2008 APSA Teaching and Learning Track Summaries—Track Two: Graduate Education and Professional Development

Extract

How well do we prepare our graduate students for the diverse careers they pursue in teaching, research, and outside of academia? This is the second time Graduate Education has been a track in the TLC, and this year we have also incorporated topics related to professional development. Despite the diversity of our presentations, we arrived at a unifying theme for our track: we must prepare graduate students for the multiple arenas they will enter into after graduation. We discussed at length how most of our graduate students seek something other than the traditional, research-oriented model of graduate education that we experienced. They seek a graduate experience that is civically engaged, prepares them for teaching in addition to research, and is perhaps more connected to disciplines outside of political science. Either we provide graduate students a framework of knowledge consistent with these demands or they will be left to develop these skills through trial and error alone. In support of this goal, we urge systemic change to our professional institutions that will value and reward a more holistic approach to graduate education and professional development. Elements of such change can be found in the variety of presentations contained in our track.