5 Things Established Faculty Can Do to Improve the New Faculty Experience
By Dr. Nicholas Von Glahn, Cal Poly State University - Pomona

Starting as a new faculty member is quite a transition, regardless of how long you have been teaching and doing research as a graduate student.  That is, there are challenges that you must learn to deal with that you may not have dealt with in graduate school:  relocating, committees, and bureaucracy.

Here are five things that my colleagues have done to improve my experience as a new faculty member:

1)  My colleagues treat me as a respected colleague even though I came straight out of graduate school.  I just completed graduate school and I look like it.  Although looking young is often a blessing, it gets a little old that when you first tell people your profession they typically make a comment to the effect of “aren’t you a little young to be a professor?”  I have never gotten that feeling from my colleagues.  I have been welcomed with a high degree of professionalism, which I believe has made the transition to being a faculty member much easier.

2)  Although I am new to the faculty, the members of my department always make feel like my input is welcome in departmental affairs.

3)  In graduate school you do have to deal with bureaucracy, but it is seems much worse as a faculty member.  Fortunately, my new colleagues have been more than willing to give me advice on dealing with a seemingly endless amount of rules, paperwork and, sometime, red tape.  In fact, one of my fellow faculty members was nice enough to give me a crash course on some of the trickier aspects of bureaucracy on campus so I would be prepared should I ever encounter one of these problem situations.

4)  Related to the last point, fellow faculty members have also been very willing to share their experiences or opinions with me about their methods of teaching and advising, but without the expectation that I will do things as they do.  I have learned some interesting teaching techniques and I have avoided some common new faculty pitfalls as a result of these conversations, but I have always felt as though my autonomy for developing my own styles of teaching and advising has been respected.

5)  In the short time (15 academic work weeks) I have been working as a faculty member, many of my colleagues have shared non-work related interests, which fosters a sense of community.  For example, although I am in the psychology and sociology department, I have had discussions about amateur astronomy and taking care of our pets.  Not only does this make me feel more comfortable with my new colleagues, but as someone who just relocated across the country, it makes feel me more at home in this new environment.

In closing, there are many things that more established faculty can do to make sure a new colleague feels comfortable and integrated.  Here I have listed a few that have made me very happy to be a part of my new department.