ESC: English Studies in Canada

FROM NOVITIATE CULTURE TO MARKET ECONOMY: THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS DONALD C. GOELLNICHT M cM aster U niversity professionalization: The action of making or fact of becoming professional­ ized. professionalize: 2. in tr. To become professional; to proceed in a professional manner. professional: a. 1. Pertaining to or marking entrance into a religious order. O bs. 2. Pertaining to, proper to, or connected with a or one’s profession or calling. 3. Engaged in one of the learned or skilled professions, or in a calling con­ sidered socially superior to a trade or handicraft. n. 1. One who belongs to one of the learned or skilled professions; a pro­ fessional man. profession: 1. The declaration, promise, or vow made by one entering a religious order; hence, the action of entering such an order; the fact of being professed in a religious order. 6. The occupation which one professes to be skilled in and to follow. b. In wider sense: Any calling or occupation by which a person habitually earns his living. 7. The function or office of a professor in a university or college[.] professor: 1. E ccl. One who has made profession; a professed member of a religious order. Obs. 4. A public teacher or instructor of the highest rank in a specific faculty or branch of learning[.] profess: 3. To make profession of, to lay claim to (some quality, feeling, etc.); often implying insincerity, as ‘to profess and not practise’; to make protestation of; to pretend to. (All definitions from O E D ) W hen I was approached about giving the paper on which this article is based, I was asked to discuss the training we give graduate students at Mc­ Master to prepare them to enter the profession of English.1I agreed on the condition that this rehearsal of practical advice could act as a preliminary staging for a much wider-ranging examination of the ideological contradic­ tions involved in preparing graduate students to enter our profession. So, I begin with the practical strategies, with a brief description of what we E n g l ish St u d ie s in C a n a d a , 1 9 , 4 , December 1 9 9 3 are doing in our graduate programs in addition to teaching literature and theory; my focus is on the institution I know best, McMaster University. I should also point out that, as Graduate Advisor in English, I participate fully, even enthusiastically, in this process of professionalization, at the same time as I wrestle with the very considerable and problematic contradictions to which I will turn later. I At McMaster, the professional development of graduate students goes on through a number of fairly structured programs. First, all students in both the M.A. and Ph.D. programs are offered teaching assistantships in the large level-one undergraduate course, team-taught by faculty in sections of 200250 students. Each teaching assistant is responsible for two tutorial groups of 15-20 students each, and the duties of the T.A. include: meeting with each tutorial group for one hour a week for discussion of lecture material and assigned texts; marking (under the supervision of an assigned instructor) the essays and the Christmas exams written by members of the tutorial groups; holding office hours to discuss problems with individual students; and assigning a participation grade for the students. Every Ph.D. student is guaranteed a teaching assistantship for four years, so that, at the end of the program, she/he has considerable teaching experience. The duties of the T.A. are deliberately designed to avoid the excessive responsibility and time commitment involved in using T.A.s as full course instructors, while still allowing T.A.s to gain plenty of classroom experience, which would not be possible if they functioned simply as markers. At the start of each academic year, the Department’s Teaching Assistants Committee, made up of faculty members who teach in the level-one under­ graduate program, runs a series of seminars designed to train new T.A.s in pedagogy. These seminars deal with strategies for leading a tutorial (e.g., how to generate discussion, what kinds of tests are...