Among the more imposing challenges faculty face is teaching graduate students. Not only does graduate student instruction fall to the fringes of most campus discussions of teaching where the emphasis tends to fall on undergraduates, but the variety of roles that a graduate instructor is expected to fill cuts across so many discourses on campus: a graduate advisor should be a mentor, a classroom teacher, a writing instructor, a professional guide, a seminar facilitator, and more. Each of these facets of being successful as a graduate instructor require slightly different skills and require a faculty member to leverage different experiences and in many cases different personae within their professional identity (e.g. the compassionate colleague, the stern taskmaster, the demanding instructor, et c.). Moreover, while graduate schools frequently allow students opportunities to develop undergraduate teaching skills as they complete their degrees, they rarely offer the chance to develop the myriad of skills necessary to shepherd a student through a graduate program.
Over several discussions with colleague here at the University of North Dakota, we decided that it might be useful to open up a discussion of the problems and prospect in graduate education across campus. We have several contributors lined up to offer their perspectives on graduate teaching, but would love to have more! So either drop us a line (billcaraher(at)gmail.com or anne_kelsch(at)und.nodak.edu. Or, better still, post a comment below!
