FreyWhat a disappointment to finish a Ph.D. degree and then have trouble finding a teaching job. This is a real threat in today's highly competitive marketplace, but a new Strategic Directions project is designed to see that it doesn't happen to IU graduates.
"The majority of teaching jobs opening up in the next decade will be at urban institutions, liberal arts colleges and smaller comprehensive universities, similar to IU's non-residential campuses," said Juliet Frey, director of the newly funded Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship project which is designed to give advanced Ph.D. students independent teaching help under the guidance of experienced mentors at IU's non-residential campuses.
Frey
"In recent years, 95 percent of new IU Ph.D.s who gained their degrees in arts and sciences and accepted tenure-track academic positions have found their careers at such institutions. The kind and range of teaching available at the Bloomington campus does not adequately prepare students for these positions," added Frey, who has a Ph.D. in linguistics and is a special assistant in the University Graduate School at IUB.
"In hiring junior faculty, most institutions look for persons who possess not only research skills, but also a strong background in teaching and an orientation toward faculty citizenship," Frey explained. The teaching experience IU graduate students will receive in the program will be a very important dimension of their total preparation.
Faculty at the host campus will guide them through the teaching experience which will be enhanced by participation in campus, faculty and community activities such as faculty meetings, campus committees and community service.
"The other campuses have been extremely supportive," Frey said. Faculty members welcome opportunities to work with advanced graduate students and the teachers/students, who will be well-qualified scholars, will fill in gaps in the teaching pools and make it possible for the campuses to offer courses they cannot now staff.
Frey noted that the Future Faculty Teaching Fellowship project grew out of a suggestion made by a graduate student during a discussion with IU trustees and has a strong booster in George Walker, vice president for research and dean of the University Graduate School.
The project "helps us do a better job, as we need to do," she said, and it enhances the reality of IU as "one university" with many campuses.
Related Links:
http://www.iupui.edu/it/stratdir/frey2.html
http://www.iupui.edu/it/stratdir/frey.html
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