This weekend academics from around the continent are gathering at McGill University in Montreal to discuss the future of graduate studies in Canada. Future Humanities: Transforming Graduate Studies for the Future of Canada promises to be an important contribution recent debates on ways to reform the humanities for the 21st century.

In a Globe and Mail article on the event, organizer Paul Yachnin, the director of the Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas, said “Maybe 15 to 20 per cent of people who enter PhDs get full-time academic work. That’s a remarkably poor showing. … It means that students who complete PhDs and put themselves on the academic job market and don’t get academic jobs feel like failures.”

For more on the conference see the program here.