Preparing Future Faculty
Final Narrative Report
Cecilia Shore, Psychology, Miami University
Fall 2002
How has the cluster accomplished the goals of the
original proposal?
The primary goals articulated in the original proposal were:
· bring doctoral alumni who are significantly involved in teaching back to Miami to share their experiences with current graduate students,
· offer graduate students the opportunity to experience first-hand the daily activities of teaching, research and service in settings other than Miami’s main campus in Oxford,
· offer graduate students and cluster faculty members the opportunity to attend conferences on teaching,
· provide undergraduates at partner institutions the opportunity to learn from the experiences of graduate students.
Goal 1: Bring back doctoral alumni. Each of the years of the project, we have invited an alumnus/a of our doctoral program to present a colloquium to our department and share his/her experiences as a faculty member with our current graduate students. The first year, we invited Bill Addison, and the second, Lee Fox-Cardamone. Lee was forced to cancel her visit last spring, and has re-scheduled for this spring. Throughout the project, our graduate students have had frequent contact with Miami doctoral alumni, since two of our partner faculty have Miami Ph.Ds. Tim Lawson, along with two other partner faculty, presented a workshop last spring, and Jim Bodle has served as mentor to several of our PFF scholars.
Goal 2. Give grad students experiences on partner campuses. Each year of the project, graduate students have had the option of participating in a year-long program of activities as “APA-PFF scholars”. These students (16 total) have been expected to make arrangements to spend approximately 50 hours (including travel time) on one or more partner campuses. Some students have served as adjunct faculty on partner campuses, one served as mentor to several partner undergraduates’ senior research projects, some have co-taught a course, offered guest lectures, shadowed partner faculty, met with undergraduate psychology club members, and a variety of other activities. These placements, and the mentoring that they receive from partner faculty, have been the highlight of our graduate students’ experiences with the program.
Goal 3. Support attendance at teaching conferences. Annually, APA-PFF scholars attend the Lilly Conference, a national teaching conference held at Miami University each fall. In the fall of 2001, that group (including a partner faculty member) gave a presentation about PFF at Lilly. Each year, those whose schedules permit them to do so, attend the Mid-America Conference on Teaching of Psychology. In 2001 and 2002, the group (in 2001 including a partner faculty member) made presentations in those sessions about the program, getting into graduate school, and issues facing new faculty. In addition, we have annually supported attendance of a grad student at APA’s pre-conference workshop on teaching, and one student participated in a PFF-related panel for graduate student members of APA. Other students have attended: AAC&U, Ohio Learning Network, and University of New Hampshire’s distance-learning course on “Preparing to Teach a Course in Psychology.”
Goal 4. Connect partner undergrads with our doctoral students. Partner undergraduates have had contact with our doctoral students in their roles as adjunct faculty and in a number of informal contacts, such as talks to the psychology club about “getting into grad school.” A major opportunity for connecting partner undergraduates with our graduate students is the program’s annual Tri-State APA PFF Symposium. Over the last 2 years, 20 undergrads from our partner institutions have come to Miami to present their research posters and hear about graduate program admissions from a panel of our faculty. There were also sessions for our grad students to talk to partner faculty about faculty roles and hiring issues. Plans are in place for this year’s Symposium in January of 2003.
How have we addressed central themes/goals of the
national PFF program?
Institutionalize PFF to be sustainable without external funds. Miami University is, we believe, unique in that we have institutionalized our departmental program “upwards” to the all-university level. With the support of our Provost, Graduate Dean, and university Committee on Effectiveness of Learning and Teaching, a Graduate Student Learning Community for Preparing Future Faculty was launched this fall, open to 8-12 doctoral students across the university. An academic professional development speaker series, open to any graduate student in the university, is one of the functions of this group.
At the departmental level, the major activities of our program can “plug into” existing internal funding structures. Students are not paid for their placements on the partner campuses, except when they serve as adjunct faculty, in which case they are paid by the partner institution. Bringing back doctoral alumni to present colloquia and meet with our students can and will be subsumed into the usual departmental budget for colloquia. The professional development speaker series has been subsumed by the newly-launched university PFF learning community. Some support for graduate students to attend teaching conferences is available through funds administered by the College of Arts and Sciences, so we will continue to be able to send students to Mid America Conference on Teaching of Psychology. Finally, we can apply for a small external grant from Psi Chi (the honorary organization for psychology) to support the research conference for partner undergraduates.
Increase involvement and participation by faculty and graduate students. There has been broad participation in the Tri-State Symposium. Doctoral faculty and students attend the reception/poster session and breakout sessions with partner faculty. Over the last two years, the PFF program has sponsored several colloquia on teaching-related topics, which are attended by a substantial segment of the department. Examples include James H. Korn, St. Louis University, who presented a workshop on mentoring, an informal talk on the use of deception in psychology research, and a colloquium on “Learning to Teach Psychology.” Barney Beins, Ithaca College, talked with faculty and students about national standards for curricula in psychology, and presented a colloquium on “Taming the Hydra: Coherence in the Psychology Curriculum.” In addition, Jack Meacham of SUNY presented a colloquium on diversity in higher education. Finally, some junior faculty have attended the professional development speaker series. In fact, at the Provost’s request, the university PFF speaker series has been publicized to junior faculty across the university. The benefits of PFF to our department in terms of recruiting graduate students have already made themselves apparent, and key faculty are convinced that PFF experiences enhance the marketability of our students.
Embed PFF in the academic department. The department and university have granted temporary approval for two new professional development courses. One grants 1 credit each semester to students for participating as APA PFF scholars. The other is a follow-up to our pedagogy seminar, called “Continuing Supervision of Teaching”. This course is optional for students who serve as instructors-of-record for undergrad classes in the department. These courses are currently being offered, and are making their way through the permanent approval process.
Establish and maintain institutional partnerships. The two highlights of these relationships have been the “placements” and the undergrad research conference. The "placements" of our grad students on partner campuses have been extremely valuable to our students, and have been particularly beneficial to partners in situations where the student serves as an adjunct faculty member. The Tri-State APA-PFF Symposium (undergrad research conference) is also mutually beneficial, as it gives professional development experience to partner undergrads, and brings partner faculty to Miami where their experiences can more readily be shared with broader segment of the graduate student population.
In addition to these highlights, the first two years we held a “getting to know you” event in the fall for APA-PFF Scholars and partner faculty. This did not seem necessary this fall, as this year’s scholars did their placements over the past summer. Also, partner faculty have been featured in our colloquium series and in our professional development speaker series: Tim Lawson, Beth Uhler and Cathy Bishop-Clark gave a talk on “Teaching and Technology”, Kathy Milar and Robin Bartlett gave colloquia on their scholarship as well as informal presentations on hiring and promotion/tenure issues at their respective institutions.
Document benefits to students seeking academic careers, and Track careers of PFF alumni. Since students just began graduating from the program in 2001, and since we are only talking about 16 APA-PFF scholars total to date, most of whom have not graduated yet, an analysis comparing job success for PFF vs. non-PFF students is years away, in terms of the outcomes of interest, and developing sufficient data to be meaningful. Two of our alumni have received year-long replacement positions as a result of their PFF experience, and another (currently in a research post-doc) said that her PFF experience was favorably noted in the faculty interviews that she completed.
Disseminate PFF in the discipline. Each of the past three years, we have made some form of presentation at Mid-America Conference on Teaching of Psychology. One of our APA-PFF Scholars, Ayesha Shaikh, participated in a panel discussion for grad students at American Psychological Association (2001) titled, "Preparing for faculty positions: What you need to know."
I participated in a pre-conference workshop at Society for Research on Child Development (2001) on doctoral education in developmental psychology, partly to talk about the program, and am on the schedule to do a similar presentation at a pre-conference workshop sponsored by Society for Teaching of Psychology, being held at the American Psychological Society conference spring of 2003.
I was scheduled, along with members of the University of New Hampshire psychology cluster, to go do a workshop at Oklahoma State University this fall, to help them establish a new PFF program in their psychology department. Unfortunately, we had to postpone this visit until next spring, due to my suffering a back injury that precluded travel.
Anticipate
and prepare for emerging and future faculty roles. Jennifer Robinson, of the faculty
development center at Indiana University, gave a talk in our professional
development series, co-sponsored by the Graduate School, on “Diversity Issues
in Teaching.” Jack Meacham, SUNY
Distinguished Teaching Professor and Department Chair, gave an informal talk on
redesigning a developmental psychology course to include diverse student
narratives, and a departmental colloquium on diversity in higher education. Tim
Lawson at Mount Saint Joseph hosted a session on “Technology & Teaching.” He, with Beth Uhler and Cathy Bishop-Clark
(MU-Middletown), helped us consider pros and cons of computer-mediated
communication, wireless technology, and the internet in educational settings.
a local research conference (the Tri-State APA-PFF Symposium) for our partner undergraduates with “breakout sessions” for undergrads to learn about grad school from our students and faculty.
Recommendations for future PFF programs.
· There are two key features about PFF that make it distinct from the usual TA preparation programs, which should be included in establishing PFF programs. One is the partnerships with non-doctoral institutions. Another key feature is the active inclusion of graduate students in the leadership of the program. Our graduate students have been critical in creating and sustaining our bonds with our partners.
· Consider creating a professional development course.
· Give your participating students an orientation meeting and materials packet.
· Keep up the communication flow via a newsletter, website, and regular emails.
· Make it worthwhile to the partner institutions. Listen to them regarding opportunities for grad student presence on their campus and ways that the grad students and doctoral program could benefit their undergraduates. Doctoral departments (and higher administration) should frequently express gratitude to partner faculty and their institutions.
· The PFF coordinator needs the support and cooperation of the grad coordinator and chair. It is strongly advisable for the PFF coordinator to have some release time at least initially.
· Write up several descriptions of various lengths of “what is PFF.” You’ll need them for news releases, newsletters, websites, conference presentations, etc.
· Exchange lists of faculty research interests and schedules for upcoming colloquia among all the partners to build bridges of common interests.
· We have found it important to be flexible in the nature of the involvement of graduate students’ involvement on partner campuses. Our students have become involved in professional roles beyond the classroom. For example, serving as a reviewer of undergraduate research submissions to a regional conference, statistical consulting for a survey of student satisfaction on a partner campus, doing career and academic advising, and shadowing partner faculty as they attend campus governance meetings.
· Wherever possible, plug into and build on existing structures. It's less threatening and more cost-effective.
· If one intends to extend the program upward from the departmental level to the university level, an optimal level of centralization-decentralization should be sought.