Kurt Milberger has been hired to lead a new and innovative Editorial Graduate Assistantship program within the College of Arts & Letters (CAL). As the Coordinating Editor, he also will oversee the copyediting and production of three scholarly journals and one book series, all of which are edited by CAL faculty.
Through a partnership with the MSU Press, the Editorial Graduate Assistantship program will prepare future faculty members for leadership roles at higher education institutions by providing hands-on learning experiences designed to expand and enhance their job placement potential. Students in the program will learn about all aspects of academic publishing while working with a specific journal or book series in their discipline.
The program is part of the College of Arts & Letters’ Graduate Practica, a new kind of graduate education that prepares students to be more effective faculty members and to be competitive for a wide diversity of careers in which a humanities Ph.D. is critical for success.
“The College is leading a new approach to graduate education in the humanities, and I am pleased that Dr. Milberger will be managing this important new practicum in editing and publishing. The program will provide our graduate students with structured professional experience in publishing that will better position them to publish themselves and to work in the field if they so choose,” said Christopher P. Long, Dean of the College of Arts & Letters.
The newly created Coordinating Editor position also is unique in that it will involve a deep level of collaboration between the College of Arts & Letters and MSU Press. Funding for the position is provided by the College of Arts & Letters, while the position itself resides at the MSU Press.
As part of this new role, Milberger will work on The Journal of Popular Culture, the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, and the Public Philosophy Journal. He also will help with the MSU Press American Indian Studies book series.
“Drawing on his own significant editorial experience and expertise, Dr. Milberger will work to enhance the quality of the journals edited by our faculty by working with graduate assistants to provide them with professional training in leading-edge practices of publishing,” Long said.
Beginning this fall, Milberger will offer a series of workshops for graduate students interested in editorial careers. He has taught English and literature classes at the University of Notre Dame and at Ivy Tech Community College. He also served as the Managing Editor of Religion & Literature, a scholarly journal published by the University of Notre Dame.
“I already feel at home on MSU’s beautiful campus, and I am very excited to join the College of Arts & Letters to work in conjunction with the MSU Press,” Milberger said. “I look forward to helping graduate students interested in publishing careers get the training and experience they’ll need to find success in this rapidly changing industry. I’m also thrilled to join the teams of three very important journals.”
Milberger earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. in English from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.
