CRLT is accepting applications through February 25 for the May PFF Seminar, which you can learn more about here. In this guest post, English and Women’s Studies joint Ph.D. student Cat Cassel reflects upon her experiences in the seminar last spring.

Every May, Rackham and CRLT co-sponsor the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) seminar, providing graduate students from across campus important information about preparing for a faculty career trajectory. I participated in the seminar last year and came away with several valuable insights:

• a deeper understanding of the role of faculty in the context of higher education
• an arsenal of knowledge, tools, and tips for effective teaching, and
• a broader sense of the different kinds of faculty career paths available.

Below I highlight two facets of the seminar that were especially useful in helping me feel equipped to face the rigors of future faculty life.

CAMPUS VISIT:  Seminar participants have the option of visiting Albion College, Eastern Michigan University, Kalamazoo College, and University of Toledo. I chose to visit Kalamazoo since both my undergraduate and graduate educations have been at large R1 institutions and I wanted to see what campus life at a small liberal arts college looked like.

Many of the students at Kalamazoo tend towards creative endeavors and sojourn internationally.  I got a sense of the camaraderie and intellectual curiosity fostered by this smaller atmosphere when I was talking to a faculty member I was paired with during my visit, someone whose research and teaching interests much aligned with my own. As we sat outside the library discussing what it is like to be a faculty member at Kalamazoo, many students trickling out of the building stopped to engage in convivial conversation with us.

Later, we talked with several postdoctoral fellows [link] about their experiences at Kalamazoo. This further synthesized the diverse array of perspectives I had heard in prior weeks from invited speakers to the PFF seminar, who talked about the tenure process at U-M, junior faculty worklife, lecturer and community college faculty experiences, and how to effectively incorporate technology in the classroom.

DEVELOPING A TEACHING PHILOSOPHY AND COURSE SYLLABUS: Prior to my participation in the seminar I had very little conception of what an effective teaching philosophy requires, so it was useful to practice crafting that document with an understanding that it will be read not only for how it conveys commitment to teaching, but also for how it renders that commitment effective, concrete, and measurable.

Likewise, we spent several days learning about backward course design and active student learning and were then required to put those principles into practice in a sample course syllabus. We were encouraged to design courses that include clear, measurable, explicitly stated learning objectives spanning a range of cognitive abilities, as well as to provide students many opportunities for low-stakes practice of key skills. The very act of drafting these documents months in advance of the job market with the information PFF provided fresh in my mind was helpful, but it also afforded an opportunity to receive several rounds of feedback from a focused peer group.

I would encourage anyone interested in getting ready for a faculty job search to apply for the PFF Seminar.  CRLT is accepting applications online until February 25.

Cat Cassel
Ph.D. student, English and Women's Studies