Lied Conference Center
Nebraska City
Saturday, May 2, 1998

On Saturday, May 2, 1998 at the Lied Conference Center in Nebraska City, the various constituencies of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) project met to assess the program’s first year of operation. Three separate deliberating groups were established: UNL faculty and administrators, Partner Faculty, and the 1997-1998 PFF Fellows. A fourth group—1998-1999 PFF Fellows—participated in an orientation session. An account of this session is not included in this report.

2. Summary of Key Suggestions

By "key suggestions," we are referring to those ideas that appeared frequently in the deliberations or those ideas that were particularly emphasized in the discussions. These suggestions will make up the agenda for the first Advisory Committee meeting in the fall.

• Clearer set of expectations and guidelines for Fellows and mentors. Create a Fellow-Mentor Agreement. Work out agreement very early in the semester.

• Provide fuller information, especially about guiding principles of PFF and the particular character of partner institutions.

• Create early opportunities for Fellows from different disciplines to get to know one another.

• Facilitate increased communication among mentors and between mentors and UNL faculty.

• Include partner faculty representative(s) on Advisory Committee.
• Use discipline specific and, perhaps, campus specific breakout sessions during colloquia.

• Work together to have mentors’ home institutions recognize their contribution to PFF as part of their service/teaching in annual reviews.

• Work on compensating mentor faculty by granting greater access to UNL (i.e., parking permits, library cards, and conference invitations). Establish teaching exchanges.
• A year’s lead-time is necessary to add new departments. We must spend a good deal of time establishing relationships with new partner departments.

• PFF should be increasingly centralized in the Office of Graduate Studies. With expansion to additional disciplines, centralization into an administrative unit becomes more and more imperative.

Ronald Lee, PFF Director, facilitated the UNL Faculty and Administrators session. Representatives from the Office of Graduate Studies, the College of Arts & Sciences, the Teaching and Learning Center, the Office of Distance Education, and the Departments of Communication Studies, English, Mathematics and Statistics, and Sociology comprised this group.

A. Clarification of expectations and goals

• Discuss mentoring guidelines document.

• Discuss adoption of modified-ASU point system.

• Goal is to help future faculty members better integrate their research, teaching, and service. PFF does not exist only to improve undergraduate teaching.

1. Steps toward institutionalization.
2. Expansion to other UNL departments, schools, and/or colleges. Develop a set of procedures.
3. Improving integration of distance partners into the program [Chadron, Grambling, Texas A&M Corpus Christi]
4. Recruiting new partner institutions.
5. Reviewing list and order of colloquia topics—add, delete, and change?
6. Influencing UNL graduate program culture.
7. Expand Advisory Committee to include partner faculty/administrator members.
8. Benefits to partner institutions.
9. Survey of where each PhD-granting department has placed their graduates over the past five years.
10. Suggestions for use of 1997-1998 Fellows in 1998-1999.
11. At what stage of a student’s graduate career is PFF most beneficial?
12. Suggestions for Kickoff Dinner—Change format? Keynote speaker?

• Mentoring guidelines/suggestions. The discussion focused on providing additional direction to Fellows and mentors about PFF expectations. The development of a second-semester agenda for Fellows first meeting with mentors was discussed. Items suggested for adding to the list of activities at partner campuses included: speak to campus representative about faculty governance, visit with women’s faculty caucus representative, meet with faculty/administrators working with racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, attend new student orientation, meet with Dean of Student Life, and discuss faculty advising.

• Contract and/or point system.Express concern that we are certifying students finished the program without a set of reasonable standards that ought to be met. Discussed the Arizona State point system as a possibility.

• Institutionalization. The Office of Graduate Studies has proposed making the PFF seminars Graduate College courses. Discussed budget needs once the grant expires. The move to centralize administration in the Graduate College has the advantage of more effectively employing the credibility of the Dean of Graduate Studies office. The advisory committee would remain the governing body.

• Expansion to other departments. The key is developing strong relationships with mentoring departments in partner institutions. Suggest that we identify new departments early in the academic year and then spend the year recruiting mentors and establishing relationships with new partner departments.

• Additional partner institutions. Left as open question.

• Reviewing list of seminar topics. Suggestions included adding seminar on "student-centered learning" (asked with this was TA training issue or more general issue); introduce time-management as a separate topic or as part of a seminar on new faculty experiences; add a seminar on professional ethics; add a topic on getting started in professional associations and networking; discuss career paths at different types of institutions; discuss how one can make intelligent and effective use of teaching resources.

• Convince departments to do a better job of sequencing graduate student teaching experiences. Do a better job of evaluating graduate student teaching—report and gather more data than just standard evaluation forms. Try to convince graduate faculty to write better letters of recommendation and tailor them to the specific hiring institution.Fellows could write a book with different chapters on various topics such as letter writing, teaching portfolios, etc.

• Include partner representatives on advisory committee. Because of problems with distance, we should probably approach someone from Nebraska Wesleyan to serve next year.

• Benefits to partner institutions. Recognition that we need to work on this. Obviously can make sure partner faculty are invited to conferences at UNL, etc., but we need to do more.

• Suggestions for use of last year’s Fellows in next year’s program. Use them to help with orientation of new Fellows. Those PFF Fellows that have jobs can participate in a seminar via video technology.

• Suggestions for 1998 Kickoff Dinner. Suggested that we approach Paula Caplan, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. She has written a book about women in the academy entitled Lifting a Ton of Feathers.

Deborah Smith-Howell, UNO, and Mary Ann Danielson, Creighton, facilitated the Partner Faculty and Administrators session. Faculty members from UNO, Creighton, Metropolitan Community College, and Nebraska Wesleyan participated. These faculty come from the disciplines communication studies, sociology, and mathematics.

The Agenda for the session included the following items:

1. Describe an ideal Fellow/Partner Faculty mentoring relationship. What steps might PFF Fellows/Partners/administrators take to more closely approach this ideal relationship? Discuss mentoring guidelines document (enclosed).
2. Create a list of most/least useful mentoring activities at partner campuses.
3. Evaluate the list of colloquium sessions. Are there other topics that would be useful? Are there topics included in the list that are not especially useful?
4. Identify what PFF and UNL can do for you, your department, and/or your institution to compensate mentors for their participation (e.g., invitations to conferences, library privileges, parking permit, teaching/research relationships, etc.)
5. How can the PFF program cement its relationship with your department? For instance, how can we increase the involvement of other faculty mentors so one partner faculty member does not bear all the weight of mentoring?
6. Are there other issues that the PFF program ought to address?

Ideal/improve mentoring relationship. (1) Have other faculty involved other than the chair, but the chair may serve as key contact person. (2) Early planning. Share seminar materials with partners. (3) Clear expectations and clear guidelines. Models of mentoring should have clear parameters along with flexibility. Must be sensitive to institution. (4) Ideally have continual interaction among partners. (5) Have multiple shorter visits rather than marathon session. (6) Mentors might come to Fellows and watch them teach. Source of outside teaching evaluation. (7) More informed process of matching Fellow with mentor.

(1) Creighton: talk with administrative officers (Dean, Vice President of Academic Affairs), class presentation, advising, meet others on campus, Learning Center and Multicultural Affairs Office. (2) UNO (Sociology): talk with junior faculty, visit computer center, meet faculty at different levels. (3) MCC/UNO: shadowing, observe distance education system. (4) Metro: new faculty orientation, college tour of all sites. (5) Nebraska Wesleyan: department meetings, fall conference.

Evaluate colloquium session topics. (1) Drop assessment two. (2) University of 21^st century at the end. (3) Campus life at range of institutions, not just private liberal arts colleges. (4) Move instructional technology to beginning of spring. (5) Some seminars by discipline and some by institution. (6) Include more faculty and fewer administrators, especially in regard to academic missions. (7) Smaller break out sessions.

What PFF can do to compensate partners. (1) Pay for structured interview expenses. (2) Teaching exchanges. (3) Parking permits. (4) Faculty library privileges. (5) Helping partner faculty be recognized for teaching/service on annual reviews. (6) Include partners in UNL workshops and conferences. (7) Share/attend national PFF conference with other partner faculty.

How can PFF cement its relationship with your department? (1) PFF should count as faculty development hours. (2) Have home institution recognize PFF as important in annual reviews. (3) Create directory of participants (web directory). (4) Exchange schedules for better coordination.

(1) More sharing of research. Research should be important, not just teaching. (2) UNL chairs/faculty should have more interaction with partner faculty.

4. 1997-1998 PFF FELLOWS

Lisa Johnson and Tim Pippert facilitated the 1997-1998 PFF Fellows session. Fourteen PFF Fellows participated in this session.

The Agenda for this session included the following items:

1. Describe an ideal Fellow/Partner Faculty mentoring relationship. What steps might PFF Fellows/Partners/administrators take to more closely approach this ideal relationship?
2. Create a list of most/least useful activities at partner campuses.
3. Create a list of most/least useful colloquium sessions.
4. Generate a list of suggestions to improve the colloquium sessions.
1. What changes in format would you recommend?
2. What new topics should be included and which of the old topics should be deleted?
3. What changes should be made in the order of the topics?
5. Generate a list of practical suggestions for new PFF Fellows.

• Ideal/improve mentoring relationship.
(1) The ideal mentor is one who knows about their institution and the hiring and tenure process. (2) Schedule meeting early in the semester. (3) Needs to be active on both sides. You get out of it what you put in it. (4) Have a physical list of what you and your mentor want and will do. (5) Have your vita, dossier, and cover letter reviewed by your mentor. (6) Have mentor training. (7) Share list of mentors with other mentors. (8) Give mentoring award. (9) Establish contract with mentor.

(1) Watching teaching styles. (2) Meeting students at the colleges and watching their interactions. (3) New faculty meetings. (4) Interviewing the mentor. (5) Sit in on advising sessions. (6) Going to department meetings is a good idea, learn about politics, the mix of a disciplines within a department, and mix of personalities. We had no idea what happens at these. (7) Review of vita, teaching portfolio, and hiring information. Actual interview. (8) Talking with department members other than mentor.

(1) New faculty orientation. (2) Unstructured conversation.

(1) Teaching portfolios, diversity scenarios, and campus life. (2) Hiring. (3) New faculty.

(1) Only one session on assessment. (2) Academic mission session needs to be restructured. (3) University of 21^st session.

(1) More discipline specific breakout session. More interaction. (2) Split topics for diversity session into diversity students and diversity in faculty. Address sexual orientation. (3) Combine general education and assessment. (4) Have a colloquium with graduate students currently interviewing. (4) Pre-information was good. Continue to send out email with questions to prepare us for the sessions. (5) Have many examples of dossiers to look through. (6) More time to talk about salary. (6) A session about getting tenure with those who are trying to get it. (7) Like to hear about adjunct positions. (8) Go through interview questions. (9) Tell us to research a campus.

(1) You get out of it what you put into it. (2) Early contact, if possible before the semester begins. (3) Find out early what is expected of you in this program. (4) Tailor the program to what you want. Find out how you fit at each of the schools. (5) Get coffee mugs. (6) Get to know other fellows right away. (7) Even a less than ideal experience can be a learning experience. You learn that you may not like that aspect of being a faculty member. (8) Have interview documents ready to be reviewed.

• General ideas for improvement:
(1) Create a permanent file/library for PFF. (2) Don’t add departments midstream. (3) Make sure Math Dept is always referred to as Mathematics and Statistics. (4) Better information about the summer. (5) Get Fellows to know each other right away.

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