Initial contributions to this site have run the gamut from personal narratives, positioned within certain academic disciplines and institutions, to staged dialogues on issues and opportunities off the tenure track, to reflective and data-driven essays on the state of the academy and the (problematic? disruptive? salutary?) position of “alternate academics” within it. A few essays also represent counter career paths and critiques of the #alt-ac concept.
Founding contributors to the #alt-academy project include the following people, in alphabetical order:
- Joanne M. Berens, Associate Director of Strategic Initiatives, Alumni Relations and Development, University of Chicago
- Jeremy Boggs, Creative Lead, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
- Arno Bosse, Senior Director for Technology, Division of the Humanities, University of Chicago
- Sheila Brennan, Director of Public Projects, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
- Hugh Cayless, Developer, NYU Digital Library Technology Services, New York University
- Tanya Clement, Associate Director, Digital Cultures and Creativity, University of Maryland
- Brian Croxall, CLIR Postdoctoral Fellow in Academic Libraries, Emory University
- James Cummings, Senior Research Technologist, University of Oxford
- Suzanne Fischer, Associate Curator of Technology, The Henry Ford
- Julia Flanders, Director, Women Writers Project and Associate Director for Textbase Development, Scholarly Technology Group, Brown University
- Amanda French, Regional THATCamp Coordinator, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
- Amanda Gailey, Assistant Professor, Department of English and CDRH, University of Nebraska
- Joe Gilbert, Head, Scholars’ Lab, University of Virginia Library University of Virginia
- Wayne Graham, Head, Digital Research & Scholarship R&D, UVa Library, University of Virginia
- Patricia Hswe, Digital Collections Curator, Pennsylvania State University
- Eric Johnson, Social Media Coordinator, Monticello and Jefferson Library
- Shana Kimball, Interim Co-Director, Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan
- Sharon Leon, Director of Public Projects, Center for History and New Media, George Mason
- Willard McCarty, Professor of Humanities Computing, King’s College, London
- Patrick Murray-John, Instructional Technology Specialist, Mary Washington
- Bethany Nowviskie, Director, Digital Research & Scholarship and Associate Director, Scholarly Communication Institute, University of Virginia Library (coordinating editor)
- Dot Porter, Metadata Manager DHO, Royal Irish Academy
- Doug Reside, Assistant Director, Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, University of Maryland
- Dorothea Salo, Digital Repository Librarian, U Wisconsin-Madison
- Tom Scheinfeldt, Managing Director, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
- Lisa Spiro, Director, Digital Media Center, Fondren Library , Rice University
- Miranda Swanson, Associate Dean of Students, Student Affairs, University of Chicago
- Amanda Watson, Research and Instruction Librarian, Connecticut College
- Anne Mitchell Whisnant, Director of Research, Communications, and Programs, Office of Faculty Governance, UNC-Chapel Hill
- Christa Williford, Project Coordinator, Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives, CLIR
- Vika Zafrin, Digital Collections and Computing Support Librarian, Boston University
This MediaCommons publication encourages readers' response and contribution. You are invited to comment on posts and add your own, which may be featured in future clusters. (See "How It Works" to learn more about unmediated, bottom-up publishing and our #alt-academy editing practices.)
In addition to reader commentary, are pleased to feature more formal, invited responses on our initial contributions by Timothy Powell, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
A new section of the site, Visible Margin, which features creative and critical work by and for people working outside of conventional academic frameworks, is co-edited by Polina Kroik and S. Miller.
Finally, the project would not have appeared in this form without the vision of MediaCommons founders Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Avi Santo, the encouragement of the MediaCommons editorial board, and the care and attention of Brian Hoffman, Rasan Rasch, and Mark Reilly of NYU's Digital Library Technology Services and Wayne Graham of the University of Virginia Library Scholars' Lab.