The last word: the impact of Preparing Future Faculty initiatives on new and future faculty. (My View).

BUILDING PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND COMMUNICATIONS is at the heart of the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) experience in its reform of doctoral education. Just as institutional relationships have been strengthened by its unique clustering approach, so also have interpersonal relations been fostered and enriched through professional mentoring. Indeed, the legacy of the PFF program may be the networks of relationships that sustain graduate students in their professional development at institutions where they are hired.

In both formal and informal settings, student reactions to PFF have been solicited from the program's earliest days, but from the students themselves comes equally compelling testimony about the impact PFF has had on their professional development. Gaff and associates (2000) cite students' reports about the effects of participation. For example, while attending a scholarly conference, one student from Arizona State University noticed the difference her PFF preparation had made. She articulated her satisfaction, noting, "It was only in a professional situation like a conference that I could measure the extent to which PFF has achieved its aim of professionalizing and preparing us for the professoriate." A student from Ohio State University credited her PFF experience for changing her outlook: " don't feel like a student. I feel like a professional pursuing a career." A chemistry student at Northwestern University went further, claiming that "PFF has provided a foundational and life-changing experience. The pr ogram supplied a provocative forum for intellectual growth and critical reflection on our system of higher education and graduate training along with crucial discussions of balancing and integrating teaching, research, and service.

Listening to student participants reveals a great deal about the effects of PFF programs on their professional development.

Better Teaching

One of the distinctive features of PFF is its role in helping future faculty become better teachers. A graduate student attending the AAC&U annual meeting in January 2002 reported the benefits afforded her by PFF in honing her teaching skills:

Last semester I had the opportunity to give a series of lectures at one of our partner institutions, [which] has a lot of non-traditional students. I actually spent a day shadowing the psychology person at the branch campus and was going to lecture in each of her classes: four in one day. I have never done that before... I can tell you even though I was exhausted it actually was quite exhilarating... By the time I had the fourth lecture, I had it down. It was awesome.

At the same meeting an East Asian graduate student told of the usefulness of her PFF teaching experience in addressing questions about diversity that often confront her in class:

In the classrooms a student might pose a question like this: Since I'm an international student, couldn't I just speak better English... Sometimes they would say something bad about an African-American female who was teaching some subject. How are you going to handle those difficult situations and keep the whole class moving on at the same time? That was a really informative discussion...

While diversity and other multicultural issues have increasingly emerged among many PFF programs, the opportunities to develop strong teaching skills have been a program hallmark from the start. At Indiana University's department of communication and culture, a certificate of pedagogy is awarded to students who follow a two-course sequence and a teaching practicum. One student in a special AAC&U Annual Meeting focus group told that she had even opted to take one of her comprehensive examinations in pedagogy. She felt justified in doing so, for, as she put it, "It seems to really be integrating the enterprise of teaching into my overall scholarship, which I think is really important."

Appreciation of PFF's value as preparation for teaching extends beyond higher education, as well. One student who earned a master's degree at Northwestern plans on a career teaching mathematics and computer science in middle school. He found that many of the issues raised in his PFF experience resonate as concerns throughout the teaching profession: "Issues of hiring, tenure, diversity, technology, private versus public, and unionization apply equally well to K-12 level as they do to the collegiate level. I have recommended PFF to a number of my colleagues. PFF is a tremendous asset not only to the university but to the teaching community as a whole."

Better Scholarship and Learning

Not surprisingly some students have also come to a better appreciation of their scholarly research through involvement in PFF. As one student in sociology at the University of Nebraska reported (Golde 2001):

I had originally only planned to do teaching but found that I really like doing research and writing. Working with professors who were supportive and taught me research skills has given me encouragement to expand my focus. Also, participating in the PFF program has given me a more clear picture of what type of school I want to work at, one with grad students and time to do research.

Another student from Indiana credited her PFF program for sustaining--and broadening--her enthusiasm for the enterprise of scholarship:

I can't imagine graduate school without it [PFF] because I got involved with it from my first year and now I'm in my seventh year writing my dissertation and at every level it's been valued. We have a teaching certificate, a three-course sequence. We have an on-campus conference that is developed and run by students across disciplines, history, math, science, pretty much everything. We're encouraged to develop scholarship of teaching and learning. We have our department chair who is completely in support of PFF... We have shadowing opportunities, can teach at the universities ... It has made me that much more thankful for what we have in our department. I feel that this should be in every department because you do become completely socialized, and this is what you should expect from graduate school. You should be prepared to know what opportunities are out there and what kind of institutions are Out there. I've gotten that by being in a department that has been pro-PFF from day one, and that recruits first ye ar students to get involved and start thinking about finishing the Ph.D. so that we can reduce that 50 percent attrition rate that is pretty much standard for graduate school.

A student from Texas also comments on the integrative and holistic aspects of the PFF approach to faculty formation among graduate students:

PEF has been something that has really, really become important for us because we have been open to all of these things that we have been discussing that we really didn't know about before. We didn't know about the diversity in institutions, the different emphasis that different institutions have on teaching, and also developing our own teaching styles, having classes on that. We tape record each other. We have mini lectures and give positive feedback and constructive criticism. Also the shadowing experiences have been really eye-opening and worked out well for me. I was able to see the diversity and the different student bodies and how that plays out in faculty and student relationships and also... different social environments and institutions... something that I really wasn't aware of before.

Another student in the focus group put it this way: "PFF has shown me that teaching, research, and service are not discrete entities but that the lines are constantly blurred. You can actively blur the lines and have a much more fulfilling academic career and PFF has definitely shown me how I can do that." Her insight reflects findings by Leigh DeNeef (2002) that PFF students are less likely than their non-PFF peers to see teaching and research as antagonistic pursuits within the academy.

Better Candidates and Better Hires

When interviewing for jobs, students recognize additional advantages derived from their PFF experiences. A physics student at Northwestern realized this even before beginning the job search: "PFF has convinced me of the need to formulate some professional goals before I suddenly find myself interviewing for jobs" (DeNeef 2002). Many PFF students report having felt more confident during the job search.

With a better understanding of the positions they were applying for, they designed cover letters, curriculum vitae, and professional portfolios that reflected that awareness and confidence. When asked by an interviewer at an American Historical Association conference how he would handle transition from a major research university to a small liberal arts college, a Northwestern University student replied with examples drawn from his PFF experience. "He [the interviewer] was familiar with the program and seemed impressed by it," the student wrote. "I hope other hiring committees feel the same way. Another Northwestern graduate reported that PFF experiences addressed issues raised during the hiring process: "One interviewer asked how I would deal with students of very different abilities and motivations. Because of my PFF experience at Oakton Community College, I was able not only to tell him that I had successfully dealt with that situation, but also to explain the specific strategies I had used." These students and others realize that PFF's reputation is growing. One example comes from an alumna from Northwestern who wrote that "of the five institutions with which I have interviewed, four have specifically asked about PFF, and have seemed very impressed with the program. The only one that did not ask was significantly more research-oriented than the othe rs."

Even as new faculty, PFF alumni/ae report that they tend to incorporate ideas they learned as graduate students into their new responsibilities. Several have already become mentors themselves, having realized first-hand the importance of support and guidance in the process of earning their degrees and in learning the ropes in their new roles. As DeNeef (2002) points out, not only are these PFF alumni/ae mentoring graduate and undergraduate students, but other new faculty, as well. Because PFF had given her a head start, said one respondent, she was asked to mentor eight other junior colleagues.

PFF students at the AAC&U annual meeting reflected on the various opportunities that lie ahead of them as prospective faculty. As one student put it:

Listening to the different needs of the different institutions has made me that much more appreciative of the PFF program, too, because I see that there is really a place for many different types of faculty. I wish that message could get across to other graduate students to a greater extent because I know some students feel frustration about being at a large research institution and think this is their only option. They are just not aware of the many different types of institutions out there and the many possibilities for faculty positions. Listening to the different presentations of this conference really made me feel excited about sharing more information about the different possibilities for faculty at a wide variety of institutions.

Another student, noting AAC&U's emphasis on general education, reflected on her potential role as a new faculty member:

Something that struck me was the focus on general education and the need for new faculty to teach interdisciplinary courses. They need to be able go beyond their specialization and teach across the curriculum in a lot of cases, and that is something that I really had not thought much about. My background is mostly from large public research institutions so [the need to be versatile was] something that I hadn't really had that much experience with. It was good for me to hear about this, as I'm thinking really seriously about going to a liberal arts college.

Reforming Academic Cultures

Given PFF's unique approach to clustering and networking, students have become aware of connections outside the academy. Even while opting for a career as a faculty member, a student at Arizona State, after working to forge a partnership between Motorola Corporation and the English department at ASU, reported the value and potential of such linkages:

Whereas relationships between sciences and businesses are feasible and becoming commonplace, it is less likely for businesses to interact with humanities departments. What I consider to be my most beneficial PFF experience was based on the idea that humanities disciplines have a tremendous amount of knowledge to offer business. PFF students are well aware of the work that still needs to be done to transform dominant graduate academic cultures. Many report resistance, or at least suspicion, on the part of advisors and departmental faculty to their graduate students' participation in programs like PFF. More disappointing still is their perception that many of their peers are reluctant to participate in PFF programs. As one student in the AAC&U focus group put it:

When PFF first came up, I have to be honest with you, some of the students were very enthusiastic about it. They had a passion for teaching from the beginning, and this was a perfect way for them to gain insights on how to become good instructors. There were other students who would just focus on the research and had no interest in teaching. They felt that PFF was simply a way of tracking them into a lower hierarchy. They had become part of the mentality about the hierarchy of institutions, and a lot of that is connected to what we think about learning or we think about teaching. What we need to do is transform the pedagogy about what higher education is and what learning is about.

Indeed, student concerns about the reputation of their graduate institution insofar as it affects the worth of their degree, and, consequently their chances of hire, were rather formidable obstacles when PFF was still largely unknown. A chemistry student at Northwestern observed in 1996 that "successful teaching and professional development of graduate students is not valued in the chemistry culture of major research universities--success of faculty is measured by funded grant proposals, which depend only upon the quality, originality, and quantity of research completed" (Northwestern University Final Report 1996).

But these attitudes have begun to change, and graduate students in PFF realize the potential of their role in changing the culture of the academy. A student in English at Northwestern University described it well (Final Report 1996): The academic environment encourages a certain willful ignorance because new faculty members are supposed to be "above" making queries that touch on money, off time, and departmental responsibilities. These individuals want to be seen as "good scouts" who will do anything and everything without receiving any credit. This can lead to severe imbalances between teaching, service, and research. I now understand that asking an uncomfortable question may save my students, my colleagues, and myself a great deal of difficulty down the road. I know that I will need to ask these questions in order to learn about the written and unwritten expectations that I will face as a new faculty member. In asking the difficult questions, PFF students are taking their places as valued members of the wi der community of learning. If they are being heard, it is because they have become more credible, a process they ascribe to PFF. PFF students have become more adept than their non-PEE peers at negotiating the sometimes arcane networks and cultures in the academy even as they help to remake them.

WORKS CITED

De Neef, A. Leigh. 2002. The Preparing Future Faculty program: What difference does it make? Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Gaff, Jerry G., Anne S. Pruitt-Logan, Richard A. Weibl. 2000. Building the faculty we need: Colleges and universities working together. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Golde, C. 2001. Findings of the survey of doctoral education and career preparation: A report to the Preparing Future Faculty program. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison.

CHARLES G. N. BASHARA is associate director of the Preparing Future Faculty programs at AAC&U and a doctoral candidate in European history at the Catholic University of America.