Altac (Alternative Academic) Careers: What is Altac?

Altac (or Alt-ac) is a term coined in 2010, according to an Inside Higher Ed article, referring to two post-PhD career tracks, most often the first:

• positions inside academia other than traditional tenure track faculty positions; may include teaching or research, adjunct or fixed term faculty appointments, or primarily administrative positions
• research or administrative positions in the public or private sectors outside academia.
• While the term originally referred to careers in higher education other than tenure-track faculty position, it now refers to a broader spectrum of careers: administration, public scholarship (e.g., museums), non-profits, consultants, and government positions, according to the American Studies Association (accessed 10/1/24).

How to use this guide:

• Altac In the News: provides links to books, articles and web sites that focus on the politics or philosophy of altac.
• Resources that focus on developing an altac career or finding altac positions are on the General Altac Resources, Humanities & Social Sciences Resources, and STEM Resources pages.

• 'We are Ph.D.'s who were either locked out, or opted out, of a faculty career but still wanted to work in academe.'  Read: A move to bring staff scholars out of the shadows (Donna M. Bickford and Anne Mitchell Whisnant, Chronicle of Higher Ed, 2013)
• 'Both of us do research, participate in scholarly groups, and present or publish our work. And both of us find our research to be relevant to our administrative jobs.'  Read: Building a corps of administrative scholars (Donna M. Bickford and Anne Mitchell Whisnant, Chronicle of Higher Ed, 2010)
• ‘The colloquial term “altac” refers to the growing group of Ph.D.-prepared scholars who work in non-faculty professional positions in higher education, not always in their primary fields of study.’  Read: The ‘altac’ track seen as worthy choice for many Ph.D.s(Courtney Mitchell, UNC University Gazette, 2013)

#alt-academy, a media commons project, a digital scholar network

#Alt-Academy takes a grass-roots, bottom-up, publish-then-filter approach to community-building and networked scholarly communication around the theme of unconventional or alternative careers for people with academic training. If the idea is new to you, don’t miss this introductory cluster that helps to set the scope, stakes, and structure of the conversation.

The site's coordinating editor is Katina Rogers of the Futures Initiative at the Graduate Center, CUNY, but this MediaCommons project is the work of many hands.

• Altac Academy: Who We Are: Wondering who we are and what we do? Here's some information about fellow #alt-academics. On this page, you can add your information to the Altac Academy directory.

PhDs At Work

• PhDs At Work provides an online space for shared learning and for making new connections. Learn from peers who have successfully transitioned from academia to industry, gain expert insight on how to manage your career, and join us for an event to connect with new colleagues.

Versatile PhD

• 'Versatile PhD is the oldest, largest online community dedicated to non-academic and non-faculty careers for PhDs in humanities, social science and STEM.'
• What we do for PhD's: The Versatile PhD mission is to help graduate students, ABDs and PhDs identify, prepare for and excel in professional careers. We currently serve many of the leading North American research universities, including their PhD students, post-docs and alumni, by providing unique and instructive content, networks, job analytics and readiness tools.

Created 4/2015 by Robert Manzo (User Services Intern, HSL) and Barbara Rochen Renner, PhD (Allied Health Liaison, HSL) to support the information needs of the UNC-CH Altac Project and PhD students in all schools at UNC.