joint Summer Institute for Humanities Graduate Students
Designed for humanities graduate students and postdoctoral fellows navigating an increasingly complex academic, professional, and public-facing landscape, this year’s Graduate Summer Institute offers a week of immersive workshops, writing sessions, and small-group conversations focused on making the “hidden curriculum” of professional development visible and accessible. Join us to explore present challenges, imagine possible futures, and consider lateral career pathways, all while building community and practical strategies for thriving in and beyond the academy.
This year’s workshop is help in collaboration with Rice University’s Humanities Research Center, with the kind support of the UF William and Grace Dial Center for Speech and Communication Studies and the Robert and Margaret Rothman Endowment for the Humanities.
Past Themes
- Summer 2025: Creating Captivating Conference Presentations
This year, the Institute focused on strategies for crafting engaging oral presentations, leading roundtable discussions, and handling Q&A sessions with confidence. Participants gained practical tools to convey their ideas persuasively and with poise.
- Summer 2024: Say it ‘till you nail it
Addressing the fundamental question of “What is the value of humanities research and why?”, this year’s Summer Institute centered around fostering both individual awareness and recognition of the value of graduate research in the humanities. Workshops provided humanities graduate students with opportunities to expand their advocacy and communication skills regarding their scholarly expertise and research projects. We encouraged participants to explore ways to communicate their research in the humanities within and beyond the university and develop a presentation to submit to the UF Three Minute Thesis (3MT®).
- Summer 2023: Expanding Horizons through the Humanities
This year, the focus was on fostering both academic and professional versatility. The Summer Institute provided graduate students with opportunities to expand their humanistic toolkits and research outputs as well as to translate their scholarly expertise and research skills for diverse professional contexts, within and beyond the confines of academia.