News from the Faculty Committee

The role of the faculty at SFCP is both crucial (obviously!) to its numerous educational endeavors and yet, at least in the recent past, somewhat vague in its functioning as a collective. Faculty members put in many hours of time, and much mental and emotional labor, to produce the best educational experience they can for our psychoanalytic candidates and psychotherapy students. The Curriculum Committee, for years under the able leadership of Lisa Buchberg, and now under Laurie Case's charge, has been the committee most directly involved in choosing, evaluating, and supporting our teachers. Phyllis Cath's many years of leadership of what was known as the Faculty Council laid the groundwork for much of what we hope to accomplish as a Faculty Committee.

We conceive of the Faculty Committee as responsible for invigorating the faculty as a collective. You might say that we hope to facilitate the hypercathexis of the Faculty as a collective for the entire Center. How do we hope to accomplish this goal? Through a number of programs and events, small and large, that together, over time, will contribute to a gathering sense of the Faculty as an alive, thoughtful and supportive group. Most importantly, we hope to contribute to the intellectual life of the Center in a meaningful and enduring way.

Here are our more specific ideas and goals:

1. Create open channels of communication between the Faculty Committee and faculty members, and between members. This will be done through use of email, other electronic forums, and occasional meetings to discuss particularly important policy issues.
2. Organize two Retreats per academic year, one in the Fall and one in the Spring. These retreats will focus on an important aspect of psychoanalytic teaching, education, or scholarship. The Retreat this past Fall on Teaching Psychoanalysis was well attended and considered by all to be a great success. Topics for future retreats include issues of group process, the role of Development (theory, infant observation, etc.) in the curriculum, the teaching of case conferences, among others. We are open to suggestions from members for future retreats.
3. Participate in the coordination of curriculum between programs.
4. Contribute to faculty development through mentoring and other supportive means in collaboration with the curriculum committees of the various teaching programs.
5. Recognize faculty excellence — this might take the form of teaching awards, best candidate paper, and the like.

We encourage all members, candidates, and students to contact us at any time with ideas, concerns, or questions.