The Rackham Graduate School and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) are now accepting applications for the 2020 seminar on Preparing Future Faculty (PFF). This nationally recognized program is designed to help prepare doctoral candidates for faculty positions. Postdocs are also eligible to apply. Seminar topics include inclusive course design and instruction, faculty work life at various types of institutions, and preparing for the academic job search.
This five-week seminar will meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning between May 5 and June 4 from 8:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Breakfast will be provided. Welcome and celebration lunches will be held on the first and last day of the seminar from 12:00-1:00 p.m.
This is a great opportunity for PhD students interested in academic careers. Apply here by this Friday, February 28.
Questions should be directed to CLRTL: pffseminar@umich.edu.
Our recent PhD graduate, Francesca Gandini, now a visitor professor at Kalamazoo College, participated in this program as a student. She has this to say about it (thanks Francesca!):
Transitioning from grad life to faculty life is not easy. Lately, I have found myself thinking “With more freedom comes from responsibility”. This is especially true in your future teaching as you will not always have the backdrop of a coordinated course. So what kind of responsibility come with faculty life? Let me mention three key aspects: you will need to write detailed syllabi for possibly new courses, you will have to design courses that align with specific learning outcomes, and you will have to design learning environments that allow for all students to succeed. You generally do not learn about any of these aspects in your graduate courses. You may encounter some of them in a professional development program such as a CRLT workshop, but a few hours cannot really cover these aspects well. On the other hand, there is one workshop at UM that prepares you for all these aspects of faculty life (and much more): PFF (Preparing Future Faculty).
The PFF workshop addresses the three aspects above by discussing three keystone principles of course design: syllabus design, backward design, and universal design. Furthermore, in a collaborative setting with colleagues across the sciences and other fields, you will get a chance to receive feedback on your written documents. These documents will include job documents like a teaching statement. This experience provides a unique insight which you will not get if you only discuss your job search with math faculty. There are several institutions across the US where the hiring committee will not only consist of math faculty, so this external insight is extremely valuable.
In conclusion, another tenet of PFF is the discussion of the different kinds of institutions that exist in the US higher education system. You will get a chance to visit a university or college different from UM and learn more about their context. Before PFF, I had no idea of the differences between a small liberal arts college, a medium-sized state university, a large non-selective state university or a community college. Learning more about the US job landscape will help you reflect on your priorities in your career and hopefully will guide you in a productive faculty job search.
