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Professional Development

Preparing Future Faculty (PFF)

Program Overview and Requirements

Download the PFF Certificate Application

Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) is a national initiative sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges & Universities and supported by numerous disciplinary organizations in the life sciences, math, computer science, the social sciences, and humanities.  Preparing Future Faculty involves providing graduate students with information and experiences relevant to academic careers in their field. In particular, the program seeks to familiarize students with the diversity of research, teaching, and service responsibilities of faculty members in different types of colleges and universities.

At ODU the PFF initiative began in 2004 and is now supported by the Office of Graduate Studies, the College of Sciences, and the College of Arts & Letters.  Each semester, talks and workshops are offered related to the skills required to build a successful academic career. The PFF Steering Committee has also identified other resources, both at ODU and elsewhere, that are designed to familiarize students with the teaching, research, and service requirements of a faculty career.

Beginning in 2007/2008 the PFF Committee will award a "PFF Certificate" to students who document completion of a certain number of activities related to preparing for an academic career. Completion of this certificate would not appear on the student's transcript, but could be noted on a curriculum vita as evidence of teaching preparation.  Any ODU degree-seeking graduate student is eligible for the PFF Certificate. ODU adjunct and post-doctoral students are also eligible for the certificate.

To earn the PFF Certificate a student should 1) fill out the PFF Certificate Application Form, and 2) document completion of the requirements for the certificate.  Once these are completed the Application Form and documentation should be submitted to Dr. Elaine Justice, PFF Steering Committee Chair, ODU Psychology Department, MGB 134A.  Materials will be reviewed by the Steering Committee and, if approved, a certificate will be issued.

To earn the PFF Certificate a student must 1) complete one teaching-related experience, and 2) attend at least five academic career related events, two of which must be PFF sponsored events. Please note that general lectures or talks hosted by the University do not ordinarily fulfill the second requirement.

The teaching-related experience requirement may be fulfilled by any of the following:

• Serve as a Teaching Assistant (teaching a course or serving as a TA for a lecture, discussion group, or lab class)
• Complete the Certificate on College Teaching offered by the Virginia Tidewater Consortium for Higher Education
• Attend the ODU GTA Institute (open primarily to funded GTAs)
• Work under a teaching mentor for one semester (giving guest lectures and visiting classrooms at ODU and other institutions)
• Attend an education conference in your discipline (e.g., Virginia Association of Science Teachers)
• Enroll in or audit a course on teaching in your discipline (e.g., PSYC 815, HIED 845, 847, 859, 893, CCL 826 or other approved courses)

Required attendance at five academic career-related events may be fulfilled by the following:

• Attend at least 2 PFF sponsored events.  Two PFF sponsored events are offered each semester. You may use more than 2 PFF events to fulfill the requirement of five events.
• The remaining three events may be any of the following non-PFF workshops or activities.
  • Attend workshops offered by the Office of Research (Grant Proposal Development, Developing Strategies for Successful Health and Biomedical Sciences Grant Submission, Community of Science Workshop, etc.)
  • Attend workshops offered by ODU Library entitled "Plagiarism: Understanding, Preventing & Detecting It" or "Graduate Assistant Workshop: Essential Library Services/Put the Library to Work for You".
  • Attend Faculty Development workshops offered by the Center for Learning Technologies (CLT) that are related to the use of technology in teaching.  CLT workshops on using mediated classrooms do no meet this requirement.
  • Attend professional workshops offered at conferences or at ODU (e.g., Latex for scientific writing offered by the Physics Graduate Student Association).
  • Serve as a student representative on a departmental, college, or University committee.