Chapter One The Challenge to Prepare the Next Generation of Faculty

preparation process for future faculty, has become a significant issue in higher education, of importance to a wide-ranging group of stakeholders. In fact, the growing interest in graduate education and the preparation of the future professoriate has been evident over the past decade and a half in an array of conferences, institu-tional programs, initiatives by professional organizations, funded research, and print and Web material. A quick review of such recent literature, programs, and research shows that, clearly, there is a movement afoot to address the challenges of preparing the next generation of faculty. This volume provides a summary and synthesis of key infor-mation about this movement. Although there are valuable resources in the research literature and publications describing the activities of various associations, institutions, and organizations, there has been no comprehensive effort to bring those pieces together. This volume fills that gap by gathering in one place ideas from major research studies and action projects that have focused, over the past dozen years or so, on improving graduate education and preparing the future professoriate. This chapter first examines factors that together have con-tributed to the growing interest in improving graduate education. 3 03 966347 Ch01.qxd 2/4/04 11:56 AM Page 3 Employers, leaders of foundations and government agencies, grad-uate deans, and doctoral students have added their voices to a call for examining the quality of the graduate experience and its suc-cess in preparing students for their future roles as professionals. Then, the chapter turns to the specific interest of this book—grad-uate education as preparation for an academic career. We make a case for why it is critical at this moment in the history of American higher education to ensure that graduate education is appropri-ately preparing students who are pursuing paths to the professori-ate. In this chapter, we hope to convince readers of the importance of considering strategies for enriching the preparation of future faculty