Program Implemented in the fall of 1995, the GTA Mentoring Program at The University of Tennessee is designed to promote the acculturation of future faculty as teacher-scholars. The program is sponsored by the UTK Chancellor s Office in partnership with the Alcoa Foundation. Graduate Teaching Assistants and Associates from 35 departments representing eight colleges meet bimonthly in interdisciplinary teams of ten students with a Faculty Mentor. Outstanding UTK faculty serve as Faculty Mentors. With their mentoring teams, these teacher-scholars share their insights about instructional goals and techniques, listen to concerns expressed by GTAs about the courses they teach, and discuss other matters related to teaching scholarship and research scholarship, particularly at research universities.
Research universities seem to value and reward research rather than teaching.
Yet the instructional mission of such universities cannot be fulfilled unless GTAs successfully teach.