Fordham English is "Teaching the Teachers," Says Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Chronicle of Higher Education this week published an op-ed by Elizabeth Alsop lamenting that too few PhD programs are training their students in the teaching techniques that will help them in their careers. Then Alsop cites just a few programs that have made major steps in the right direction--and Fordham's own English Department is one of them (her own program at the CUNY Graduate Center is another).

Image: Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle

"Closer to home," she writes, "I can report that the Graduate Center’s English department recently revised its first exam to focus on professionally oriented tasks, including the preparation of syllabi. At nearby Fordham University, the English Ph.D. program requires 'sequenced pedagogy training' in the form of a two-part teaching practicum students take in their second and third years."

Our Teaching Practicum prepares graduate students both to teach our own undergraduates at Fordham and to teach at universities, colleges, community colleges, and secondary schools where they may later get jobs.

So yes: we're "teaching the teachers." This recognition goes in particular to Professors Moshe Gold and Anne Fernald, who co-taught the Practicum for many years, and to Kirk Quinsland, who is currently teaching it with Professor Gold.