The Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) initiative from the Center for Excellence in Learning & Teaching (CELT) at VSU is designed to supplement departmental graduate student developmental efforts by offering additional teaching, community building, and professional learning possibilities for graduate student educators (GSEs).

The PFF program is spearheaded by Bryan FitzGerald, the training specialist for CELT and the Center for eLearning. As a current graduate student himself, he is keenly aware of the challenges graduate students face in balancing their roles as students, researchers, and educators. He is deeply committed to providing support for fellow graduate student educators through his role with CELT. To contact Bryan, e-mail him at brfitzgerald@valdosta.edu or call 229-253-2904.

Read more about the professional development opportunities for graduate student educators and then take the Graduate Student Educator Feedback Survey so we can learn more about your experience as a graduate student educator.

Graduate Student Educator Professional Development

The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching has curated a selection of resources designed to aid you in your work as a graduate student educator. All GSEs should be enrolled in a BlazeVIEW course titled “Resources for New Teaching Assistants.” The course contains guides to using our learning management system (BlazeVIEW), webinars on best teaching practices, and infobase trainings on a wide variety of pedagogical topics. If you are not currently enrolled please contact Bryan FitzGerald to be added to the course.

CELT would be happy to organize a learning community for graduate student educators. A learning community is an ongoing, active group of educators who work together to explore new teaching practices, support one another as a community, and research, write, and lesson plan together. Please contact Bryan FitzGerald if you would like to participate in a GSE learning community.

Although the topics covered in trainings for graduate student educators may overlap with webinars and in-person workshops offered to full-time faculty members at VSU, GSEs will face unique challenges and require specific training needs. As such, CELT-eLearning is pleased to offer GSE specific trainings on a variety of topics including: , , and .

Any new training will be listed in the  for GSE's to officially register. But we also welcome your recommendations and requests in developing our GSE training offerings. Tell us how best we can support you by answering this three-question survey below:

Graduate Student Educator Feedback Survey

You can help the next round of graduate student educators at VSU by providing feedback about your experiences and needs as a GSE. This information can help shape future decisions about the resources and trainings provided to future graduate student educators at VSU.

Completing the survey should only take a few minutes and your answers are completely anonymous. We thank you, in advance, for your participation.

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