Reflections on a pandemic-related disruption to a preparing future faculty pilot program in Turkey

Official URL: http://yocad.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/IHEC-2021-Proceedings-Published.pdf

University faculty members simultaneously hold multiple roles in teaching, research and community. One way of preparing graduate students for these roles is through the Preparing Future Faculty program that is commonly found in the US universities. There is, however, little support in Turkey to prepare graduate students for faculty roles and responsibilities. To address this gap, two mid-sized universities in Turkey modified a Preparing Future Faculty program for the Turkish context. This flagship program was established to focus on teaching and community service since the results of focus groups conducted with graduate students at the two universities primarily indicated interest in these areas. In this paper, we reflect on the initial implementation of this program, the changes made to move this pilot program online and students’ experiences with this new mode. We make recommendations for benefitting from these changes in the resulting program.