The faculty leader is responsible for the teaching, guidance, and evaluation of about 10-15 students during the seminar.

A faculty leader attends all program sessions, meets with students at least once during each weekday for 1-2 hours of group discussion and instruction, accompanies the students on site visits to embassies, think tanks, and other organizations in D.C., advises students on a variety of academic and professional matters related to the program, reads the students’ written work and provides a written evaluation of their academic and professional performance. This is a constant, “on-the-go” type of experience involving some very full days.

For faculty whose expertise involves active learning, this is an ideal environment in which to teach students how to take advantage of an experiential learning situation for the advancement of their academic and career goals. From a faculty member’s perspective, it is an exceptional professional development opportunity that offers frequent contact with major political leaders from the grass roots to the national and international level.

Faculty leaders must have a graduate degree

(Ph.D. strongly preferred) and experience teaching at the college level. Since programming and other arrangements are of a very flexible nature, often subject to last minute changes and even some cancellations, they must not only be energetic and enthusiastic, but also have a mature, positive approach in dealing with students.

The honorarium for the program is $1,200.

Faculty leaders are chosen on the basis of a variety of criteria.

If a faculty leader comes with a  pre-formed group of at least 10 students, such as a class in his/her home institution, the faculty member is automatically hired to be in charge of his/her own students. Priority is then given to faculty who recruit less than ten students from their own institution. In that case, they may be assigned additional students coming without a faculty member from their school. In addition, we are seeking faculty to add to the diversity of backgrounds and interests of the staff as well as the majors of the students who enroll in the program.

Incentives are available to help recruit students. For every 10 students participating, their institution receives one full scholarship that might either be used for an 11th student or can be distributed among the other ten students to lower their overall costs.

Some faculty who are compensated by their institution for teaching the students as part of a course sometimes donate their stipend as a scholarship to their students. On occasion, faculty who bring between five and nine students from their own institution can be hired and paid 1/2 of the usual stipend or be paid the full stipend if other students are added to their group. Please contact us for details.

Many private schools encourage student participation by collecting the tuition for three credits and pay The Washington Center for the seminar from the tuition collected, keeping the difference.

In that way, students are not “double-billed” and the program becomes quite affordable. Some public institutions have waived tuition or forwarded the tuition to The Washington Center with the students paying the difference. Most students are granted between 1-3 credits for this intensive 5 day seminar.

If you are interested, please return the Faculty Leader Response Form as soon as possible.

We will begin making firm offers starting in early April or as enrollment figures warrant. If you are not available for this program, please pass this letter on to someone you think might be. We very much appreciate your consideration of this invitation. We look forward to hearing from you.

For more information email us at seminars@twc.edu

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