[CCoE Notice] Future Faculty Program

[Knudsen, Rachel W]

Dear Engineering Faculty and PhD Students,

The following email was sent to all the departments. Please contact your department chair and I if you are interested in enrolling in this program. You must have the permission of both your advisor as well as the chair to enroll.

Regards,

Pradeep Sharma


Message to the Departments:

Dear Department Chairs:

As you know, with Dean Tedesco's encouragement in 2013, we had launched the CCE Future Faculty Program in our college. Such career developmental programs for Ph.D. students are also in place at many other schools (e.g., Maryland, Florida) and these programs have become noteworthy in helping their Ph.D. graduates seek placements in academia. Seven batches have already “graduated” from our program with some notable success. Rachel is compiling some success stories on a dedicated website which will be released soon.

The new cycle is open for enrollment (Fall 2020).  The FFP course that will meet on Mondays from 1130 am -1:00 pm—taught by me and occasional guest lecturers. In the Fall semester (and the follow-up in Spring 2021), the students will learn about what it is like to be a faculty, industry vs academia, how to optimize their doctoral work to be placed in the "right" post-doc or faculty position, give elevator pitches, generate new ideas for research, technical presentations, the art of communication,  networking, writing proposals, art of pedagogy, professional conduct in US institutions etc.

We request that you all publicize this program, and from those expressing interest,  handpick 3-4  of your best students to participate. Selection criteria should not be based on GPA or solely technical achievements. Research productivity/potential is a necessary condition but please do give strong weightage to soft skills such as motivation, maturity etc. If a department does not fill the quota of 3 students, I will be happy consider more from other departments if they have a surplus of high quality volunteers.

Interested students simply have to register for the 1 credit FFP seminar course ENGI 8111, Class Number 25742. We can only handle a limited number of students so I am seeking your top students who have a high likelihood of succeeding in an academic career—these are not necessarily students with the highest GPa. There is a financial commitment involved. Each of the selected student is given  $ 3000 to participate in conferences and/or other professional development activities. Of this amount, $ 1250 comes from the department chair, $ 1250 from the Dean’s office and $ 500 from the advisor.

By agreement, the 3/4 selected students from each department are given exemption from formally taking the departmental seminar course during the FFP semesters (to avoid a fee/GTF penalty) although they are strongly encouraged to attend those.

Best wishes, Pradeep

Pradeep Sharma
M.D. Anderson Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering
Professor of Physics
University of Houston
N207 Engineering Building 1
Houston, Texas 77204-4006
email: psharma at uh.edu<mailto:psharma at uh.edu>
Phone: 713-743-4502<tel:713-743-4502>
Fax: 713-743-4503<tel:713-743-4503>
website: http://www2.egr.uh.edu/~psharma/index.html
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