New graduate teacher training program plan stirs controversy

By Sheela V. Pai

Under fire for failing to provide teaching assistants with adequate training and facilities, the University has developed construction plans for a new graduate student center, which will include a new teacher-training program.

Last year, Yale College alumnus Alfred McDougal, BR '53, announced a promise to underwrite a center for graduate life. According to Lisa Brandes, director of the planned McDougal Center, "[He felt] graduate students needed a place of their own, much like how the undergraduates have the residential colleges."

Disputes over career counseling and teacher preparation programs have complicated student-administrator relations for some time. In response to graduate students' calls for a greater emphasis on job placement, the McDougal Center plans to include a new career counseling program for graduate students.

Until 1992, there was not a centralized teacher training program at Yale for graduate students.

According to Debby Applegate, GRD '97, GESO protests led to the creation of the first such program put under the guidance of former provost Judith Rodin. "Yale doesn't have a reputation for teacher training.... The faculty does not take a great interest in it," Applegate said.

Now, in the wake of the controversial Kutzinski Report encouraging increased faculty involvement, faculty members may play a role in the new Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), according to Brandes. While advancements in career counseling are welcomed by many graduate students, many are concerned with this involvement.

Faculty, however, still have not offered much aid in the development of teacher training, Applegate insisted. She claimed that this lack of enthusuasm is partly due to professors' and graduate students' differing views on peer training. "Professors believe graduate students don't know what they need for training while graduate students have a very clear idea of what they need to be better TAs," Applegate said.

Despite such concerns, however, Brandes still has high hopes for the prospect of an expanded graduate student training program. "[The McDougal Center] is what Yale should be about and what graduate education should be about," Brandes said. Back to News...