|
PFF 4 Summer 2001 Working Conference for Social Sciences and Humanities |
Conference
Report from Jerry Gaff, PFF Program Director .....
We
just concluded a very successful PFF Summer Conference that was held last Friday
through early afternoon Sunday in Boston. About 175 people came from around the
country, divided about equally between graduate students, graduate faculty, and
partner faculty. They shared their work in clusters and in professional
associations in six disciplines - communication, English, history, political
science, psychology, and sociology. I received many very positive comments and
not a single complaint!
A
stirring keynote speech was given by Jim Applegate, Vice President of the
Kentucky Higher Education System (The University has had a PFF grant since 1994)
and President of the National Communication Association (which has been a
partner since 1999.). He argued that we need to rethink both graduate and
undergraduate education, welcomed the graduate students into the reform
movement, and asserted that learned societies need to embrace initiatives like
the engaged campus if these initiatives are to be
successful.
After most of
the conference focused on aspects of PFF programs at the campus cluster level,
it ended with a focus on the learned societies. Each of the society executives
gave a brief action plan of specific steps each is planning to take this next
year to embrace PFF ideas and programs and to highlight this work to the
membership. Of course, we in the national office also shared our action plan to
support both the clusters and the societies. I never expected to see six
executives so excited and determined to provide strong leadership for PFF in
their Associations in my lifetime! They are great partners for us. By working
through their channels in the disciplines and our channels through the
institutions, we hope to magnify the voices that either approach alone could
affect.
The
weekend re-affirmed to Anne Pruitt-Logan and me that PFF is so big, so
important, so successful, and so well supported by influential people that it
can only continue to march ahead.
Download the
final program as a Word
document or as a PDF
document
To report dead links, please email [email protected]
© Preparing
Future Faculty. All Rights Reserved.