CIC organized sessions for advanced graduate students at two research universities on the advantages of teaching careers at small colleges. On September 25, approximately 40 advanced graduate students and postdoctoral fellows at Yale University participated in the seminar, led by Presidents Douglas C. Bennett of Earlham College (IN), Julia McNamara of Albertus Magnus College (CT), Gregory Prince of Hampshire College (MA), and CIC President Richard Ekman. Roughly half the students had completed their own undergraduate work at small colleges.
     “This is one way in which CIC is addressing the point made by many presidents and deans during our year-long strategic planning process that we need to pay more attention to the future of the faculties at our kind of institution,” said Ekman. “The response to this seminar was very positive, and many students commented that their graduate mentors have not been able to give them much information about faculty careers at small colleges.”
     This marks the second such seminar CIC has offered. In November 2002, President Stanton Hales of the College of Wooster (OH) and Ekman led a similar session at Harvard University for about 50 advanced graduate students. In this group, very few students had been undergraduates at small colleges. “Again, the response was enthusiastic
about the depiction of a typical faculty member’s life in a small college,” Ekman noted, adding that “the graduate career planning office at Harvard reported that many students subsequently came to the office to request additional information.”
     CIC is planning additional seminars along the same lines for 2004.

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Last updated: December 2003
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