Justifying preparing future faculty programs. (Perspectives).

WHETHER CHOOSING A PARTNER or making a financial investment, people do things because they "want to," because they "have to," or because they "ought to." Couples "want to" stay in relationships for love and friendship, and investors "want to" maintain a portfolio position because it pays a handsome return. Or, couples "have to" stay together for the sake of the children, or investors "have to" make an investment to avoid additional losses. Or, couples "ought to" remain together because they have taken vows, and investors "ought to" make financial contributions because they serve the public good. These same motives also explain academic relationships and university investments.

In what follows, I characterize the situation that has led to calls for change in graduate student preparation and, then, offer three general justifications for Preparing Future Faculty programs and address two often cited criticisms. I argue that PFF programs improve graduate program quality, that the failure to institute a PFF program may put graduate programs at a competitive disadvantage, and, finally, that PFF is the morally right thing to do.

Why change?

After twenty years working at research universities, I have come to believe that two axioms guide graduate-student preparation for faculty life. Axiom I holds that "if graduate students watch what their advisers do, then they will be well prepared to become faculty members." As a corollary, Axiom II contends that "if graduate students do not become successful faculty members, then they did not watch their advisers closely enough."

If one questions the axiomatic status of these claims, two empirically falsifiable assumptions emerge. The first, what I call the similar-position assumption, states that "either all faculty positions are essentially alike or at least the graduate students in question will accept faculty positions much like those of their advisers." The second, what I call the transparency assumption, holds that "graduate advisers are sufficiently transparent about the important aspects of their professional lives so that reasonably diligent students will grasp the important lessons about becoming successful faculty members." For the system to work, both the similar-position and transparency assumptions must be true at the same time. Graduate faculty members must offer a clear window on faculty life and this window must reveal professional lives similar to those that graduate students will lead.

The similar-position assumption is rarely correct. Depending on the discipline and the institutional categorization scheme, anywhere from 75 to 95 percent of Ph.D.s accept faculty positions at non-research universities. The transparency assumption is probably incorrect the majority of the time. Graduate students, for example, rarely know very much about university service, faculty governance, tenure and promotion procedures, or assessment. I suspect the number of graduate students who find themselves in a situation where both assumptions are simultaneously correct is quite small.

The good news is that a growing number of Ph.D.-granting institutions are overturning this old system. The Preparing Future Faculty initiative, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the National Science Foundation, has created an alternative model. Although each PFF program has its own character, they all share two constitutive elements. Graduate students planning academic careers attend sessions where they explore various faculty roles and responsibilities. Also, each graduate student enters into a mentoring relationship with a professor at a partner institution (usually at a private liberal arts college, a comprehensive university, a religious college, or a community college).

Despite this promising development, there is much work to be done. There are still many universities that do not have PFF programs. Even on PEF campuses, many students and disciplines are not yet participating. Also, as the initial Pew funding runs its course, universities must now make decisions about institutionalizing PFF programs. In short, PFF still faces an enormous task of justification.

I want to: Quality at stake

People establish and maintain relationships because they "want to." Just as investors maintain their position in a mutual fund because it pays a handsome return or couples stay together for love and friendship, universities are motivated to support initiatives that positively influence measurements of program quality. Recruitment of good students, high alumni-satisfaction scores, strong placement records, satisfied public constituencies, and the promotion of an atmosphere of interdisciplinary cooperation are all-important markers of graduate program success. In each of these areas, PFF may make a positive contribution.

PFF is becoming an important recruitment tool. Participating departments send out PFF material as part of their recruitment efforts. In my own department, I regularly talk with prospective graduate students about their career aspirations and the role PFF may play in helping fulfill them. Students are eager to talk about PFF and are comforted by the thought that the faculty is thinking about their professional success from the moment they enter the university.

PFF may improve alumni satisfaction. Alumni-satisfaction data are a mainstay of academic program reviews. PFF may positively influence alumni satisfaction by helping graduate students discover the type of academic position they will find satisfying, and, then, by preparing them to acquire and succeed in such a position. Negative professional experiences, regardless of where the blame may be fairly placed, reflect on the graduate school from which the faculty member matriculated. To the extent that PFF minimizes such cases, alumnisatisfaction levels will increase.

PFF works to improve graduate-student placement. It does so by creating a dialogue among those who produce, those who acquire, and those who hire Ph.D.s. Ideally, PFF programs are about listening. PFF participants listen to deans and department chairs at partner institutions; they listen to newly hired faculty members talk about their experiences; they listen to faculty who have just gone through tenure; they listen to horror stories about bad interviews, poor recommendation letters, and awful cover letters; and they listen to those who are the best professors at the kinds of institutions where they will seek employment. By listening to this dialogue, PFF students are better prepared to acquire the positions they seek. It is the first principle of persuasion that the more advocates know of their audiences the better chance they have of success. If the feedback loop is fully operative, this information should affect more than just the rhetorical behavior of PFF students. It ought to influence the recommendatio n letters faculty members write, the evaluation data departments collect on their graduate students, and the sequence of teaching and other professional experiences programs offer their students.

PFF may help universities satisfy public constituencies. Citizens expect graduate programs to serve the needs of the state. One way to do this is by training faculty for the state's diverse set of colleges and universities. Also, citizens have the naive expectation that the state's various higher-education institutions will work together. PFF programs establish a network of partnerships, which bring faculty members and administrators from among the state's academic institutions into close working contact.

Finally, PFF fosters interdisciplinary cooperation. For a generation, academics have sounded the clarion call to work across disciplines. Yet, graduate education remains an intensely disciplinary experience. With the exception of course work in a cognate field, graduate students rarely venture out of their own departments. PFF creates a cohort of doctoral students from across the university and together they learn a great deal about the similarities and differences among disciplines. PFF participants come to respect what others do and thereby develop a healthy vision of the larger academic enterprise.

I have to: Competitive disadvantage

A second reason people stay in relationships is because they believe they "have to." This "have to" motive is comparable to making an investment in order to avoid additional losses or to couples staying together because of the children. In an academic setting, the "have to" motive is analogous to the way universities respond to external forces (state legislators, the market, alumni) in order to prevent bad things from happening (budget cuts, enrollment declines, decrease in donor contributions). Falling behind competitors, failing to respond to changing market forces, and not addressing internal dissatisfaction are all problems PFF may help a university avoid.

Competition from peer institutions should motivate universities to adopt PFF. At Nebraska, we are surrounded by other universities that have created or are in the process of establishing PFF programs (Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, and Missouri). In every part of the country and in every discipline, PFF programs are becoming part of the graduate school landscape. As students become more aware of these initiatives, these will play a bigger role in their decision making about graduate school.

The health of academic job markets fluctuates from year to year. The nature of academic work is changing more quickly with the onset of the computer revolution. In this shifting environment, those institutions that enlarge their students' repertoire of skills will prosper. PFF by the nature of its structure keeps its ear to the ground for changes in academic work and attendant fluctuations in the marketplace. More importantly, PFF is positioned to respond to these developments.

PFF programs often create boisterous internal constituencies. Students from departments that are not participating lobby the graduate faculty to consider joining PFF. As a result, PFF provides an avenue for administratars to meet the demands of their students.

I ought to: Moral justification

I was socialized in a religious culture that speaks the language of virtue and obligation. In such a culture, people do things because they "ought to." Couples stay married because they have taken vows and people make financial contributions because they serve the public good. Likewise, most of us maintain the hope that universities remain idealistic institutions. They act, we trust, not just for the bottom line but also for the good of the order, the good of the whole.

PFF is the right thing to do for our students. We know that only about 5 percent of academic positions are at Research I universities. We know that many of our students are unprepared for the academic positions they fill. We have an obligation to prepare them to succeed, Perhaps even more important, we have a professional obligation to our students' students. I do not want my graduate students providing a poor education to hundreds of their own students as they try to figure out how to do their jobs.

We ought to feel an obligation to deliver on the implied promise we made to our graduate advisees. My words and actions convey that they may have a fulfilling professional life in my discipline. I cannot in good conscience send them into professional situations in which they will not be fulfilled.

Finally, I care about my discipline. I care about how it is being taught; I care about the health of departments; and I care about attracting students to the discipline. All of these concerns go beyond the walls of my own institution. To a great extent, the doctoral programs in a discipline influence the health of the entire discipline. We need to prepare our students to be good stewards of the profession in whatever setting they work.

Objections

PFF is sometimes accused of being anti-research. This objection takes at least two forms; the first is spoken aloud, and the second often lurks in the background. Those speaking aloud say that PFF is trying to turn Ph.D. programs into teacher preparation degrees. They argue that great universities are great because they house and train outstanding researchers. Whatever distracts from research is not in the best interest of the university.

The second anti-research accusation is murmured more than proclaimed. Especially in disciplines that organize faculty and graduate students into research teams (typically in a laboratory), there is a relationship between the research productivity of professors and the work of graduate students. Taken to extremes, graduate students are seen as part of a zero sum game. If they have obligations outside the laboratory, they cannot spend as much time assisting faculty with research. Consequently, PFF or any other outside activity is contrary to the interests of the faculty.

First, PFF does not influence nor does it wish to influence the research focus of the Ph.D. To the extent that PFF affects departmental behavior, it does so around GTA assignments and professional development activities. Moreover, PFF participants frequently accept research appointments. The notion that graduate students understand the life of the research professor is false. We are not transparent about own professional roles. PFF programs discuss the role of research in faculty life. Some PFF participants are mentored at universities with considerable research expectations. A student interested in acquiring a position at a research university would be considerably aided by PFF.

The second objection is more difficult to respond to because its answer involves both factual and ethical clarification. First, PEF programs are designed to jealously protect graduate-student time. National data document that a PFF experience does not delay time to degree. With this said, I suspect there is some truth to the proposition that PFF may inconvenience professors who believe they own their graduate students' time. By contract, assistantships employ graduate students for a certain number of hours per week. If a professor objects to a student dedicating as few as two carefully scheduled hours a week to PFF (usually during only two or three semesters), then a larger ethical issue is raised. In such a case, I suspect the student is being exploited.

Sometimes PFF is accused of lacking data to document the program's effectiveness. This is true and not true depending on the sense of "data" being employed. Like many educational initiatives, PFF does not lend itself to controlled study. Participants join the program voluntarily. Professional success is a product of many different variables. Placement rates are powerfully influenced by year-to-year changes in a discipline's academic marketplace. So, the charge that PFF's effectiveness is undocumented is in part true, but it is true because programs of this type can never be fully documented. There is a good deal of data that has been systematically gathered from PFF participants. Nearly all participants thought it was a valuable experience; nearly all participants would recommend PFF to other graduate students; and there is a consensus among former participants about PFF's contribution to particular areas of professional development. Such participant survey data, of course, have weaknesses.

The more telling argument for justification turns on the logic of the case. Convincing data support the diagnosis of the problem (5 percent of academic jobs are in Research I institutions). A great deal of work has been done matching PFF's structure to the nature of the problem (especially the establishment of mentoring relationships). The feedback loop at PFF's core assures constant adjustment, because those who hire Ph.D.s now have a voice in shaping their professional preparation. It is this match between disease and cure that makes the case so convincing.

Conclusion

My purpose has neither been to provide a detailed description of PFF curricula nor to recite all of the program assessment data. This information is available elsewhere. Instead, I have tried to arm the advocate with good reasons for change. I have suggested the outlines for making the case for what may in the long run be accomplished if we make a serious commitment to Preparing Future Faculty.

Throughout this essay, I used the relationship and investment metaphors of "want to," "have to," and "ought to" to organize my case. Interestingly, they are really not metaphors at all. We have relationships with our students and disciplines, and we do invest in improving the quality of higher education. Preparing Future Faculty is a small investment in strengthening an invaluable relationship.

RELATED ARTICLE: Preparing Future Faculty Programs

Relationships between individuals and organizations are central to the success of Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) programs. These new programs for graduate students aspiring to become faculty members bring doctoral education into closer alignment with the actual work of faculty members and include preparation for teaching, research, and professional service roles.

PFF programs foster this alignment by means of a new kind of institutional collaboration, a "cluster." A cluster consists of diverse institutions organized by a doctoral-producing university or department that provides graduate students with faculty mentors at different kinds of institutions.

Nationally, PFF is sponsored by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools. It includes partnerships with eleven professional associations in mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, and with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the National Science Foundation, and a private donor. Locally, it involves institutional relationships with other members of the clusters and the professional associations, and on campus it involves collaborations with other departments, with offices of academic and graduate deans and with the teaching-learning center.

Given the centrality of relationships, Ron Lee asks the basic question: Why do individuals and organizations form relationships and work to strengthen them? His answers explain much of the power in PFF programs, and they have relevance far beyond PFF. Jerry G. Gaff, vice president, AAC&U and Anne S. Pruitt-Logan, Scholar-in-residence, CGS, co-directors of Preparing Future Faculty.

RONALD LEE is professor of communication studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln