Salud y adicciones: Una mirada crítica de la problemática

Figure 1 – Model of Doctoral Student Transition to Faculty Role

Anticipatory Socialization – The Graduate School Experience. The first stage is anticipatory socialization in graduate school. As suggested by Tierney and Bensimon (1996), this process is the point in which the individual first sees the academic enterprise and starts to “think” that they will become a member of the professoriate one day. During graduate school the individual begins to understand the role of faculty. Some doctoral students view faculty as

more than just professors, but rather role-models to what type of career can be obtained through the course of their academic studies (Tierney & Bensimon, 1996). The individual also views the inner-workings of the academic department as a functioning organization rather than just part of the institution (Bess, 1978). The individual at the stage of anticipatory socialization prepares for a new role by internalizing how to think, act, feel and perform if they were in the role of faculty (Merton, 1957). This stage can act both positively and negatively in relating the academic work role to future faculty (Bess, 1978; Tierney, 1997; Weidman & Stein, 2003; Weidman et al., 2001).

Change – Making the transition. The second stage is change within the organization (Louis, 1980). Change is related to how new faculty understand their role in the organization and acquire the knowledge to understand where the individual or new faculty member fits in. Schein (1971) identified three specific aspects that individuals within the change or

organizational entry stage must complete to successfully complete this process. The first being that the individual must gain the knowledge of the organization and their specific role within the organization (Schein, 1971). Secondly, the individual must understand the authority and

hierarchy of the organization in order to recognize the relationship between peers and superiors (Schein, 1971). Finally, the individual understands the boundaries of their role and how they can adjust those boundaries including time spent on work, self-directed management and inclusion of others in their day-to-day tasks (Schein, 1971).

Contrast - Making sense of the differences. The third stage of the framework is contrast whereby the individual begins to compare their perceptions of faculty life against the realities of faculty life in their normal task completion. During the contrast stage, new faculty will pay special attention to their graduate school experience as it relates to what they “thought” faculty

life would really be like in comparison to the outcome of their involvement as a faculty member. The propensity for stress in new faculty can be attributed to the contrast stage whereby the individual is now experiencing the reality of the career that they formed their opinions, preconceptions and perceptions about.

Nerad (2003) discovered that faculty did have a rude awakening when starting their academic career. Specifically, new faculty, reflecting on their graduate school experience identified that when they started their career, it was clear that they should have received more training in graduate school in areas such as teamwork, task completion, managerial and technical skills (Nerad, 2003).

Surprise – Realizing the difference between perception and reality. Finally, the fourth stage related to the conceptual framework is surprise. The identification of the four types of surprise - unmet expectations, unmet personal expectations, unmet-unconscious expectations and inaccurate assumptions challenges the new faculty member to understand the changes that they are feeling both internally and externally. Similar to the identification of the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards/disappointments as explained by Olsen (1993) the surprise aspect requires the new faculty member to assess what is important in their understanding of the academic work role and how they will be successful in it.

Louis (1980) explained that in the surprise stage, the individual could experience one or all of the types of surprise at the same time as they relate to: conscious expectations about the professional position are not fulfilled, expectations (both realized and unrealized) about one’s self are not met, work expectations are undermet or are not fulfilled at all, challenges to forecast what “normally” happens within the organization, and challenges to the personal assumptions the new faculty member has made or makes of the organization and its inner workings.

Using this conceptual framework, participants will be asked to relate their experiences during their graduate school training, particularly what they anticipated about starting their career in the professoriate. In doing so, new faculty will also identify the change, contrast and surprise aspects of their own experiences when entering the academy as a doctoral completer. By combining the anticipatory socialization aspect along with the Model of Newcomer

Experiences as postulated by Louis (1980), the sense making aspect of new faculty connects to display the process by which new faculty enter the organization.

Conclusion

The socialization process for new faculty began when they were in graduate school and deciding on an academic career (Bess, 1978). During the graduate school experience, doctoral students were exposed to the disciplinary aspects of their academic field and subsequently introduced to research methodology related to the same. Yet, during this period, doctoral students were not exposed to the work responsibilities, tasks and expectations of faculty life. Although several thousand new faculty start academic positions each year (Gaff, 2002) only a small number of them feel comfortable and prepared to begin their career as a faculty member (Sorcinelli, 1992; Sorcinelli & Austin, 1992).

Even though literature exists showing that new faculty experience stress over the tenure process, recognition, feedback for work performance, time allocation and balancing work versus personal time (Sorcinelli & Near, 1989), most new faculty enter the academy oblivious to the realities of an academic career. To that end, the goal of this study was to examine the

relationship that exists between what new faculty perceive regarding the academic workplace prior to entry and what they experience once they started their career as a professor.

CHAPTER THREE