This published version is made available on Dickinson Scholar with the permission of the publisher. For more information on the published version, visit Ethos's Website.

Donna Bickford is the Director of the Women's and Gender Resource Center at Dickinson College.

Bickford, Donna B. and Anne Mitchell Whisnant. The Altac Track: Carving Out a New Professional Space for PhDs in Academe. Ethos: A Digital Review of Arts, Humanities, and Public Ethics April 8, 2014.

In the national discussion around career prospects for PhDs (especially in the humanities and social sciences, where there are more new PhDs than full-time faculty lines), increasing attention is being paid to the “alternative academic” sphere, colloquially known by its Twitter hashtag, #Altac.