Preparing Future Physics Faculty
(PFPF)
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Background of PFPF Program
Background information about PFF
Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) is one of a number of new approaches based on the principle that graduate education can and should acquaint those students aspiring to academic careers with the broad and complex realities of faculty life. It is an effort to transform the way aspiring faculty members are prepared for their careers, moving toward an education that is informed by the kinds of responsibilities faculty members actually have in a variety of institutions.
Through the national PFF program sponsored by the Council of Graduate schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities research universities are involved in establishing partnerships with diverse local colleges and universities and in coordinating university-wide and departmental initiatives to improve the preparation of doctoral students who aspire to the professoriate.
PFF is both a configuration of ideas and a national program. It is built on a spirit of partnership and cooperation that yields a more comprehensive model for preparing the next generation of faculty.
Basic Ideas
The configuration of ideas underlying PFF can be easily described. For most graduate students moving into an academic career, their professional lives will entail not only teaching their discipline but also teaching, through their discipline, the habits of mind characteristic of a liberal education. It will also involve making a difficult transition from, for example, being a chemist with a specialty to being a chemist who works within an institution with a specific mission, norms, and expectations -- and who continues to maintain a disciplinary specialization and identity.
The most general idea is that the doctoral experience should include a) increasingly independent and varied teaching responsibilities, b) opportunities to grow and develop as a researcher, and c) opportunities to serve the department and campus. More specific ideas include the following:
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Apprenticeship teaching, research, and service experiences should be planned so that they are appropriate to the student's stage of personal development and progress toward the degree. Doctoral students assigned as teaching assistants, for example, tend to be viewed as "covering a course section" rather than developing professional expertise benefiting themselves and students. Future faculty should be given progressively more complex assignments, more responsibility and recognition associated with increased professional capacities.
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Doctoral students should learn about the academic profession through exposure to the range of professional responsibilities. Furthermore, they should have direct and personal experiences with the variety of institutions that may become their professional homes. Becoming aware of the variety of institutions enables them to find a better "fit" between their own interests and competencies and the needs of institutions.
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Doctoral programs should include a formalized system for mentoring in all aspects of professional development. Just as students nave a mentor to guide their research, they also need guidance as they develop their teaching and service repertoire. Indeed, a student can benefit from multiple mentors. A teaching mentor may be at a different institution; perhaps one with a mission that is distinctively different than is usual in research universities.
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Doctoral experiences should equip future faculty for the changes taking place in teaching and classrooms. For example, they will have to be competent in using technology and addressing issues presented by increasing heterogeneity among students, and they should be sophisticated about using the newer, active, collaborative, technological, and experiential approaches to teaching and learning.
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Professional development experiences should be thoughtfully integrated into the academic program and sequence of degree requirements. Unless leaders of doctoral education are intentional about these matters and structure these new experiences into their programs, PFF activities are likely to be haphazard. Careful integration can avoid lengthening time to degree.
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Where high-quality teaching assistant training and development programs are available, PFF programs should build upon them. PFF is consistent with the best practices of teaching assistant development, while also advancing another, more comprehensive level of preparation. While teaching assistant development programs are available in supporting certain faculty roles, PFF programs broaden the preparation by including teaching experience at different institutions, providing mentors for information and feedback, and stressing professional service and governance responsibilities of various sorts.
None of these ideas is new or radical, but collectively they add up to a very different kind of doctoral experience than has been conventional.
- from Preparing Future Faculty Programs - Annual Summer Working Conference, Summer 2000
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PFPF Program |
PFPF Components
Other Information |
Center for Teaching Development
9500 Gilman Drive
Center Hall 307
La Jolla, CA 92093-0030
Phone: (858) 534-6767
Fax: (858) 822-0318
