August 29, 2000
Dr. Paul Nelson
American Psychological Association
Washington, DC
Dear Paul:
It was a pleasure meeting you and Joan and other members of the APA clusters, as well as other PFFers at the conference this summer. We are happy to submit this progress report which describes our reactions to the conference, our suggestions for future conferences, our accomplishments to date, and our plans for this coming year.
The Miami University cluster was represented by Beth Uhler (Miami main campus and Middletown), Vince Punzo (Earlham), Jeff Smith (Northern Kentucky University), Sandy Neumann (grad student), Amy Buddie (grad student), and myself. The response to the conference was very positive. Our cluster had not had an opportunity to meet each other, and the meeting was critical to our clarification of mutual expectations, forging of bonds, and laying a foundation for a successful partnership.
I have received detailed feedback from two partner faculty and one graduate student about the conference. These indicate that they found the disciplinary meeting and the partner faculty meeting to be the most helpful parts of the experience:
"I feel that it was the discipline meeting that really helped me to understand what PFF was all about. I felt like a lot of questions were answered for me."
"The highlights of the conference, for me, were the meetings with all of the psychology PFFers and all of the faculty from partner institutions. Both of these meetings were extremely helpful in trying to plan for what Miami's PFF program will look like. In the Psychology meeting, I received a multitude of ideas from what other clusters were either doing or planned to do. In the partner faculty meeting, I learned a lot about what to do (e.g., make sure that partner faculty are acknowledged for their efforts) and what not to do (e.g., do not rely solely on partner faculty to train graduate students in teaching)."
"I found it to be most enjoyable and beneficial when our group got together (Miami U and the partner institutions). When all the partner institutions got together for a large meeting it was quite obvious that the topic of "what do partner institutions get out of this?" must be clearly and directly addressed at each conference. To not do so would be a real mistake. I'm pleased with what our own group came up with, but it really needs to be continually rethought at each conference."
Our cluster members also indicated that certain of the topical meetings were also particularly useful, such as the meeting on mentoring. A grad student expressed appreciation for the sessions on "Developing Professional Portfolios" and "What Employers Are Seeking." One person suggested that the large-group, keynote type presentations, although informative, tended to be a little too long for comfort. People expressed appreciation for the food, and enjoyed the trip to Manitou Lake.
Suggestions for future conferences include more opportunities for discipline-based meetings, including breakouts for constituencies within discipline, e.g., psychology grad students, psychology partner faculty, psychology doctoral faculty.
I have organized our accomplishments so far topically. For Publicity, I have set up website, which has links to APA, PFF, and other related programs at the following URL: <http://www.users.muohio.edu/shorec/apapff/apapff.htm>. I have written two handouts describing the program, one designed for our graduate students, e.g., at orientation, and another for partner faculty and others. I have set up a mailing list, which includes other members of the APA clusters and our neighboring PFF program at University of Cincinnati.
Toward establishing relationships with partners, we attended the conference, and I believe that everyone has been financially reimbursed. I wrote up and distributed for comment/correction a statement of mutual expectations of the program based on the discussions at the conference. I set up a mailing list of administrators at all institutions, plus Miami's director of teaching effectiveness programs, and mailed a letter to these persons thanking them for their support of our program. I put our partner faculty on our mailing list for colloquia. I have visited Northern Kentucky, and met with a member of the College of Mount Saint Joseph faculty. Three grad students and I traveled to Earlham and had lunch with their chair.
We have selected an outstanding set of seven "charter members" to be our APA PFF scholars this year. I met with them, distributed an introductory packet of information and "pre-test" assessment instruments. I wrote up a handout about the scholars' skills and interests for our partner faculty, to assist in establishing placement opportunities. I set up links from our website to their home pages.
We have begun work toward setting up shadowing and teaching placement opportunities for our grad students. I have written a handout on "what do APA-PFF mentors do" as well as a contract to be discussed between mentors and mentees. I am working toward getting a list of available opportunities on each of the partner campuses. The graduate students and I will meet next week with our department chair and graduate coordinator to make sure that their obligations on this campus do not conflict with their placements on our partner campuses. One (and possibly two more) graduate students are settled into teaching placements and mentoring for this fall, and I have written to thank the mentor and his administrators.
We have made good progress toward a brown-bag & colloquium series on professional development. I e-mailed our APA PFF scholars about their preferences for topics. I have requested information from other Miami offices (e.g., graduate school) and our sister PFF program at UC about seminars, etc., that they may be offering, and post that on the website. As of now, I have confirmed the following: a talk on "Advising Psychology Majors" led by an advisor from Arts & Science, a workshop on "Diversity issues in teaching" led by an expert from Indiana University, an informal discussion with a partner faculty member on "Expectations of new hires at liberal arts institutions" when she comes to do a colloquium on her scholarship, and an informal discussion with a former doctoral alumnus on "Service in Professional organizations" when he comes to do colloquium. Still to be settled are talks on "Teaching Portfolios" and "Feminist Pedagogy" by local experts.
Toward evaluation of the program's effectiveness, I have obtained examples of assessments used by other PFF programs, constructed a pre- and post-assessment questionnaire, wrote instructions for maintaining a portfolio of activities in the program, obtained approval by the IRB for Human Subjects Research, and distributed the "pre-test" questionnaire and portfolio instructions.
A new idea that emerged at the PFF conference was to invite undergrads from our partner institutions to our departmental poster day in the spring. This could be an opportunity for them to also hear about graduate program admissions from our faculty and for our grad students to talk to partner faculty about hiring issues. We are still excited about this prospect. At the popular request of our graduate students, we are arranging for a "getting to know you" event for the Miami groups and the Cincinnati area partners in Cincinnati October 17. We are grateful to one of our partner faculty, Jim Bodle, for serving as our host. We will make another occasion to meet the Earlham faculty.
We are pleased with the progress we have made. We are energized by the enthusiasm of our graduate students. We are grateful for the involvement of our partner faculty and the opportunity to form closer bonds with them. We thank APA and our graduate dean for your support, and look forward to an exciting year.
Sincerely,
Cecilia Shore
Associate Professor
Cc:
Karen Schilling, Chair
Robert Johnson, Graduate Dean
Partner faculty: Beth Uhler, Shannon Maxwell, George Goedel, Jeff Smith, Mary Kay Fleming, Jim Bodle, Kathy Milar
Contacts at other APA clusters, and University of Cincinnati