The Rising Engineering Education Faculty Experience (REEFE): Preparing Junior Colleagues

Abstract

Despite the importance of professional development, for most graduate students as up-andcoming faculty members professional development is informal at best. Graduate programs often emphasize gaining technical knowledge, skills, and abilities through courses and research projects, but provide less opportunity for future faculty members to gain experience with teaching, service, communication, assessment, proposal writing, etc. To provide this experience, we developed the Rising Engineering Education Faculty Experience (REEFE). Founded on theoretical and practical models of graduate student development, REEFE is an innovative faculty apprenticeship program for engineering education graduate students that places students in visiting faculty member positions at host schools. This paper describes the foundations of REEFE and the program itself. We also offer lessons learned from the host school, sending school, and participants based on prior REEFE implementations. We hope our learnings prompt discussions regarding how to effectively prepare future engineering education faculty.

Early Career Faculty Transitions: Negotiating Legitimacy and Seeking Support in Engineering Education

“…Throughout the development of engineering education as a field, the community's actions have sought both to support the efforts of its members to positively impact engineering education and to facilitate the individual success of new and more experienced members. These actions have included (1) developing national funding opportunities for engineering education research (Allendoerfer et al, 2016;Borrego & Bernhard, 2011;Daniels et al, 2011), (2) creating publication venues and opportunities to share engineering education research and innovations (Froyd & Lohmann, 2014), and (3) creating professional development opportunities to support entry into the field (e.g., Adams et al, 2014;Faber et al, 2018;Hixson et al, 2015;Huband et al, 2004;Mirabelli et al, 2020;Pawley et al, 2014;Sattler et al, 2012). In addition, over the last 15 years, members of the community have established engineering education doctoral programs with goals that include the development of future faculty who can serve as change agents within engineering education (e.g., Aning et al, 2005;Benson et al, 2010;Borrego & Bernhard, 2011;Christy et al, 2019;Diefes-Dux et al, 2006;Katehi et al, 2004).…”

Lean LaunchPad and Customer Discovery as a Form of Qualitative Research

“…We identified multiple models for this placement experience, then field-tested one model by creating a collaboration with one host institution and one graduate program. This collaboration proved successful (Hixson Ingram Williams Matusovich & McCord 2015;McCord Hixson Ingram & McNair 2014), with four students experiencing placement, impacting two offices and many faculty members at the host institution.…”

From Graduate Students to Faculty: Portraits of Balance in the Professional Development Plans of Engineering Graduate Students

“…Drawing from the general programs started in the 90s, such initiatives comprise formal courses and professional development workshops, and rely to a great extent on mentorship 3 . More recently, institutional initiatives have been specifically tailored to engineering education graduate students; namely, an internship program comprising a semester-long experience based on an a apprenticeship model 8 .…”