Path to the Professoriate Program

students at a table in conversation

The Program

Building on learnings from the Berkeley Summer Institute for Preparing Future Faculty, the Path to the Professoriate Program engages up to 100 first-year Ph.D. students from underrepresented backgrounds in workshops and structured activities around demystifying the route in their discipline to the Assistant Professorship and establishing and building a publication pipeline. Participants in the program will receive a $500 stipend at the end of each semester following the submission of the required deliverable.

In the fall semester, participants in the program will engage in a launch workshop featuring a panel consisting of tenured faculty members of color sharing their graduate student experiences and providing advice to program participants on navigating their doctoral programs. Activities in the fall semester will additionally require participants to “reverse-engineer” their path to the professoriate by conducting informational interviews with tenured faculty members, assistant professors and senior graduate students in their discipline or at the type of institution where they aspire to be hired. Participants will meet monthly in disciplinary cohorts. The fall deliverable for the program is an individualized roadmap of navigating their doctoral program.

In the spring semester, participants will focus on writing productivity and the publication process in their academic discipline. Workshops in the spring will explore issues of anxiety with writing; imposter syndrome; and writing to multiple audiences. The spring semester will also include a writing retreat for participants. A spring panel featuring tenured faculty of color and journal editors will explore successful approaches to academic publishing.

Registration is welcomed from all matriculating UC Berkeley doctoral students.

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Testimonies

As the first in my family to go to graduate school, I would have had a much harder time during my first year at Berkeley had it not been for Dr. Streete and Path to the Professoriate. This program demystified some of the hidden curriculum of graduate school—both academically, and, more importantly, in terms of long-term professional development—and, what’s more, I met some great people in it. I will be referring to my notes from P2P for years to come.”

“The P2P program allowed me to foster community with other graduate students of color. Although we were on zoom, I created long-lasting friendships with other students. It was a safe space where I could be authentically myself, something I sometimes cannot be in my department. My participation in this program made me feel more confident about my existence in the academy and my contributions.”

I have immensely benefited from this program. This is the only campus endeavor that I have been involved with, and it has been part of the reason that I feel connected to campus despite being physically away from Berkeley.”

This was a truly inclusive experience that I am fortunate to be a part of. Every week, I found something from the weekly topic that resonated with me as a non-traditional student.”

P2P helped me find my footing as a first year grad student and instilled confidence where there had been some lacking before.”

“​​I felt validated that my anxieties about graduate school were shared by others, and we were able to navigate them together.”

Questions

Application

Registration is welcomed from all matriculating UC Berkeley doctoral students, especially those from historically underrepresented backgrounds in graduate education.

Registration Deadline: August 1, 2023 at 5:00PM. First Session: September 8 at 3:00PM.

This program is facilitated by the Office for Graduate Diversity at UC Berkeley.

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