February 8, 2001

Dr. Paul Nelson

American Psychological Association

Washington, DC 20002

Dear Paul:

We are happy to submit this progress report which our accomplishments to date, and our plans for this coming spring.

I have organized our accomplishments in a question-answer format, which follows the order of topics that you requested we address.

1. What experiences have our students gained in the areas of teaching, research, and service?

We have made good progress on a brown-bag & colloquium series on professional development. We sponsored 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 (co-sponsored by the Grad School), and an informal discussion with Kathy Milar, chair of one of our partner institutions, on "Expectations of new hires." These events were open to all psychology graduate students to attend. This February will include an informal discussion with a former doctoral alumnus on "Service in Professional organizations" when he comes to do colloquium on "Student Evaluations of Teaching." Still to be settled are talks on "Teaching Portfolios" and "Teaching Large Classes" by local experts.

The APA PFF scholars (seven advanced students participating in a year-long series of activities) also attended MidAmerica Conference on Teaching of Psychology, which was a valuable networking opportunity, in addition to offering a variety of teaching-related sessions. APA PFF scholars and second-year students who are enrolled in Teaching Practicum (PSY 685) also attended the Lilly Conference on College Teaching, a national conference held at Miami in November.

2. What mentoring experiences are students participating in?

Each of our APA PFF scholars is completing a "placement" on one of the partner campuses. The nature of these varies by student and institution, but they all involve a one-on-one connection with a faculty member in that department. Each student agrees with that faculty member what the nature of that mentoring relationship will be. For example, they generally agree to meet weekly for about an hour to discuss how the teaching experience is going, compare and contrast it to similar experiences the grad student may have had at Miami, and discuss other issues about academic life on that campus, such as how hiring and tenure decisions are made, how teaching assignments and committee service are determined, curriculum revision, etc. Other examples of such activities include helping the student get "plugged in" to the department and campus, observing each other’s teaching, or attending committee/faculty meetings with the mentor. These mentoring experiences are, of course, critically important in helping students understand how faculty roles are contextualized in institutions. The APA PFF scholars and their mentors are: Patty Mills and Jim Thomas, NKU; Sandy Neumann and Angela Lipsitz, NKU; Amy Buddie and Kathy Milar, Earlham; Beth Harrick and Mary Schwendener-Holt, Earlham; Erin Cressy, Juliann Young and Jim Bodle, College of Mount St. Joseph; and Ayesha Shaikh and Tony Cooper, Miami-Middletown.

3. What experiences are students gaining from interactions with the different partner institutions?

We held a "getting to know you" event for the APA PFF scholars to meet the partners from Miami regional campuses and the Cincinnati area, in Cincinnati October 17. We are grateful to one of our partner faculty, Jim Bodle, for serving as our host. Other partner faculty who participated included: Lynda Crane, "the Mount"; George Goedel, Jeff Smith, Doug Krull, NKU; and Shannon Maxwell, Miami-Hamilton.

One of our Earlham partners, Kathy Milar, came in December to present a departmental colloquium on her scholarship on the history of psychology and to talk with graduate students about "expectations of new faculty hires at liberal arts institutions." We hope to make another occasion to meet the Earlham faculty.

Second-year graduate students in PSY 685, Teaching Practicum, visited a total of four of our partner institutions. Each student went for approximately half a day as a part of a small group. They visited classes, met with undergrads, and/or met with partner faculty, depending on the convenience of the partner campus. The partner faculty who graciously allowed our students to shadow them included: Perilou Goddard, Angie King, Doug Krull, Jeff Smith, NKU; Kathy Milar, Earlham; Shannon Maxwell, Miami-Hamilton; and Beth Uhler, Miami-Middletown. In addition, one of our graduate students who was teaching as an adjunct on one of our partner campuses, came to Teaching Practicum to talk about her experiences and her comparison/contrast of Miami vs. "the Mount."

Two of our APA PFF scholars have completed their teaching placements on partner campuses, and the other five, are, "on placement" this spring. I have not yet received formal evaluative statements, but I believe this has been a valuable experience for everyone concerned.

We are proud to have hosted the first annual Tri-State APA PFF Symposium January 31. This was an opportunity for 12 undergrads from our partner institutions to present their research posters and hear about graduate program admissions from a panel of our faculty and for our grad students to talk to partner faculty about faculty roles and hiring issues. Our graduate dean, provost, and director of teaching effectiveness programs came and welcomed our partner faculty. We are especially proud that one of our APA PFF scholars, Beth Harrick, took primary responsibility for organizing this event. Our guest partner faculty included: Kathy Milar, Earlham; Jeff Smith and David Hogan, NKU; Jim Bodle and Tim Lawson, College of Mount St. Joseph; Shannon Maxwell, Miami-Hamilton, and Beth Uhler, as both host and partner faculty. The Miami panel included: Karen Schilling, Phil Best, Roger Knudson and Steve Hinkle. It was a tremendous success. The energy in the poster session was very high, and all parties have expressed a clear interest in repeating the event next year.

4. What activities have we undertaken to seek out graduate students from diverse and culturally different backgrounds for participation in the PFF program?

One of our current APA PFF scholars is a member of an ethnic minority. The Teaching Seminar group, the most likely source for next year’s Scholars, included 3 foreign students and two members of ethnic minorities. At the recent Tri-State Symposium, of the students who participated in the discussion with partner faculty about faculty roles, at least 3 out of approximately 12 students were minority members. (I didn’t take attendance, so I cannot say exactly.) Of those, one approached me after the meeting to express interest in the program.

5. What activities are we undertaking to integrate PFF activities with current faculty preparation programs?

The primary pre-existing faculty preparation program for the deaprtment’s graduate students is PSY 685, Teaching Practicum. As I mentioned above in item 3, these students were plugged into the program through opportunities to visit partner campuses. We are also integrating some of the speakers for the program into the regular departmental colloquium series. We are also working to coordinate the "brownbag" professional development offerings of the PFF program with the pre-existing Social Psychology Research Interest Group, since there is likely to be overlap between the students involved in these activities. We had planned a separate "end of the year" event showcasing the experiences of our APA PFF scholars. This year, we are going to try blending that into the departmental poster session in April—we will request a couple of poster spaces, one for reporting the activities of the program as a whole, the other for individual contributions and reflections by the scholars. By taking advantage of an already-scheduled event that gets high attendance, we hope to draw attention to the accomplishments of students in the program.

Outside the department, the Graduate School sponsors a series of talks each year on teaching issues for graduate students. They jointly sponsored the talk on diversity issues in teaching by Jennifer Robinson from Indiana University.

6. What are we doing to disseminate information about the PFF program?

I maintain a website, which has links to APA, PFF, and other related programs at the following URL: <http://www.users.muohio.edu/shorec/apapff/apapff.htm>. The program has received coverage in our university newspaper, and the APA’s Psychological Science Agenda. I sent copies to administrators at Miami and partner institutions. I was interviewed about the program for the Graduate School newsletter, and made it the subject of a public talk I gave to members of the College of Arts & Sciences, which will be published as an essay in a university magazine. We presented a poster about the program at MidAmerica Conference on Teaching of Psychology. We are on the program for a presentation about the program at Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology (at MPA in May 2001), and next fall’s MACTOP. I am participating in a pre-conference workshop at Society for Research on Child Development on doctoral education in developmental psychology, partly to talk about the program. One of our students, Ayesha Shaikh, will be involved in a graduate panel at APA about the program.

7. What have we done toward evaluation of the program?

Toward evaluation of the program's effectiveness, I have distributed a "pre-test" questionnaire about grad students’ perceptions of their preparation for faculty roles. I have also given the APA PFF scholars instructions about constructing a portfolio of their experiences in the program. Beth Harrick has sent out a questionnaire to participants in the Tri-State symposium for their feedback about the event. I have written, but not yet distributed, questionnaires for each of the constituencies (grad students, doctoral faculty, partner faculty, etc.) about their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the program, and suggestions for improvement. A preliminary summary of these data will, we hope, be part of what we present at CTUP at MPA. One of the APA PFF Scholars intends to conduct an evaluation of the program, using interview, qualitative methods, as her project for the program, and practice for her dissertation.

We believe that we are off to a good start. Our students are enthusiastic about the opportunities for their professional development. We cannot thank our partner faculty enough for the work that they do with our grad students, and we are glad that we have been able to offer their undergrads something in return. We thank APA and our graduate dean for your support, and look forward to an exciting spring. We are also very much looking forward to your visit in April

Sincerely,

Cecilia Shore

Associate Professor

Cc:

Karen Schilling, Chair

Robert Johnson, Graduate Dean

Partner faculty: Beth Uhler, Shannon Maxwell, Jeff Smith, Doug Krull, David Hogan, Perilou Goddard, Angie King, Jim Bodle, Tim Lawson, Kathy Milar

Partner administrators: George Goedel, Mary Kay Fleming, Lynda Crane, Len Clark, Gary Wheeler, Lee Knisley Sanders, Gail Wells, Sr. John Miriam Jones

Contacts at other APA clusters, and University of Cincinnati