Exploring the Diversity in Faculty Careers: Formative and Summative Assessment in a Preparing Future Faculty Course

Doctoral students’ understanding of the diversity of careers in higher education is an important component of their career development. During their doctoral study, emphasis is placed on research and coursework. Additionally, doctoral students are mentored during this time by research-focused faculty. However, many faculty positions across the nation are not researchfocused and it is important to provide doctoral students with an understanding of the diversity of faculty careers available to them. Preparing Future Faculty is a course designed to facilitate doctoral students’ exploration of the diverse faculty careers available to them. Preparing Future Faculty explores faculty roles and responsibilities as they relate to institutional missions and institutional types (community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research I universities, etc.). Topics include faculty roles and responsibilities, the academic job search and hiring process, promotion and tenure, diversity in academia, disciplinary paradigms, assessment, and balancing academic and personal life. Using Purdue University as a model, students explore faculty roles and responsibilities through conversations with Purdue administrators, faculty, and alumni. The course culminates in the development of an academic portfolio which includes job search documents (CV, cover letter, teaching and research statements), and a conceptual framework with strategies that facilitate the transition from graduate student to assistant professor. This paper discusses the formative and summative assessment that occurs throughout the course in relation to the three missions of research, teaching, and service. Project Significance Doctoral education has received many criticisms including time-to-degree, completion rates, and that doctoral students are not prepared for career opportunities within the academy. A major concern is that doctoral students are not prepared for and lack understanding of the various higher education institutional types and missions. Faculty roles and responsibilities vary based on institution type such as community college, liberal arts, or a research university, resulting in varying expectations of faculty roles and responsibilities and expectations of excellence in research, teaching, and service. Socialization Doctoral education plays a central role in preparing doctoral students for careers as faculty members. Doctoral students are first socialized to faculty careers during their graduate studies, where they begin to develop their expectations, perspectives, and understandings of faculty roles and responsibilities. Doctoral education is built on an apprenticeship model that focuses on the relationship between the doctoral student and the faculty research advisor. Thus, much of what doctoral students learn about faculty roles and responsibilities during their doctoral education stems from observations of a few faculty members and an apprenticeship to a research advisor within one discipline in a research environment. This type of preparation is not inclusive of the faculty opportunities that are available from the many different types of academic institutions. Career preparation for faculty options should employ a mentoring network. Mentoring The apprenticeship model of graduate education focuses on a one-to-one relationship between a student and faculty member. To encourage exposure to the broader range of faculty career opportunities available, a multiple mentoring framework is desired . Faculty careers are changing based on environmental factors such as economic issues, requiring multiple mentors for faculty success. Based on the literature, summarizing the elements discussed, Purdue developed the Preparing Future Faculty course. Methods Preparing Future Faculty is a two credit hour course, which utilizes a Pass/No Pass grading system. Students meet weekly for two hours for a mentoring session with vice provosts, deans, and department heads. PFF explores faculty roles and responsibilities as they relate to institutional missions and institutional types (community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research I universities, etc.). Topics include faculty roles and responsibilities, the academic job search and hiring process, promotion and tenure, diversity in academia, disciplinary paradigms, assessment, and balancing academic and personal life. GRAD 59000 is posted to the academic transcript but cannot be used to fulfill Plan of Study requirements. PFF aims to socialize doctoral students to the diversity of faculty roles and responsibilities along with the expectations of excellence in research, teaching, and service through a mentoring model using a conceptual framework which incorporates research, teaching, service, career planning, and career and life balance, to guide student exploration and reflection. Using Purdue as a model, students customize the framework with mentoring tips and strategies learned from the speakers. In addition to representing different roles and positions at Purdue, each speaker represents various broad disciplines. Identification of the various types of higher education institutions (community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research I universities, etc.), and an exploration of how faculty roles and responsibilities differ at each of these institutions. Presentations by invited vice provosts, deans, and department heads on institutional expectations of faculty in fulfilling institutional missions and how faculty are impacted by these expectations. Presentations by invited PFF alumni, new faculty at other institutions, who will share their personal experiences on the academic job search, starting a faculty career, and navigating the pre-tenure process. Identification of the skills needed by faculty and the resources available to graduate students for faculty skill development and enhancement. The course culminates in the development of an academic portfolio which includes job search documents (CV, cover letter, teaching and research statements), and a conceptual framework with strategies that facilitate the transition from graduate student to assistant professor. This paper discusses students’ feedback in relation to the three overarching components of via online discussions. Qualitative analyses were based on students’ responses to four different sessions. These four different sessions were as follows: Discovery Mission; Learning Mission (Undergraduate Education); Graduate Education; Engagement Mission. They covered three major topics, namely research (Discovery Mission), teaching (Learning Mission and Graduate Education), and service (Engagement Mission). Within each of these sessions, an external expert on the particular subject was invited to speak to the student. Students’ feedback was collected via an online discussion board. In this paper, the researchers analyzed students’ responses to one online discussion question. The question asked, “Based on what you learned from this week, what specific actions will you implement to advance your professional development?” The purpose of this question is to understand the students’ action plan after they are exposed to the key ideas within each of the missions of a future faculty member. Responses from each session were read and re-read by the researchers. Student responses to discussion questions served as the primary data in understanding student learning outcomes in terms of their action plan development and implementation. For data sources, ninety-six students were enrolled in the course (27 out of 96 students were auditors, their responses to discussion questions were optional). Together, the researchers analyzed 252 responses to this question across four sessions (Discovery Mission, 74 responses; Engagement Mission, 63; Graduate Education, 59; and Learning Mission, 56). A few students did not respond to some of the discussion questions for these sessions. Open-coding is an analytical process to fracture and label the data to obtain a more abstract representation of qualitative data. Open-coding was used for the four sessions in which invited talks covered the three major missions of a faculty member. Once the open-coding was completed, the coded responses were grouped into different major categories to identify the main themes of the action plan development and implementation of PFF students. Results Our research focused on a qualitative analysis of students’ responses to the discussion question “Based on what you learned this week, what specific actions will you implement to advance your professional development?” Analyses indicated that distinct themes emerged from qualitative data for the three major missions (research, teaching and service) for faculty members. For each of the sessions analyzed, our findings suggest that the students devised different action plans based on each of the four sessions, i.e. Discovery Mission (Research), Learning Mission and Graduate Education (Teaching), and Engagement Mission (Service). The major findings under each mission will be discussed as follows in terms of students’ action plan development or their learning outcomes. Discovery Mission (Research) From our qualitative analysis, the key points that emerged were seeking external funds, proposal writing, and establishing and building more collaborations, especially potential contacts from different disciplines. Most students indicated that they would like to learn more about proposal writing, start writing a proposal or practicing proposal writing with their advisors or in their courses. Students indicated that their awareness level about the significance of finding collaborations and working with people from other disciplines was raised after this particular session on the discovery mission of faculty members. Recognizing the pressure on faculty members, some students indicated that they realized the importance of allocating time for thinking and also staying informed about