To support doctoral students' preparation for academic careers, many institutions have established programs that provide opportunities for these future faculty to learn about educational theory and participate in mentored teaching practice. Yet, many of these programs are disconnected from the discipline-specific requirements and must be completed in addition to research and other responsibilities. When considering how to further support doctoral students' professional development, designers of these and similar programs need to account for the effects of particular components of the institutional climate on students' pathways and teaching experiences. Institutional climate in this context considers perceptual and behavioral dimensions of the higher education environment such as departmental climates, the influence of advisors, and the role of peer support. A case study methodology was designed to explore the experiences of alumni from a program that prepares students for academic careers and to examine the role of institutional climate on their experiences. Multiple sources of data from these program alumni were collected concurrently and analyzed using a modified analytic induction approach. The analysis presented here focuses on data from a subgroup of the alumni population, specifically those alumni from engineering disciplines. Results of this study indicate the effect of departmental culture on graduate students' abilities to secure teaching opportunities or obtain support for professional development in teaching. "Champions" from within these departments, however, support students' introduction to the program and their overall experience. Finally, the participants discussed the role of the program's learning communities in facilitating the development of their instructional practices while in the program and after. Results of this study support the continued improvement of career preparation programs by taking into account the effect of institutional climate on doctoral student preparation for diverse career pathways. In addition, these results complement existing literature about the graduate engineering student experience and the development of future faculty.
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