Creating a community of support for graduate students and early career academics

Abstract

This paper focuses on strategies for enhancing the preparation of geographers moving into academic careers. Based on research and experience gained from the Geography Faculty Development Alliance and Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in geography projects, several suggestions for improved practice are detailed. These move beyond self-help models and argue for a systematic, community-based approach to professional development. Reasons for change are disparities that sometimes exist between the implicit knowledge needed for career success and the topics addressed explicitly in graduate curricula. Although the focus is geography, the argument is set in the context of interdisciplinary debate about improving doctoral education.

Keywords:

• Early career faculty
• geography
• professional development

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank his research collaborators Jan Monk, Michael Solem, Beth Schlemper and J.W. Harrington, Jr. for their help with this article. He would also like to thank the many geographers who have participated in the GFDA project and helped with the EDGE project as well as the four anonymous reviewers who provided valuable comments.

Notes

¹ I use the US terminology ‘faculty’ and ‘graduate’ to refer respectively to academic staff and postgraduate students.

² The MA/MSc is sometimes the qualification for faculty teaching in US two-year colleges offering associate of arts and associate of sciences (AA, AS) degrees. For these faculty, the early career period begins during their master's training.

³ In the US, the length of most geography doctoral programmes averages about six years. The position of assistant professor is a probationary rank lasting no longer than seven years at a given college or university. The early career period may last longer depending on how quickly individuals finish their doctorate and whether they accept post-doctoral fellowships or short-term, non-tenure track positions before moving into a tenure-track position. If a faculty member changes institutions while still an assistant professor, the seven-year tenure ‘clock’ is reset to zero unless a shorter period is negotiated at the time of hire.