The GFDA Early Career and Department Leadership Workshops provide support, training, and forums for discussion of concerns and experiences within a full range of professional activities—teaching, research, and leadership. The workshops encourage a culture of success: 1) for early career faculty helping them understand the fundamental interconnections between teaching and research and 2) for department and emerging leaders focusing on improving their programs and approaching leadership issues.
Early Career Workshop
The early career workshop is open to graduate students and faculty who are just beginning their careers in higher education — instructors, lecturers, assistant professors, and other untenured faculty. The one-week program is open to faculty from all types of teaching and research institutions inside and outside the US. Learn More
Department Leadership Workshop
The Department Leadership Workshop is for all geographers interested in improving their programs — chairs/heads, associate chairs/heads, deans, academic advisors, provosts and other administrators, as well as all faculty interested in leadership issues. The workshop is particularly well suited for individuals who may soon assume leadership positions. Learn More
About the Geography Faculty Development Alliance Program
The Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) is a long-term, broad-based project involving several components: summer workshops including the Early Career Faculty Workshop and the Department Leadership Workshop, follow-up seminars, panel discussions, and paper sessions at the annual meetings of the AAG and the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE). There is also a longitudinal evaluation and research component to consider the value of the training to early career faculty during the tenure review process. A final component has involved publishing the workshop materials as a stand-alone course for use in graduate geography programs, including the books Aspiring Academics (2009) and Teaching College Geography (2009). GFDA was founded by Professor Ken Foote of the University of Connecticut with the support of the National Science Foundation and the AAG.
