AcademiNext: Mentoring the Next Generation of Chemistry Faculty

Graduate students focus the majority of their time honing their research skills and knowledge in a very narrow area of expertise. They are sent off to postdoctoral positions where they continue to grow as scholars and scientific investigators. In most graduate programs, there is very little opportunity to train graduate students to become lecture instructors and the majority of Teaching Assistant assignments are in undergraduate instructional laboratories. The Chemistry Department at the University of Southern California has developed a fellowship program with the goal of providing an internship-like experience in undergraduate instruction to more thoroughly complete the training of future faculty in chemistry. In the current work this training program, aimed at providing graduate students and postdoctoral fellows classroom teaching experience, is described. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows participating in this fellowship program learn how to prepare and deliver lectures and handle overall classroom management, while gaining practical teaching experience.