Author: James F. Slevin

Publisher: Assn of Amer Colleges

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 33

ISBN-13: 9780911696585

This monograph presents results and recommendations from a project designed as a collaborative effort to prepare graduate students in the humanities for careers as scholar-teachers within institutions committed to liberal education. The project's two principle activities are discussed under the following headings: (1) Encountering Campus Cultures: Discovering the Responsibilities of College Teachers; and (2) Seminars: Reflecting on the Responsibilities of College Teachers. The first of these activities involved the Teaching Fellows in campus visits during which they attended department and faculty meetings, observed and sometimes taught classes, and met with individual faculty members who assumed mentoring roles and with whom every aspect of the campus, cultural, career and professional life of the college teacher could be explored. The second activity provides the Teaching Fellows with an opportunity to reflect on what they learned at the colleges and involves two kinds of seminar: (1) the core seminar, which brings the experience of contact/encounter into the structure of graduate training; and (2) the disciplinary seminar, which focuses on the connection between scholarly work and teaching, helps prepare the graduate students within their disciplines, and serves as a means of reimagining and restructuring the graduate programs themselves. Findings show that doctoral students, if given the chance, are eager to engage in the work of academic leadership, even at the beginning of their careers and that a major factor in enhancing their willingness to assume an active role is their encounters with college faculty members. Several recommendations are offered and discussed for future consideration. These are: (1) that coalitions should be built to promote reform; (2) that graduate training must include preparation for the full range of professional responsibilities, especially teaching; (3) that support and incentives should be built for participation of graduate educators in these reform efforts; and (4) that alternative, especially collaborative, models should be developed for improving graduate preparation. (GLR)