Yale Forum Will Examine Graduate School Education and Teacher Preparation

Key figures in higher education will join Yale University faculty and graduate students for a day-long conference titled “Graduate Education and the Changing Marketplace for Academics” on April 10 in Room 211 of the Hall of Graduate Studies, 320 York St.

Journalists are welcome to attend.

Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Elizabeth Duffy, program director at the Woodrow Wilson Foundation; Graduate School Dean Susan Hockfield, along with members of the Yale faculty and recent alumni will participate.

The forum was sparked by recent reports on graduate education published by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the National Research Council (NRC) and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Each of these reports calls for reform in the structure of doctoral programs, including more extensive preparation in teaching and other marketable skills and increased university and departmental involvement in career counseling and placement.

“I hope this forum will expand everyone’s horizons as to the opportunities that exist in academia and beyond,” says Hockfield. “This is an important opportunity to examine how graduate education can prepare our students for a variety of different possible careers.”

Organizers want the conference to raise awareness about preparing graduate students to teach at small liberal arts colleges, community colleges, non-research universities and other institutions, as well as readying them to pursue non-teaching careers.

Members of the organizing committee include graduate students Robin Ladouceure and Nikki Brown from Working at Teaching (Yale’s graduate-student led teacher training program), Gail Emilsson and George Joseph. The committee is working closely with Bill Rando, director of Yale’s Office of Teaching Fellow Preparation and Development, to design and organize the forum.

The forum will include panels titled “The Reports from the MLA, AAU and NRC,” “The National Perspective,” “The View from Within: former and current Yale graduate students review their experiences on the job market”; and “Yale’s Teaching Resources.” In the final session, participants will consider ways of enhancing the programs that already exist at Yale, in congruence with ideas and goals developed throughout the day. The conference will conclude with a reception in the McDougal Center Common Room beginning at 4:15 p.m.

For more information, see the website at www.yale.edu/teach/ygs_springforum.htm.