Helping New Faculty Get Off To A Good Start

College teaching may be the only skilled profession that does not routinely provide training to its novice practitioners. New faculty members at most universities have traditionally had to learn by themselves how to plan research projects, identify and cultivate funding sources, write proposals and get them funded, attract and supervise graduate students, and present their research results in an effective manner. They have also had to teach themselves how to devise stimulating lectures and rigorous but fair assignments and tests, how to motivate students to want to learn and how to make them active participants in the learning process, and how to help them develop critical problem-solving, communication, and teamwork skills. Perhaps hardest of all, they have had to figure out how to balance the competing time demands of teaching, research, and other professional and personal responsibilities. Learning all these things by trial and error usually takes years. Some new faculty members eventually learn them; many others never do and either fail to earn tenure or spend their careers as unproductive researchers and/or ineffective teachers.