The Graduate Teacher Program (GTP) provides for all graduate students:
Because teaching skills prepare graduate students for any career, all graduate students, including those with no teaching appointments, TAs, GPTIs, and RAs are welcome at GTP workshops on teaching, research, service, and personal and professional development. Workshops are held prior to both fall and spring semesters, throughout the academic year, and during summer session. Topics range from preparing a syllabus, diversity issues, effective approaches to research, academic service, and conflict management to preparing for an academic job interview.
The Graduate Teacher Program offers three certificates (see below). Requirements for each are posted on the GTP website at gtp.colorado.edu.
The Lead Graduate Teacher Network offers academic leadership training to 50 graduate students each year. Leads receive the Best Should Teach Silver Award, spend one week in extensive training, and assist departmental faculty with discipline-specific TA training.
International graduate students may benefit from workshops designed specifically for them at the Fall Intensive, workshops throughout the year, individualized consultation on teaching and career planning, and referrals to ESL services.
The Graduate Teacher Program’s Collaborative Preparing Future Faculty Network (COPFFN) provides professional development opportunities for graduate students and faculty. PFF fellows may attend site visits on partner campuses, identify a faculty mentor on a partner campus, work on technology projects, and pursue the PDC/PFF.
The Graduate Teacher Program collaborates with the University Libraries to provide Provost’s Fellowships to graduate students who wish to explore academic librarianship as a career.
To recognize and reward graduate teachers who devote time to improving their teaching, the Graduate School offers a Certificate in College Teaching (CCT) through the Graduate Teacher Program. The employment and training of graduate teachers is a professional apprenticeship that shapes the professoriate of the future. Although such certificates are not officially recognized at the state or national level, graduate students report that they are an asset when pursuing employment in postsecondary institutions. In North America, more than 80 research institutions currently offer similar certificates at the graduate level.
Professional development is invaluable to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows wanting to pursue a career outside academia. Leaders in business, government, industry, and the nonprofit sector want to hire graduate students or postdoctoral fellows who have demonstrated higher level organizational skills and an investment in their own professional development.
The Graduate Teacher Program in collaboration with Career Services administers the Professional Development Certificate for Business, Government, Industry or the Arts. This collaborative program engages graduate student participants in participation in both the Graduate Teacher Program and Career Services activities because teaching experience and content knowledge are valuable skill sets in the nonacademic market.
The Preparing Future Faculty certification has been designed to target the needs of graduate students who wish to pursue careers within academia. It provides graduate students with the opportunity to expand their understanding and appreciation for faculty careers in postsecondary institutions.
This certtificate is for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are interested in pursuing an academic career tract. Teaching is not a requirement for the the certificate, rather participants complete a project under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Workshops attended may cover teaching issues or professional development.