Doctoral student selected for Humanities Without Walls fellowship

University of Georgia doctoral student Chanara Andrews-Bickers has been selected as a 2022 National Humanities Without Walls (HWW) Career Diversity Workshop Fellow. 

Conversations about career diversity – developing career opportunities outside of academia – are happening across all higher education and never more so now that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted so much about the future of work life in nearly every sector. In the humanities and related fields, these conversations revolve around how to help PhD students make the most of their humanities training and knowledge as they consider employment both in the academy and beyond.

With the support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the HWW Career Diversity Summer Workshop is designed to help doctoral candidates navigate conversations about career diversity, introduce them to contacts, and to create a community of Fellows to support them through their journey as they explore career diversity possibilities. 

"I’m excited to learn more about how to expand the reach of the work I do and make it relevant to people outside of academia who are interested in seeing themselves reflected in research or in writing," said Andrews-Bickers. "Black women are a focus of my research. I think having a wider reach is important because Black women are often misrepresented or unrepresented in media and in research."

Candidates apply internally at their home institutions addressing the multi-faceted aspects of diversity and how they will share their experiences from the workshop on and beyond campus. The HWW committee selects 25 fellows from across the United States. 

Andrews-Bickers is a doctoral student in Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of English. She is the Assistant Director of the Writing Center and first year writing instructor. She also serves as the Vice President of UGA’s Graduate and Professional Scholar group and the Social Chair of the English Graduate Organization. 

Andrews-Bickers graduated from Spelman College with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2019 with a concentration in Black cultural studies. At UGA, she earned a graduate certificate in African American Studies from the Institute of African American Studies. Her research engages how Black writers use self-scrutiny and self-explorations to develop individual or collective ethics.

"My research focuses on community," said Andrews-Bickers. "I think a lot about connections and how we foster and nurture community."

Andrews-Bickers has also received the R. Baxter Miller Award in African American and Multicultural Literature from the UGA English department, the Lee Roy B. Giles Encouragement Award from the UGA Institute for African American Studies and was a scholar in the Gateway to Graduate School Bridge Program from UGA.