When new graduate teachers cannot define phonemic awareness as different than phonics, does it mean that their professors disregard the difference and the importance of phonemic awareness?

Yes! If you look the reports on reading, such as Teaching Children to Read (2004) and the Teaching Reading: National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (2005), they clearly and separately identify phonemic awareness and phonics as foundational elements for children to learn in their journey to become proficient readers” (John Hattie, personal communication, July 13, 2017).