Faculty
Preparing Future Faculty
Jerry Gaff, Senior Scholar at AAC&U, was the founding director of the Preparing Future Faculty Initiative, and worked in close partnership with senior colleagues at the Council of Graduate Schools to implement the initiatives from 1993-2002.
Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) programs encourage higher education institutions to re-think and to reorganize the preparation of doctoral students who aspire to become faculty. The research-based program is no longer sufficient preparation, if it ever was, for a faculty career. While expectations for teaching, research, and service may vary and the balance differs with each institution and phase of an academic career, all three remain the professional responsibility of faculty, demanding greater sophistication and integration than ever before.
PFF programs ask faculty, not just those at doctoral institutions, to bring their intellectual and experiential knowledge to the professional development of the next generation of academics. Through PFF, graduate students receive an education informed by the kinds of responsibilities faculty members will encounter at a variety of institutions.
The ideas for PFF were first tested in a pilot project organized by AAC&U from 1989-1992. The pilot project involved partnerships between three research universities and partner liberal arts colleges; it was supported by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE).
The formal PFF initiative began in 1993 with seventeen clusters and a total of eighty-eight involved institutions. At the end of formal funding, the programs included seventy-six clusters with approximately 295 participating institutions (see below for full list of participating institutions).
Phases of Preparing Future Faculty Program
In Phase 1 (1993-97), seventeen clusters of institutions were selected following a national competition to receive grants to create model PFF programs. Five doctoral-producing institutions received substantial grants to establish programs; twelve other institutions received smaller grants for specific initiatives to start PFF programs.
Phase 2 (1997-2001) involved ten of the original participating institutions and five new schools with PFF-like activities. These institutions took their pilot projects and turned them into institutionalized programs.
Phase 3 took PFF in a new direction. With support from the National Science Foundation, PFF developed collaborations with disciplinary associations in the sciences and mathematics. Each conducted a national competition to select doctoral departments in their fields to develop model PFF programs. Overall, nineteen clusters of departments were selected and have designed departmentally-based programs that draw upon promising practices learned in Phases 1 and 2. Disciplinary society partners include: American Chemical Society, American Association of Physics Teachers, Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education/ACM, Mathematical Association of America, American Mathematical Society.
Phase 4 involved an expansion of PFF to include programs in humanities and social sciences. Each of six disciplinary societies conducted a national competition to select doctoral departments in their fields to participate in the last formal PFF national program, “Preparation of Future Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty.” Disciplinary society partners include: American Historical Association, American Political Science Association, American Psychological Association, American Sociological Association, National Communication Association, National Council of Teachers of English
PFF projects have been supported by major grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and the National Science Foundation.
Updates and Resources
AAC&U Contact:
Alma Clayton-Pedersen, vice president of the Office of Educational and Institutional Renewal
(202) 387-3760.
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