Description

The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) and San Francisco State University (SFSU) have a career development program, Professors of the Future (PROF) Program http://prof.ucdavis.edu/, for biomedical science postdoctoral scholars who are preparing for faculty careers in academia. This cooperative program, between a research university and a minority-serving university, provides mentored research (primarily at UC Davis), mentored teaching experiences (primarily at SFSU) and other career development activities (workshops, short courses, research grant application and survival skills needed for an academic position). Goals of the PROF Program are: 1) To successfully integrate each segment of the career development activities at the two universities into a unified postdoctoral experience, with the ultimate goal of making participants optimally prepared and more competitive for faculty positions. 2) To facilitate the progress of postdoctoral scholars toward research and teaching careers in academia with a goal of increasing the numbers of optimally prepared faculty at minority serving educational institutions. 3) To encourage students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical sciences to seek advanced degrees. 4) To improve teaching and research at SFSU by contributions from PROF Program scholars and from collaborations between faculty at the two universities. Participants in the Program have a minimum of the two faculty mentors, including research (UC Davis and SFSU) and teaching (SFSU). A research collaboration between faculty at UC Davis and SFSU is a requirement of the Program. Teaching activities take place at SFSU. Approximately 1/3 of the career development activities take place at SFSU and 2/3 at UC Davis. The program is typically 3 years in duration for a postdoctoral scholar with no research experience, and 1.5-2 years for those with some postdoctoral research experience. Applicants must submit a career development program as a part of the application process, including a proposed research project (with identified and supportive mentors) and proposed teaching project (with identified and supportive mentor).

The PROF Program started in 1999 and has just entered its 5th year. Two postdoctorals scholars (PROFFERS) completed the Program in September, 2003 and twelve scholars are currently enrolled. Scholars from biomedical science research areas supported by the National Institutes of Biomedical Sciences are eligible to apply to the PROF Program. Current and past PROFFERS, their disciplinary areas, and dossiers are available on the PROF Program Web site http://prof.ucdavis.edu/ .

Implementation

The PROF Program is supported by an Institutional Research and Career Development Award from the MORE Division, National Institutes of General Medical Science, grant no. K12 GM00679.