PHILADELPHIA — Early career faculty from minority-serving institutions across the nation converged on the University of Pennsylvania recently for a three-day boot camp focused on professional development.
ELEVATE (Enriching Learning, Enhancing Visibility, & Training Educators), a new initiative of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI), attracted 18 participants who teach at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.
Participants came from a diversity of MSIs such as Fayetteville State University (an HBCU), Diné College (a Tribal College), and California State University, Fresno (both an AANAPISI and HSI).
Faculty members engaged in interactive seminar-style workshops that focused on a wide range of issues, including balancing faculty work and personal life, developing research programs, grant writing and the publication process. The workshops were facilitated by CMSI researchers and senior faculty mentors who have firsthand experience working at or with MSIs,
“You learn a lot in graduate school, but you don’t learn everything,” said Dr. Langston Clark, an assistant professor of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition at the University of Texas, San Antonio who participated in the first cohort of what will be an annual program. “From being here, I’ve learned a lot from people who do similar research.”
