Resources
This report on the process of graduate and professional student socialization provides information that can be of use to graduate program faculty and administrators, professional associations, state legislatures, and professional licensing bodies charged with assuring clients that well qualified professional practitioners are being prepared in the nation's universities. It addresses implications of issues raised in current literature for designing more effective graduate programs. Socialization in graduate school refers to the processes through which individuals gain the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for successful entry into a professional career requiring an advanced level of specialized knowledge and skills. The first two sections, "The Professional and Socialization" and "Conceptualizing Socialization in Graduate and Professional Programs," describe the various elements of this socialization process, drawing from research on adult socialization, role acquisition, and career development. The third section, "A Framework for the Socialization of Graduate and Professional Students," presents a conceptual model of graduate and professional student socialization that assumes socialization occurs through an interactive set of stages. The fourth section, "Institutional Culture: Recurrent Themes," illustrates several changing patterns in graduate education that are exerting pressure for reform. The fifth section, "Institutional Culture and Socialization: Differences among Academic Programs," contrasts socialization processes across academic program goals, faculty expectations, and student peer culture. The final section, "Easing the Perilous Passage," discusses modifying the graduate degree program and faculty and administrator roles, increasing diversity, and offering support to students. (From the Publisher)
A junior faculty member reflects on the dilemma of that professional position, noting that its anxieties fall into two categories: "Is this all there is?" and "What if we lose it?" She examines problems with, and prohibitions against, speaking one's mind in that position, sees solutions as being institutional or individual, and examines how concerns are linked to other campus constituencies.
We describe the development, implementation, and assessment of a faculty study group program designed to foster teaching as a reflective, collaborative activity within a research university. Conceived within conceptual frameworks that challenge technical/rationalist approaches to faculty development, the program was successful in creating opportunities for faculty of different disciplines, age groups, ranks, and teaching experience to establish productive discourse communities around their own teaching. Our experience shows that such programs require careful thought and planning, which we detail here, and that faculty even in research oriented institutions can be captured by the “good problem” that teaching represents.
The "Heeding New Voices" study, a year-long series of structured interviews with new faculty and graduate students aspiring to be faculty members around the country, sought both to give voice to those who are just beginning their academic careers and to provide guidance for the senior faculty, chairs, deans, and others in higher education responsible for shaping the professoriate of the future. This booklet, drawn in part from the study's findings, includes: (1) ten principles of good practice; (2) inventories to prompt department chairs, senior colleagues, and other academic leaders to examine their individual and institutional practices; and (3) examples of concrete and innovative approaches to good practice being tried out now in a variety of institutional settings. The principles reflect the three categories of stated need from the "Heeding New Voices" interviews: improving review and tenure processes (principles 1-4), encouraging positive relations with colleagues and students (principles 5-7), and easing stresses of time and balance (principles 8-10). (Contains 13 references). (EV)
Calling for accountability, Practice What You Preach discusses ethical questions that arise in congregations and pastoral leadership. Formation of pastors, empowering leaders, resolving power struggles between clergy and laity--these and other critical pastoral issues are addressed by an ecumenical group of contributors. Divided into four parts: the way the churches train their pastors; the way their pastors live; the way communities worship; and the way communities behave, this collection identifies and offers positive solutions to areas where churches are often slow to change. Each essay begins with a case describing a typical problem--from wages to in-fighting--and then discusses what virtues or character traits might be developed to resolve the problem effectively. An eye-opener of a book . . . it will involve you from page one as it invites intelligent people everywhere to reckon with its courageous, timely content. (From the Publisher)
Summarizes evidence from two evaluative studies of the initial training course for new teaching staff at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Findings indicate that the course has had a positive effect for most of the participants. Presents evidence of the positive feedback in the form of comments from several participants. Attitude statements used in both studies are appended.
