Ph.D. Corner

The Carson College continues to be blessed with outstanding Ph.D. student teachers. In addition to the efforts of Yoshi Shimizu, two students received outstanding doctoral student teaching awards last spring: Gihan Edirisinghe (from the University Graduate and Professional Student Association) and Pavan Munaganti (from the Carson College).

Carson Ph.D. students will play a vital role in The Next Carson Coug program. We expect to witness increased interaction between Ph.D. teaching assistants (TAs) and undergraduate students as our courses reduce in size and accelerate student engagement activities. We anticipate TAs running more breakout sessions, consulting for student projects, and managing in-class activities. Meanwhile, Ph.D. students serving as full course instructors will be working toward increasing student engagement in the classroom. Long gone are the days of standing at the podium and speaking for 75 straight minutes. Our Ph.D. students will not only take a course on college teaching, but they also will participate in periodic teaching workshops that focus on student engagement.

In addition to shaping The Next Carson Coug, Ph.D. graduates will benefit by having produced a suite of student engagement activities they can include in their teaching portfolio when searching for full-time faculty positions. Faculty search committees around the world are hungry for evidence of teaching effectiveness and innovation in the classroom, and these teaching experiences will give our students a leg up on the competition.

Chuck Munson,
Ph.D. Program Director