III. Training Future Faculty and Leaders

Today's PhD students are tomorrow's faculty members. It takes at least five years to train a future professor in the humanities or social sciences; in science and engineering, it takes closer to a decade. Meanwhile, universities are changing and expanding rapidly– the research, teaching and leadership skills that faculty will need a decade from now are quite different from the skill sets that were valued in the academic hiring market a decade ago. We see new disciplines developing, with their own questions and methods. A future research leader must be able to collaborate in sophisticated ways with non-academic research enterprises.  Scholars are discovering they need new ways of communicating and disseminating research. We must prepare these future professors for all of these challenges while also equipping them to be exceptional teachers, carrying forward the core educational mission of the university.

Universities like Yale are weighing sweeping changes to their humanities doctoral programs in an attempt to get ahead of these trends. And the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine have called for significant innovation in training for future scientists. The next generation of doctoral and professional programs must not only offer students deep subject expertise, it must also prepare them to take a leadership role in a rapidly changing environment.

Dive Deeper: "6 Leadership Paradoxes for a Post-Pandemic Era" (HBR)

What skills will faculty leaders need in 20 years? How could Notre Dame be a destination for training scholars and leaders?