Graduate Ethical Teaching Forum

Mission Statement

The Graduate Ethical Teaching Forum is a space for postgraduates to come together and talk about teaching. As Graduate Reps for the CUSU women's campaign, and as supervisors ourselves, we feel that we should be talking more about how we teach, and how we can teach more ethically. We know we want our teaching to be accessible for our students, to build their confidence and independence and their love of our subjects; we know that higher education - and Cambridge in particular - can be difficult to navigate, especially for students from marginalised or oppressed backgrounds; we know that the supervision and teaching systems in which we participate are equally capable of perpetuating structural oppression as mitigating it. Our aim here is to open up a conversation on how we can address structural issues in our own teaching: we all have experiences of things going well or less well, and techniques we’ve developed over our teaching careers, so let’s get together and pool our knowledge.

On another level, we consider that graduate students teaching in this university face certain problems unique to their role. One major problem is a distinct lack of training for graduate supervisors: training is primarily undertaken by individual faculties, with supplementary (but optional) workshops run by colleges and the Personal and Professional Development Programme, but many supervisors feel undertrained and unsupported. Moreover, as casual and uncontracted workers, not guaranteed any quantity of teaching work from year to year, and given little official guidance not only in how to go about our work but also in the very terms of our employment, we are in a particularly precarious position. In practicality, there is a lack of accountability in both directions: on the one hand, students have few ways of registering complaints about ineffective or inadequate supervisors, and even when they do, the casual nature of supervisors’ employment means that these supervisors can find work elsewhere without addressing any problems in their teaching. On the other hand, graduate supervisors who face difficulties with their students or employers have little or no recourse to take, and constructive feedback can be hard to come by.

We intend to address these problems by a number of methods. Our regular meetings provide an opportunity for supervisors to discuss their teaching issues and share perspectives and experiences between different disciplines. We intend to develop a schedule of speaker or panel events relevant to these areas, which can also help strengthen links between Cambridge graduate supervisors and those in other universities, both in the UK and abroad. We also hope to work with the Disability Resource Centre and the CUSU Sabbatical Welfare Officer to develop and design training workshops for new and existing supervisors, and to negotiate with university administration regarding the position and training of graduate supervisors. We can do so much if we work together!

All events and websites are open to all genders and all university teachers (including postdocs, early career researchers, and teachers not affiliated with the university); we particularly encourage graduate students yet to supervise to get involved, and very much welcome the input and involvement of undergraduates.