Enlarging the world I’m about to enter, one visit at a time

During this academic year I’ve been involved in a fantastic program here at MU called Preparing Future Faculty. It is what the title describes, a program that prepares doc students for faculty life and the challenges they will face. It’s run by Dr. George Justice through the Grad School and has a lot of different facets, including monthly classes on different topics (tenure, teaching vs. research loads, etc.) as well as professional development seminars (hiring, negotiating job offers, etc.).

One of the unique things we do in the program is mentor visits. We are required to do at least one visit per semester and Dr. Justice tries to match us with people at institutions near MU who also do similar work in our field. Last semester I had a great visit at Kansas with Mike Williams, who is the chair of the news/information track. I learned a lot from him about the places career can take you as well as the challenges of teaching vs. administration. The visit also took place right before Lehigh offered me the position in December, so it gave me a lot to think about.

Today I went on my second visit. I spent the day shadowing Dr. Dan Kozlowski at Saint Louis University. This was a different experience. Whereas KU is a large public Research I institution in profile, SLU is more in the profile of what I’ll be experiencing as a member of the faculty at Lehigh. SLU has a strong commitment to both research and teaching, and it was evident throughout the day as I observed Dr. Kozlowski in his normal duties.

In visiting SLU I am reminded of why I feel so happy to be going to Lehigh, because the two schools are similar in terms of size, number of majors, and balance of teaching and research. It was interesting to watch Dr. Kozlowski’s pedagogy in action, for example, because the way he teaches seems to embody a lot of what I heard was valued at Lehigh. He has an engaging style in the classroom and I saw a lot of good techniques on building rapport. But we also got a good chance to talk about the balancing act between cultivating those interactions with students while upholding standards.

I observed Dr. Kozlowski teach two classes, but the best parts of these visits for me is the chance to interact during downtime. I got to ask lots of questions about the tenure process, balancing career and family, grading, and working to make your expectations of a program or school a reality. What’s interesting is he’s a few years younger than me but already has accomplished so much and experienced a great deal. Getting a chance to hear his perspective on some of these things I’m just starting to deal with was helpful.

I also relish a chance to talk about research and philosophy in our field with like minds, and it seems like we share a lot of interests (including that we both did sports in our industry work). I joked that his book case was like a scene from my comps nightmares, because it looked awfully familiar (Lippmann, Dewey, research methods books, Lee Wilkins’ ethics book, The Missouri Group’s reporting book, and so on). And the lecture in media history today used the radio broadcast of the Hindenburg explosion as an example of how immediacy changes the way we view news, information, and culture – one of my favorite topics.

As an aside, I really love Jesuit universities. The campuses are always so nice and the environments always seem to ooze learning and scholarship. Santa Clara U, from my own backyard, remains one of my favorite schools.

Finding the right mentor-mentee matchings can be tricky for Dr. Justice to set up, I am sure, but I have to say I’ve been quite happy with the profesors I’ve been paired with and have been so grateful for their generosity in giving me time to learn from them. Professor Williams and Dr. Kozlowski are at different stages of their careers and have taken different routes to get where they are now, but the two visits have really given me a better picture of faculty life. I’m not getting just the public R1 or the smaller private perspective. The visits have had the effect of enlarging my outlook on our field and the opportunities that await me “out there.”

I think I also came away a little more confident. Both visits seem to confirm that I research and teach is in an area that has value to journalism schools and departments. I still think my particular take regarding social media and a new information ecology is an acquired taste for some (particularly the traditionalists among us), but the more I talk with people I meet in my field the more I feel I’m on the right track in the long run.

Either way, I have quite a bit to chew on in the coming weeks.