Creating a Cohesive Environment for Training Future Faculty

Insitution: 
Vanderbilt
TitleCreating a Cohesive Environment for Training Future Faculty
Publication TypePoster
AuthorsAlley J, Harris TR
Year of Publication2008
AbstractThere are several groups at Vanderbilt University, including the Center for Teaching, working to educate future faculty in the art of teaching. These groups each work well, but mostly independently of each other. CIRTL leadership at Vanderbilt is working to create a multi-school organization on campus that will help unify these various factions and make the opportunities both more visible on campus and more accessible to the graduate students and post-docs who benefit from participation in the programs. The executive committee will be a provost-level organization with representation from all of the relevant groups, working as liaisons with their respective Deans. The presence of such an organization and CIRTL support will enable this group to leverage funding both within the university and from outside sources. We seek to identify a core of STEM faculty, fellow, and graduate students and engage them in cross-network activities. One of the expected outcomes is funding for Teaching Assistants to work on Teaching-As- Research projects. Instead of working with the faculty member to grade papers, etc., the graduate student would work with the faculty to implement and assess some educational improvement in the chosen course. In addition to helping to connect existing resources on campus, CIRTL Vanderbilt seeks to bring the resources of the network to our campus. We will also seek to hold specific workshops for local faculty, fellows and scholars based on the approaches to STEM education developed by the VaNTH Engineering Research Center. At present, there is some interest among the administrators of the various schools. As we find ways to implement our strategies, we expect much more enthusiasm at the administrative level.
KeywordsForum 2008, Forum 2008 poster, poster, poster abstract, Presentation
URLhttp://www.cirtlcafe.net/files/Alley_Vanderbilt_forum08.pdf
Conference Name2008 CIRTL Forum
Conference DateJune 2008
Conference URLhttp://www.cirtl.net/forum2008