Preparing Doctoral Students for Careers in Urban Colleges and Universities

Purpose

Until recently, it was not uncommon for graduate students just one summer removed from undergraduate school to face their own first class of freshmen. Many did this with, at best, the benefit of a short workshop on teaching just before the beginning of the semester. Academia, which insists on more than a quarter of a lifetime's apprenticeship for research, seemed to think that, with regard to teaching, this sink-or-swim approach sufficed.

That attitude has changed, in large part in response to dissatisfaction from students, parents and legislators, and well designed schemes for helping graduate students to teach their younger peers now abound. This helps not only the undergraduates, who need the best possible instruction in their foundation years, and the graduate students, who need jobs and experience, but the universities, who have less money for faculty salaries and must therefore depend on adjuncts. For example, in the colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY) some 6,000 graduate students teach mainly remedial courses for which they bear total responsibility, including syllabus design and choice of text.

The majority of existing faculty preparation programs focus exclusively on the teaching component of academic careers and are oriented toward the needs and characteristics of a generic undergraduate population. By contrast, the purpose of this project was not only to prepare graduate students to teach but to teach urban undergraduates. Originally, the project aimed to provide instruction tailored to teaching in specific disciplines. And it wanted to give graduate students a sense not only of what teaching would be like but of what it would be like to compete for a faculty position, and then for research dollars and for tenure and promotions once the position was secured.

Innovative Features

The project offered three 15-week seminars in consecutive years-in social sciences; humanities; and science, engineering and mathematics respectively.

The seminars covered topics such as testing and grading, discipline, and classroom management. They explored the relationship between teaching, service and research. They discussed how to get and keep a teaching job. They examined the characteristics of urban learners-their demographics, language varieties, cultural diversity, academic preparation, and persistence and motivation. The seminars also examined ways to serve their students better.

In addition to a list of readings, graduate students were assigned at least one, and as many as four, structured classroom observations followed by a debriefing with the observed instructor. They developed a curriculum vitae and an introductory course syllabus, which were individually reviewed by and discussed with the project director. And they compiled information on potential funders for their research areas.

In the semester following the seminar, students participated in a practicum which consisted of monthly sessions with project staff and faculty presenters and mentors.

Coordinated by the project staff, the curricula of the seminar and the practicum were designed to accommodate a variety of presenters. In all, 50 individuals from 16 CUNY campuses and 30 departments-including faculty, administrators, and representatives of the professional union-participated in some instructional capacity.

From the beginning, the project attracted much attention from students (there were four applicants for every available seat); from faculty, who volunteered to teach and mentor and sent bibliographies and advice; and from the 17 CUNY undergraduate campuses, who hired all but two seminar participants who wanted to teach. The students who were rejected had insufficient English proficiency.

Of the total 90 participants, 88 completed the seminar and attended the monthly practicums the following semester. Only 41 elected to teach-the others were busy with jobs or research assistantships, were preparing for exams, or said they were not ready to teach. Even fewer-fifteen-elected to be mentored. Of those who chose not to be mentored, some cited time constraints, while others perceived mentoring negatively, a perception that the literature indicates is becoming prevalent among students at all levels.

The principal evaluation instrument was an "Opinion Survey" intended to measure changes in knowledge, attitude and confidence regarding college teaching. The survey was administered to all applicants before the beginning of the seminar but after acceptance decisions had been made and again at the end of the seminar. As anticipated, the posttest return rate for participants was much higher than for nonparticipants (100 percent versus 32 percent).

Another instrument, entitled "Student Survey-Looking Backward," was administered at the end of the project to students who had participated in the first two seminars (in the social sciences and humanities) to assess longer-term effects. The return rate was 89 percent. The analogous "Presenter Survey-Looking Backward" produced a return rate of 87 percent.

In addition, at the end of each session students wrote a one-minute evaluation identifying the most valuable aspect of the meeting and suggesting improvements.

Project Impact

For all groups of participants combined, the "Opinion Survey" pre- and posttest results showed a significant positive change in attitude toward college teaching. The seminars did not, however, make a statistically significant difference in knowledge about teaching. Regarding the confidence that students felt toward teaching, the scores for the participants on approximately half the items on this topic increased to a highly statistically significant degree. The scores of the comparison students, on the other hand, did not show appreciable changes in any category.

On the "Student Survey-Looking Backward," students rated as the most valuable effects of the project the range of faculty perspectives with which they came into contact, the practical tips on teaching and careers, the exchange of ideas with other students, the information about urban undergraduates (several participants became interested in teaching at institutions similar to CUNY as a result), and the "politics" of education. Students also enjoyed the interdisciplinary setting-some said that it was their first chance to interact with others outside their department since entering graduate school. Eighty-one percent of the respondents thought that the program should be mandatory for all Ph.D. candidates.

As a result of the seminar and practicum, respondents said that they were preparing more carefully for courses, allowing undergraduates to engage in more active learning, using varied teaching techniques, maintaining high expectations of students, and assigning more writing.

Respondents to the "Presenter Survey-Looking Backward" likewise saw much to praise in the program. They felt that the opportunity to address the students had helped them to clarify their own thinking about teaching-related issues, and that the project was of benefit not only to the students, but to the CUNY system as well. In fact, several Ph.D. programs, in response to reactions from students who had participated in the project, revised their teaching seminars. Two departments that had provided no formal pedagogical instruction to their Ph.D. candidates instituted teaching seminars.

Lessons Learned

In the course of readings and discussions in preparation for the seminars, project staff came to believe that a separate curriculum for the three disciplinary categories-social sciences, humanities, and science, engineering and mathematics-was essential. As they began planning the sessions, however, it became clear that only one or two of the seminar's 15 meetings needed to be devoted to discipline-specific topics such as assessing creativity or teaching remedial mathematics. Thus, the original curriculum designed for the social science seminar was adopted, with minor modifications, for the two subsequent seminars.

It was the consensus of the more than two dozen faculty from diverse disciplines who reviewed the curricula as well as of the students and presenters that a generic curriculum is not only adequate for training future faculty but helps to break down disciplinary barriers and enhances collegiality.

Given this turn of events, staff expected that the project might be succeeded upon its completion by an institution-wide seminar. Paradoxically, this was not to be. Despite evidence to the contrary, faculty, either out of territorial feelings or because they continued to believe that pedagogy is discipline-specific, insisted on anchoring teacher training in the departments.

One of the project's principal strengths, the large number of presenters-which provided a huge range of perspectives while ensuring broad faculty support-turned out to have significant disadvantages. Not only did the multitude of presenters inflate the administrative workload, but students found the inevitable discontinuities and conflicting opinions disconcerting. The format, in which a different speaker addressed each session, also provided less opportunity for in-depth discussion than a schedule in which a single speaker covered one topic during several meetings.

Project Continuation

As the project entered its second year, CUNY's Graduate School and University Center (GSUC) instituted the Graduate Teaching Fellows, a program whose goals and methods had been strongly influenced by the early FIPSE seminars and practicums.

Project Recognition

In 1993-94 and 1994-95, the project director obtained funding from CUNY to design and conduct a program addressing the special interests and concerns of women Ph.D.s in academia. In 1992, the graduate school received a grant from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools, supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, to prepare future faculty. Since then the university has granted additional funds to refine ways of integrating training for faculty careers into graduate programs. All these endeavors clearly build on the FIPSE project experience.

Available Information

Additional information may be obtained from:

Barbara R. Heller
Center for Advanced Study in Education
CUNY Graduate School and University Center
25 West 43 Street
New York, NY 10036
Telephone: 212-642-2910

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