About PFF
Our Objectives
- Educate UCSF students and post-graduate trainees about various teaching methods and learning styles, which can be applied to their current and future careers,
- Connect UCSF students and post-graduate trainees with opportunities to develop their teaching skills in the classroom,
- Broaden awareness of career paths that include teaching in different environments,
- Establish peer and professional networks for students, postdocs, faculty, and alumni interested in teaching and academic careers,
- Aid students and post-graduate trainees in preparing for their academic job search,
- Increase marketability and competitiveness of UCSF graduates for a broad range of academic careers.
Our History
UCSF's PFF program, modeled after the Preparing
Future Faculty national initiative, was founded in February 2004 by a group of UCSF students and postdocs who recognized a need to balance UCSF's excellent training in research with better training in teaching. This program will increase the value for and visibility of teaching training at UCSF, broaden the opportunities for students and postdocs to gain teaching experience, and prepare them for the academic job search.
UCSF PFF debuted with the 2004
Summer Series. A keynote address by Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences, kicked off this 12-week series of lectures, seminars, workshops, and panels featuring renowned speakers in the fields of education and science. A highlight of the Summer Series was the Symposium of the Professoriate, a full day of panels and discussion groups led by faculty from a diverse selection of academic institutions in the Bay Area and across the United States.
The PFF 2004 Summer Series was planned and implemented entirely through the volunteer efforts of the Planning Committee. The PFF pilot program clearly identified a strong need in graduate and postgraduate education. In its first year, PFF had already grown beyond the auspices of volunteer abilities. In Fall 2004, the Planning Committee focused its efforts on developing a proposal to institutionalize and expand the program at UCSF. In the meantime, a new committee came forward to plan the 2005
Summer Series.
In July 2005, PFF was awarded funding to expand as a university-wide program. PFF has continued its tradition of student and postdoc leadership via a PFF Advisory Committee. Efforts to expand the program (including courses in teaching and learning, the Teaching Apprenticeship program, and expansion of programs into other disciplines at UCSF) are led via the direction of Dr. Cynthia Fuhrmann, Chair of the founding PFF Planning Committee and now Program Director of Academic Career Development in the Office of Career & Professional Development.
Past PFF Sponsors
Office of Career & Professional Development
Postdoctoral Scholars' Association
Graduate Students' Association
Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate
Graduate Division
Biochemistry Graduate Program
Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program
Cell Biology Graduate Program
Chemistry & Chemical Biology Graduate Program
Oral and Craniofacial Sciences Graduate Program/School of Dentistry