PFF: Frequently Asked Questions

PFF (Preparing Future Faculty) is a participatory professional development program offered by UC. It is designed for students who plan to enter academia as instructors in search of tenure-track positions. It seeks to improve the teaching abilities of its students and to give students the tools they need to enter the academic job market.

Yes! The Preparing Future Faculty program is a national movement, launched in 1993 by Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Many other institutions have PFF programs, such as The Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Kentucky (to name a few).

Current PFF participants include master's, doctoral, and postdoctoral students. Any student who has earned a bachelor's degree is eligible to join. Students must have access to UC's Uptown campus to participate in most of the PFF events. 

Students choose which participation tier they would like to complete in their work with PFF. Each tier has different requirements, taking different amounts of time. It's possible for students to complete the PFF Participant tier in one semester, and to complete the PFF Fellow and Graduate tier in two semesters. 

No. When completed over multiple years, Preparing Future Faculty will require only a small time commitment each semester.

You may work on most of the requirements in any order you choose, except that you must take the Teaching Effectiveness course before you begin your mentorship. Also, as the mentorship serves as the capstone experience, it should be one of the last requirements you complete.

Some PFF events will be retroactively counted towards your program progress. However, this must be approved by the PFF coordinator, the student is responsible for proving attendance, and an activity log may be required. If you've participated in activities that you'd like counted retroactively, contact the program coordinator. 

Teaching Effectiveness is offered only in the fall semester. The Academic Job Search is offered only in the spring semester. Both courses are pass/fail.

You should plan to take Teaching Effectiveness a semester or two before you plan to start your mentoring experience; as part of the Teaching Effectiveness course, you will work on composing a mentorship proposal and agreement. 

The Academic Job Search may be taken at any point. However, the students who are able to align course enrollment with their active job search are the ones who find the course the most valuable. Students—particularly doctoral students—who enroll in the course in their final or penultimate year find the course much more useful than those who complete the course early in their doctoral program. 

Each semester, UC offers a variety of professional development workshops and seminars. Some of these workshops are related to teaching and academic work. The PFF program coordinator chooses appropriate workshops and lists them on the PFF website. Visit the PFF workshop page to find out when and where workshops occur, what topics they will cover, and how to register for the workshops.

Possibly. If you are interested in attending a workshop not listed by the program coordinator, you must receive the coordinator's approval to earn credit. Send the coordinator an email (gradpff@uc.edu) describing the topic of the workshop and its relationship to PFF. Include the location and time of the workshop as well.

Students must complete an activity log after their participation in workshops. Activity logs are available on the PFF Canvas page or by emailing gradpff@uc.edu. Completed logs should be submitted via Canvas within one month of the event. 

Each semester, the PFF program offers five reading groups on topics related to teaching. For example, the reading groups may cover such topics as Women in Academia, Building a Rapport with Students, Teaching Critical Thinking, Issues of Ethics for College Teachers, or Collaborative Learning. To find out when these groups will occur, and what the readings for each meeting will be, either visit the Readings Groups page. This page will provide meeting dates and times and the required readings. The PFF Canvas page will also have the PDF files of the assigned readings (while the webpage will not). All you have to do from there is attend the group and participate in discussion.

Leading a reading group is a requirement for the PFF Graduate tier. However, any student interested in leading is welcome to! Interested students can indicate their preference on the reading group registration link or by emailing the program coordinator. 

In-person reading groups are scheduled for 90 minutes. Typically, one online reading group is offered every semester. These online reading groups use a discussion board, which is open for three days.  

The group leaders will have an attendance sheet that all participants will need to sign. This sheet is sent to the program coordinator to confirm attendance. In addition, after participating in a reading group, students are required to complete an activity log in order to receive PFF credit. Activity logs are available on the Canvas page or by emailing the program coordinator. 

Online reading groups are offered 1–2 times per semester. The online reading groups take place via Google Groups. You will need a Google account in order to participate. (Google accounts are free and easy to create.) The program coordinator creates specific groups for each reading group, and before the first day of the group arrives, he or she will add registered students as participants. At that point, the leaders will have already accessed the group space and posted questions, and they will ask additional questions and guide the conversation as the group progresses.

In the mentoring experience, students establish a relationship with a faculty member from an institution of higher education. The student and mentor plan a mentoring experience, which consists of approximately 40-hours of involvement together, during which the mentor may evaluate the student's teaching or otherwise broaden the student's knowledge of the academic career.

If a student has a lot of teaching experience, he or she may qualify for a nonstandard experience. To qualify, the PFF student must have been primarily responsible for teaching and assessing at least ten undergraduate classes. Students who pursue nonstandard experiences are also held to a higher standard in their mentoring agreement contracts and must work on a more advanced pedagogical issue than those in a standard mentorship. For example, a nonstandard mentorship might be geared toward creating and designing a new course or a jointly-taught course.

You may choose any faculty member from a university or college (excepting your academic advisor and UC faculty on UC's Uptown Campus), but you should consider your own interests and career goals before making a decision. If, for example, you're interested in working for a community college rather than a university (where teaching is emphasized over research), consider choosing a faculty member from a local community college. Additionally, you will probably want to choose an instructor working in an area similar to yours.

The PFF coordinator is available to help you find a mentor. If you want assistance with selecting a mentor, email gradpff@uc.edu to schedule an appointment with the PFF coordinator. 

The University of Cincinnati has connections with Xavier University, Mount St. Joseph University, Northern Kentucky University, UC Blue Ash College, and other area institutions which will enable you to find a mentor. You may survey the faculty members from these colleges and either contact them directly or request that the program coordinator facilitate. The PFF program maintains a contact person at each institution who can assist a student with finding a mentor at that institution. If you want assistance with finding a mentor, email gradpff@uc.edu to schedule an appointment with the PFF coordinator. 

Effective for students not matriculated prior to the fall 2019 application deadline, mentorships must occur off of UC's Uptown Campus. If you want to pursue a teaching-focused academic career, then you may want to choose a faculty member from a non-research-intensive institution (such as a community college) as your mentor. Additionally, choosing a non-UC faculty member broadens your experience of academic life, exposing you to different methods, styles, and techniques. Mount St. Joseph University, for example, is much smaller than UC, and thus an academic position there will be much different than one at a larger institution. Ultimately, you must choose a faculty member in a position and at a location that will most benefit your career and pedagogical goals.