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Newsletter for the

American Psychological Association-Preparing Future Faculty program

Departments/Programs of Psychology at

Miami University: Oxford, Middletown and Hamilton

College of Mount Saint Joseph * Northern Kentucky University

Earlham College

August, 2001

What is Preparing Future Faculty?

Preparing Future Faculty is a joint initiative by American Association of Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools to improve the preparation of graduate students for faculty roles. A key feature is forming partnerships with non-doctoral institutions, so that students learn about the ways in which faculty responsibilities are affected by institutional contexts, and increase doctoral students' awareness of diversity issues. Our program is funded by the American Psychological Association.

Professional development series

Bill Addison, Ph.D. Miami 1984, presented an informal talk on "Service in Professional Organizations" and a departmental colloquium on "Student Evaluations of Teaching." Other informal presentations in the spring were given by Ted Wagenaar (Sociology) on "Teaching Portfolios" and Tim Dowd (Psychology) on "Teaching Large Classes."

APA-PFF doctoral students attend MPA, APA

The APA-PFF scholars held a meeting during the Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology (CTUP) sessions at MPA, on our first-year experiences with the program. Ayesha Shaikh attended a pre-conference workshop sponsored by APA on preparing for faculty roles. She also participated in a panel discussion for grad students at APA titled, "Preparing for faculty positions: What you need to know."

Miami cluster representatives at PFF national conference We are grateful for the time, energy and enthusiasm brought by cluster participants to the conference! Reps included: Jim Bodle (CMSJ), Diana Punzo (Earlham), Robin Bartlett (NKU), Shannon Maxwell (MU-H), Beth Uhler (MU-M), Sandy Neumann (grad), Patty Mills (grad), & Cecilia Shore (MU).

Plans for this year

• We plan to do the Tri-State Symposium again, but start planning earlier, involve the doctoral faculty sooner, and involve more of the Scholars in making it happen.
• We hope to increase the flexibility of the types of involvement our Scholars have on the partner campuses. Other than teaching classes, scholars can visit undergrad organizations, involve students in their research, do mock job talks, give presentations/guest lectures on their specialities, attend Faculty Assembly meetings, shadow partner faculty, serve as Science Fair judges… There are many possibilities. We also hope to arrange a meeting with all cluster participants to help Scholars and partners make initial contacts.

• We have a presentation at MACTOP (MidAmerica Conference on Teaching of Psychology).

• In keeping with the diversity goals of PFF, we hope to exchange visits with local HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities).

First year reflections from Beth Uhler & Cecilia Shore, PFF coordinators

Beth: My involvement in the PFF program has made me more aware of small colleges and branch campuses. I have a better understanding of the differences between a research institution and an institution whose primary focus is teaching and service, as well as how those differences can inform one another. In addition to training graduate students to be good scholars, it is important to give them exposure to all of the other facets of life as a faculty member in a variety of different occupational settings.

Cecilia: Looking back over our first year as an APA-PFF program, I think I have been most impressed by the exciting dynamic of the relationships between our grad students and our partners. It has been tremendously exciting and rewarding to see the many benefits of these relationships, not just to the grad students and partner faculty, but also to undergraduates. Our first year has been very rich and I hope that we can build on our accomplishments in the coming years

See also the reflections from our 2000-2001 scholars

Tentative Calendar

All members of the cluster--doctoral faculty, grad students, partner faculty and students--are all welcome at all events not specifically marked for APA PFF Scholars.

Aug 24		Orientation meeting for APA PFF Scholars
Sept	Faculty and Scholars	Planning meeting for TriState symposium
Sept 24	Len Mark	Service in the life work of a faculty member
October		Meeting between partner faculty and APA PFF Scholars
October 12-13		MACTOP (APA PFF Scholars funding provided)
October 25-26	Jim Korn APA task force on PFF	SPRIG: Deception in psychology research Colloquium: Learning to teach psychology
	Barney Beins APA Director for Precollege& Undergrad Programs
November 15 -18		Lilly Conference (free to Miami faculty and staff)
January		Tri-State Symposium
February?	Beth Uhler (and another partner?)	Technology in teaching
Feb 22	Lee Fox-Cardamone Doctoral alumna
Mar 29	Robin Bartlett Partner faculty	SPRIG and colloq: developmental psych, Grad student meeting on New faculty experiences
Maybe:
	Jack Meacham	Diversity
		Administration as a career path
		Service learning