PFF Participation Tiers

UC's Preparing Future Faculty program offers three participation tiers to students. Each tier has requirements that students must complete in order to exit the program or advance to the next tier. Student progress is calculated utilizing activity points. Students receive activity points for participating in PFF activities. Once a student completes their desired tier, he/she/they will receive a decorative certificate and a signed letter of completion, outlining the tier requirements. Students must complete the application process prior to starting tier progress, and students must complete an exit survey in order to complete a tier. Students can request the exit survey from the program coordinator at gradpff@uc.edu. 

Student progress within PFF tiers is calculated through activity points. Students accumulate activity points by participating in PFF activities. Following participation in the activity, students must complete and submit an activity log to gradpff@uc.edu. Failure to do so will result in the omission of the completed activity from your PFF progress record. Activity logs must be completed and submitted within one month of the PFF activity date. Find a summary of PFF events and the correlated activity point values below. 

The following activities are worth five activity points:

• Participate in a PFF reading group
• Attend a PFF-approved workshop that is four hours or less
• Join a PFF Coffee Hour

The following activities are worth ten activity points:

• Lead a PFF reading group
• Attend a teaching & learning conference
• Participate in a PFF-approved faculty observation
• Attend a PFF-approved workshop that lasts for over four hours

The following activities are worth twenty activity points:

• Take and pass the Teaching Effectiveness course
• Take and pass the Academic Job Search course
• Complete the mentoring experience

The following are summaries of the three participation tiers offered by PFF. Each tier has different requirements and requires different levels of student involvement. All students must progress through the tiers, beginning with the PFF Participant tier. 

All admitted students start as PFF Participants. This is the first tier and could be ideal for students with limited time or who are interested in seeing what PFF is all about. The following requirements must be fulfilled in order for students to complete the tier or advance to the next tier:

• Complete 15 total activity points
• Participate in one PFF reading group
• Attend one PFF-approved workshop

The PFF Fellow tier is the intermediate tier available through PFF. Students particularly interested in completing PFF coursework could benefit from completing this tier. The following requirements must be fulfilled in order for students to complete the PFF Fellow tier or advance to the next tier:

• Complete 75 total activity points
• Complete the PFF Participant tier
• Participate in one PFF reading group (two groups cumulatively)
• Attend one PFF-approved workshop (two workshops cumulatively)
• Takes and passes PFF courses (Teaching Effectiveness and the Academic Job Search)

The PFF Graduate tier is the most intensive tier available through PFF. Students interested in completing the PFF mentoring experience could benefit from completing this tier. The following requirements must be fulfilled in order for students to complete the PFF Graduate tier:

• Complete 150 total activity points
• Complete the PFF Fellow tier
• Participate in one PFF reading group (three groups cumulatively)
• Lead one additional PFF reading group
• Attend one PFF-approved workshop (three workshops cumulatively)
• Takes and passes PFF courses (Teaching Effectiveness and the Academic Job Search)
• Completes the mentoring experience