From the top of the heap...

New professors adjusting well to life as 'Dr.'

Dr. Rebecca Meisenbach on her first day on the job as an assistant professor at Concord College in West Virginia

By Chris Stevenson
Journalism senior

She no longer has to share an office with three other people. And her students call her "Dr. Bonewits," not "Sarah."

But the transition from a graduate student to a professor has actually been low key, said Sarah Bonewits, thanks to her time at Purdue.

Bonewits, Devika Chawla, Katerina Tsetsura and Rebecca Meisenbach are just four recent graduates who have gone from studying at Purdue to faculty positions in communication departments across the country.

Experience gained as Purdue teaching assistants has proved valuable to these new professors as they teach their own undergraduate and graduate-level courses.

"When I was at Purdue, we were able to teach a variety of classes; that helps when you are faced with several new course preps as you start at a new institution," said Bonewits, now an assistant professor in organizational communication at Marquette University.

Tsetsura has found that undergraduate students respond differently to her now that she is a professor.

"Being a new faculty member is a great experience," said Tsetsura, an assistant professor in public relations at the University of Oklahoma.

"Students at OU are very active and very friendly — they stop by my office, chat and hope I'll give them all the answers in the world. It rarely happens when you are a graduate teaching assistant. I guess there is something magical about a diploma on the wall of your office that says 'Purdue University, Doctor of Philosophy.' "

Dr. Sarah Bonewits in her Marquette University office

Bonewits' own interaction with her faculty mentors at Purdue also has come in handy in dealing with graduate-level students outside the classroom.

"As I was talking to my first graduate advisee, I noticed that I heard myself saying many of the things that I had learned from my advisers," she said. "I definitely picked up a great deal of my style from people I worked with in graduate school."

Meisenbach said her advisers were especially useful her first semester as a professor.

"I got back from a crazy faculty meeting feeling confused and exasperated," she said. Her graduate adviser happened to call right then "and I poured it all out at her ... and she chuckled and said something like, 'It's funny to hear you having to deal with all of this now.'"

Though teaching undergraduate and graduate students and faculty service take up a lot of their time, these alumni also conduct research in their areas of interest.

"As a new faculty member, I had expected to be more independent in my research and teaching activities," said Chawla, an assistant professor at Ohio University. "That has definitely been the case."

"You can work on exactly the project you want to work on, for the length of time you want to work on it," added Meisenbach. "I always ended up hurrying through projects and then moving on to the next one for the next class. I find it far easier to stick with something and turn it into something now."

For all four new faculty members, graduate student experience at Purdue paved the way for a smooth transition to their new careers.

"I truly believe that the Department of Communication at Purdue prepared me well for my career in the academic world," said Tsetsura. "Invaluable teaching and research experience I got there helped me to polish my teaching and research skills and to realize how much I like the university environment."

"I think Purdue prepared me very well for the teaching and scholarly activities that I am required to conduct as faculty," added Chawla. "I believe that the work ethic that I learned there is serving me well as a new faculty."