We are excited to host the third meeting of the XR Future Faculty Forum. This Forum aims to foster a vibrant community of scholars and educators who are eager to collaborate, learn, and advance together toward or in an academic career in the XR field. Forum meetings will be a means to introduce students who are interested in or curious about an academic career to professorship. And, Forum meetings will be a venue where colleagues can reconnect and collaboratively develop future generations of academic researchers. You can expect the following at F3 meetings:

1. Engaging Sessions: Delve into thought-provoking presentations and discussions led by distinguished experts at the forefront of XR in academia.
2. Mentorship and networking: Connect with experienced faculty, postdocs, and senior graduate students who have successfully integrated their interests into academic careers. Build meaningful connections, seek guidance, and explore potential collaboration opportunities.
3. Professional Development: Acquire valuable insights and resources for career development in academia. Gain guidance on navigating the academic job market, establishing your research profile, and cultivating a successful academic career that embraces XR technologies. 

F3 convened for the first time at IEEE ISMAR 2023, and then again at IEEE VR 2024. We will convene at future IEEE ISMAR and VR conferences in the XR space.

The ISMAR 2024 F3 meeting will take place for a full day on Monday, October 21.

The following sections provide more details about what the XR Future Faculty Forum will look like at ISMAR 2024 and how you can participate: 

Overview & Goals
Forum Format
Forum Schedule
Call for Participation

Overview & Goals

This forum meeting is designed to foster mentorship, education, and collaboration among students who are curious about becoming AR/VR (or XR) faculty someday.

The meeting of the Future Faculty Forum at ISMAR 2024 will feature panels and tutorials with current professors about various aspects of professorship such as tenure, creating and organizing a research program, teaching, and professional service, and more generally what aspects of their profession they really like and dislike, and why. We will attempt to include professors (on the panels) who have also worked in industry, and therefore have some basis for comparison. Additionally, the forum will include “speed advising” sessions in which students will be able to have several short advising sessions with current faculty. In this portion, students will have the opportunity to ask more specific questions pertaining to a particular professor’s experience while learning from a breadth of experiences. While brief, these meetings will help form relationships between students, junior faculty, and professors, and participants can continue their conversations later in the forum and conference. The panels and speed advising sessions will feature diverse faculty to provide students with various perspectives on the meaning of, success within, and preparation for professorship. Throughout the forum, there will be an emphasis on creating and sustaining an academic environment that is diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible.

Forum Format

The XR Future Faculty Forum meeting will be in-person and will consist of interactive tutorials, multiple panels with group discussions, and 1-on-1 mentoring sessions.

The interactive tutorials will go into detail about successfully preparing professor application materials and the interview process. For instance, we will go over an ideal CV and discuss the importance of a cover letter. We will also see examples of research, teaching, and diversity statements, and critique them as a group. Further, the tutorials will introduce forum attendees to details about the professor job cycle. Attendees will learn about when the job cycle opens, how long it lasts, and how to read calls for professor positions. We will also cover what happens once the application is submitted, e.g., what to expect at a virtual interview, how to prepare for an in-person interview. Finally, we will cover aspects of negotiating a job offer.

Each panel will be centered on a specific aspect related to being a professor (e.g. a panel on how to manage a research lab, a panel on dealing with the challenges of interdisciplinary research). For each panel, we will have a brief introduction of the panel members and the panel topic, and then move into questions and group discussions. We will have prepared some starter questions to get the discussion going, after which we will open the floor to questions and comments from the forum attendees. We will recruit professors with the appropriate background to speak on the panel topic (e.g. the panel on differences in universities will include faculty from a range of institutions and countries to best represent the different perspectives on this topic).

In order to facilitate more personalized discussions, we will also host a “speed advising” session. In this session, attendees will be paired with a professor for 15 minutes for a 1-on-1 conversation. This conversation gives aspiring professors the opportunity to get advice regarding their specific situations and questions, unlike the more general advice from panel sessions. After each 15 minute session, attendees will be rotated out so that more people can get the chance to speak to a professor.

Forum Schedule (Tentative)

Start	End	Event
8:45	9:00	Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:00	10:00	Tutorial: Professor Application Process (Ryan McMahan)
10:00	10:30	Break
10:30	11:30	Tutorial: Review and Critique of Application Materials (Research, Teaching, and Diversity Statements) (Cassidy R. Nelson)
11:30	12:00	Speed Advising
12:00	13:30	Lunch
13:30	14:15	Panel 1: Challenges and Opportunities of Interdisciplinary Research
14:15	15:00	Panel 2: Differences in Universities (Geographical, Research vs. Teaching Allocations)
15:00	15:30	Break
15:30	16:15	Panel 3: Lab Formation and Management
16:15	16:45	Speed Advising

Call for Participation

If you are interested in staying up-to-date with information about the XR Future Faculty Forum or are interested in helping out as a panelist in the future, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/q1Kaqf3HUGkPfEWG6, or send us an email at futurefacultyforum@gmail.com. 

Organizers

Matt Gottsacker
Cassidy R. Nelson
Niall L. Williams
Lee Lisle
Radha Kumaran
Ryan P. McMahan