Center for Teaching & Learning at The University of Georgia
Center for Teaching & Learning at The University of Georgia
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The Future Faculty Program is sponsored by the Dean of the Graduate School and coordinated by the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Georgia. Participants in this program are experienced teaching assistants who have been recognized at the institutional level for their outstanding teaching and are preparing for careers in higher education. The purpose of the Future Faculty Program is to provide graduate preparation which reflects future faculty roles, to develop discipline based pedagogy and to increase peer mentoring in academic departments. Each year, ten to fifteen TAs are selected from a variety of disciplines to serve as TA Mentors. These TA Mentors participate in a year-long mentoring experience that includes group discussions on teaching, individual mentoring by faculty members, and mentoring by and for TA peers. In addition, past and present TA Mentors are able to participate in a private listserv discussion on teaching while they are serving as TA Mentors and as they move into their faculty positions. A longitudinal study to track the career path of these outstanding TAs includes more than 100 former TA Mentors. The Future Faculty Program is professionally valuable as each TA Mentor is given the opportunity to focus on the issues which will help them to successfully make the transition into a faculty career. They are given a cross campus impression of academic cultures, opportunities to document the scholarship of teaching, access to some of the best teaching faculty on this campus and the resources which reflect the best teaching approaches in the country including an intensive opportunity to develop the use of technology for teaching. They are also mentored through the job search process and the early years as a new faculty member. The impact of the Future Faculty Program is professionally significant for the participants, but also has a valuable impact at the departmental level. The TA Mentors take a leadership role in their academic departments by developing teaching resource areas, lab handbooks, and materials related to teaching. They establish teaching seminars and share materials they have received through the Future Faculty Program. Peer mentoring has dramatically increased in a number of departments as a direct result of the activities of the TA Mentors. The Graduate School also provides assistantships for a departmental teaching support seminar, GRSC 7770. Many former TA Mentors are awarded this assistantship reflecting the valuable contribution they can make to the department's new teaching assistants. This departmental teaching seminar has proven very beneficial in changing the teaching culture of departments and providing a forum for making teaching public and more valued at the departmental level. At a spring retreat, the TA Mentors focus on graduate preparation by reflecting on the support available at the University of Georgia and the needs of graduate teaching and laboratory assistants. They continue to inform the support programs offered through the Center for Teaching and Learning as they move into their faculty positions and reflect on their graduate preparation. Their suggestions help to shape the activities of the current TA Mentors and peer mentoring strategies in the academic departments. Preparing the professoriate of the future is an integral part of graduate preparation and essential aspect of the teaching mission of the University of Georgia.
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