NSF Innovation in Graduate Education Challenge

I am a finalist in the NSF Innovation in Graduate Education Challenge.  A copy of my proposal, “Creating a Cooperative Environment for Graduate Studies and Career Preparation,” appears below.  If you like my ideas and would like to show your support, please vote for my proposal.  The deadline is May 29, 2013, at 5pm.

The purpose of graduate education in the STEM disciplines is to prepare students for careers requiring specialized knowledge and skills.  However, most of the formal education in graduate school is focused on increasing subject area knowledge, in both breadth and depth, and critical thinking.  While these abilities are certainly key to success in jobs requiring advanced degrees, there are many other knowledge and skill sets that are not part of formal graduate training.  Students, then, must rely on other means to gain experience in grant writing, establishing productive collaborations, teaching, and lab management.  Often these skills are modeled by graduate mentors, but the end result is haphazard, inconsistent, and often fraught with poor habits.  For instance, many mentors, particularly in the biomedical science, abhor teaching undergraduate students.  That faculty’s mentees, then, are likely to dislike teaching or are forced to pursue it in secret.

The end result of this patchwork training is twofold.  Firstly, when graduates pursuing academic careers start their own labs as an assistant professor, they struggle to balance their academic work with mentoring, management, teaching, funding, and service duties.  The second effect is that graduate training only prepares students for academic research positions.  Graduate students interested in non-academic or non-research careers are, in reality, left to fend for themselves.

The goal of my proposal is to create a model of graduate curriculum where students identify the career paths that most appeal to them and develop the skills to effectively prepare them for those careers.

Career Mentoring

STEM graduate students typically choose a research mentor within their first year of study.  This mentor can also help them to develop skills in presenting, writing, etc., but I propose that students should also choose one or two career mentors.  Graduate programs should identify faculty members willing to serve as career mentors, and help students choose which mentors would provide the best guidance over the course of the student’s time in graduate school.  Faculty with experience in industry, teaching, public policy, and outreach should be recruited to meet with students at least twice per year.

The focus of this mentorship should be on identifying particular experiences and credentials during graduate school that will help the student move toward his/her career goals.  Programs may have to establish relationships with different colleges to find mentors with similar interests.  For instance, a mathematics department may reach out to neighboring schools of public health or education.  Ideally, the career mentors will share various resources and opportunities with the graduate students, such as fellowships in science policy through AAAS, postdoctoral training in teaching, or how to find open positions at nearby corporations.  In essence, the research mentor will ensure that graduate students deserve the masters or doctorate degree, and the career mentor will ensure that they can put it to good use.

Courses

Graduate programs should offer career-oriented courses.  Specifically, I recommend a full semester course in grant writing and a modular course in scientific skills.

Grant Writing

The financial mechanism of most academic STEM disciplines is obtaining grants from various funding agencies.  Hence, I propose that graduate programs should require students to take a course in grant writing.  The beginning of the course would inform students about different funding agencies and mechanisms.  Then students would draft specific aims pages for review by the instructors.  After incorporating the initial comments, students would write the first draft of their grant proposal, modeled after a predoctoral fellowship proposal.  At a mock study section, peer and faculty reviewers would share their assessment of the proposal’s content and style.  A final round of revisions would then be followed by the second mock study section to assess the revised proposals.  Second year students are more likely to find this class useful as they will have a greater depth of knowledge of their research projects, making for stronger proposals.  After the class is finished, each student would have a document that is ready to submit to a funding agency and/or as the basis for a preliminary thesis examination.  Plus, students would be acquainted with the peer review process, which will be useful if they are asked to review grant proposals or manuscripts for publication.  A formal grant writing course would also help students think about proper experimental design, innovation, and broader impacts.

Modular Scientific Skills Course

A number of skills are essential to working in STEM disciplines, but there is currently no formal way to develop these skills.  Training graduate students in these various areas would alleviate stress and increase productivity and quality of life as they transition to new jobs.

Modular courses are an appropriate way to meet this need.  Instead of a single course to cover all of the career information and skills, the content units can be divided into modules, each taught by a different faculty member.  The example I’ve shown below is for a modular class during a shorter summer semester, though the course could be offered and extended to a traditional fall/spring semester.  For each two week period of the semester, students choose one module to take from the two or more options that are offered.  In this manner, the student has a personalized educational experience.  Students should also have the ability to repeat this course in subsequent years so that each student could feasibly take most or all of the modules.

	Module 1 Weeks 1-2	Module 2 Weeks 3-4	Module 3 Weeks 5-6
Option 1	Mentoring/ lab management	Teaching	Service/ outreach
Option 2	Academia – liberal arts to Research 1	Lab budgeting	Public policy
Option 3	Entrepreneurship/ Industry	The job search	University & department governance

Descriptions of potential modules:

Mentoring/lab management – The mentoring relationship can be an essential part of the graduate school experience.  Faculty mentor graduate students and postdocs, who in turn mentor undergraduates and high school students.  This module would handle good and bad mentoring strategies.  As an extension, the module could cover general principles of lab management, such as maintaining a friendly working environment, building rapport, establishing authorship, and resolving conflicts.

Teaching – Good teaching is more than telling students what you know.  It involves designing courses and lectures with particular goals in mind.  Graduate students in this module would learn about and experience the best practices in pedagogy and classroom management.  At the end of the course, interested students could be provided with teaching assistant opportunities.

Academia – Research in an academic setting can take on many forms.  This module would compare and contrast research-focused schools, liberal arts colleges, large state schools, private universities, and community colleges.  What type of scholarship is produced at each school?  How is this balanced by teaching and service?

Lab budgeting – To graduate students, the lab budget is a nebulous concept.  Why not show students how a lab budget works?  Where does money come from and where does it go?  How many salaries does an NSF grant cover?  And is there enough left over to run experiments?  This module would give students the chance to see the financials of running a lab.  Ideally, research mentors would then share their lab budgets with students, adding a new level of transparency to an otherwise vague system.

Entrepreneurship/Industry – How do academic findings translate into real-world solutions?  This module would examine the patent system and startup companies, as well as how industry is different from academia.  Invited speakers from nearby corporations would share their experiences in moving away from academic work.

University & department governance – The structure of departments within colleges and universities is not always clear, especially with multiple committees, centers, and divisions with overlapping responsibilities.  Students in this module would learn about the internal functioning of their institution.  An formative part of the module could be participation in a department faculty.

Many of these modules can serve as an in-depth introduction to these topics, connecting students with relevant resources and opportunities.  Through these modules, students could further seek out the institution’s teaching certificate programs, outreach initiatives, student government committees, externships, Preparing Future Faculty programs, and career counseling services.  It is also feasible that students could enroll in combined degree programs, such as MS-MBA or PhD-MPH.

Conclusion

The overarching purpose of this proposal is to allow graduate students to develop as unique individuals.  Many STEM disciplines are evolving, and academia is not currently equipped to thoroughly prepare graduate students for the wide variety of jobs available to them.  By providing the resources and facilitating the connections, graduate programs would acknowledge that there are many paths available after graduate school.  Many institutions have efforts to improve graduate student training, and this proposal builds on those efforts by indentifying the students who would benefit from them most.  Additionally, graduate programs would provide well-rounded training to students, not only in content knowledge but also in the activities and skills most essential to their future success.

NC DNA Day 2013

A couple weeks ago, a fellow graduate student and I participated in NC DNA Day, which is a yearly event to promote science education in public schools.  The UNC School of Medicine sponsors this day of outreach as well as a mini-festival and 5k race this coming weekend.  Scientists from NC universities and biotech companies are invited to travel across the state and give hour long presentations on DNA with some interactive activities.  The DNA Day organizers make the process completely turnkey – all you have to do is pick up your bag of materials, download the PowerPoint files, and you’re ready to teach.

We traveled to Southern Vance High School in Henderson, NC.  The students were just about to start a unit on genetics, so our lesson would be a good primer for the content that was to follow.  We opted to teach a standard-level, sophomore biology class as well as an honors biology class in the same grade.  The honors class took in the information more readily and we ended up with 20 minutes left over at the end of our unit, but the standard-level students seemed more engaged with the larger picture of the material and the moral dilemmas posed by gene therapy.  Both classes of students were cooperative and respectful, with a couple of class clowns that were pretty easy to handle.

Of the four modules offered, we were assigned “Genes and Disease: Cystic Fibrosis,” which covers basic genetic inheritance, pedigrees, the Central Dogma, and mutations.  The first major activity for the students was to demonstrate the random chance involved with inheritance.  To illustrate this point, fuzzy balls were placed into a paper bag, each representing one allele of a particular gene.  For instance, heterozygotes (carriers) would have one red ball and one white ball, whereas people affected with a recessive disease (such as cystic fibrosis) would have two red balls in their bag.  Students then drew the alleles that were passed on to the next generation, and this information was filled in on a pedigree at the front of the room.  This activity was quite fruitful as students picked up on the stochastic nature of inheritance.

The second activity was having the students figure out the genotypes of family members in a pedigree.  A couple of individuals were known to have cystic fibrosis, and others were normal individuals who were (somehow) known to not be carriers.  From this information, students were able to assign genotypes to all individuals in this family.  One point of contention between our activity and the classroom was with one individual in the pedigree who could have been homozygous dominant or heterozygous.  The classroom teacher emphasized that on the End of Course exams, these students would not have an ambiguous case such as this.  We had to concede that it was “likely” that the individual in question was homozygous dominant (having birthed three homozygous dominant children).

The final activity asked students to transcribe two DNA sequences (the two alleles in the above heterozygous individuals) into RNA and then translate this into a protein sequence.  Students then compared the protein sequences to a reference sequence to reveal a silent mutation and a missense mutation.  This coding activity removed some of the complications of teaching the process of translation (ribosomes, codons, etc.) so that students could focus on what a DNA mutation does.

In all, the students responded well to these lessons, and most seemed to have a better grasp of the material by the end of the class.  Hopefully, this introduction will give these classes a leg up with their genetics unit.  We told the teacher that she could contact us in the future if she wanted more information from us, or even if she wanted us to Skype into the class as a guest expert.

I highly recommend that any interested scientists participate in next year’s NC DNA Day.  It is a very fulfilling outreach activity with minimal effort required.  Please look at their website and peruse the other modules that are available.

Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

Most of the courses you take in college solely use textbooks for content and assignments.  When I was a teaching assistant for a Duke genetics class, the professors also assigned the non-fiction book Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne.  During the evolution part of the course, students were assigned chapters in the book to read as homework.  In class discussions would then focus on what Coyne discussed in each chapter, giving the students and professors a springboard to starting a conversation on what evolution is and what is the evidence for it.

I found the use of Coyne’s book in class a refreshing departure from textbooks, which by nature tend to be drier than other forms of writing.  Undoubtedly the authors want to cover the main ideas, terminology, and experiments of particular fields, but they don’t always connect the dots in a reader-friendly fashion.  Since Why Evolution Is True is a non-fiction book for a general audience, the tone is more conversational while still being informative.  Coyne connects the dots for evolution in general, but also points out numerous examples of evolutionary processes.  Early chapters cover the fossil record, vestigial organs, and developmental processes shared across species.  Later chapters apply these ideas to humans and ask, “What are the dominant drivers of evolution?”

After reading the book, the professors of the class arranged for Coyne to participate in a class discussion via Skype.  After a couple small technological glitches, the students had the opportunity to interact with the author of a book they had read, something unprecedented in my educational experience.  They also asked good questions about the book’s content and about the implications of the theories and processes that Coyne discussed.  I think the combined use of this book, in-class discussions, and a Q&A session with Coyne helped the students engage with the material.

One facet of Why Evolution Is True that I found unattractive was the author’s tone when discussing evolution and religion.  There is undoubtedly a great deal of tension between science and religion throughout human history (ex. Galileo was found “vehemently suspect of heresy” by the Catholic Church for promoting heliocentricism).  Over 150 years have passed since the publication of Darwin’s seminal On the Origin of Species, and yet evolution remains a controversial topic.  Public school teachers in many states are not allowed to discuss evolution with their students.  Some are required to also discuss “intelligent design” as an acceptable alternative theory (just to be clear, it is not).

Given this long history and the many different positions held by the public, one would expect Coyne to tread lightly when it comes to religion.  Instead, he consistently dismisses intelligent design and takes various pot-shots at religious beliefs in general.  I’m not a religious person, and I was offended and turned off by some of Coyne’s rhetoric.

Reading some of these passages reminds me of seeing Richard Dawkins give a talk a few years ago.  For anyone who has read or seen Dawkins in person or on TV, many of you will know that he does not mince words when it comes to evolution and science.  He often seems to be the main voice for the scientific community when it comes to evolution, which is a shame.  While Dawkins is incredibly eloquent and well-versed in the evidence, he does not believe in compromise.  He is correct that we should not compromise on the evidence and arrive at some pseudo-evolutionary theory, but he wants nothing to do with organized religion.  At the talk I attended, one woman stood up to say that she believes everything he says on evolution, but she is also a religious person who, like many academics, thinks that evolution and God are not mutually exclusive.  She extended her support to Dawkins if he would take it.  Dawkins, however, nearly called her a fool and refused her help.  I feel that this abrasive, rigid attitude alienates more people to science.

While Coyne’s comments are not as strong as Dawkins’, he may still estrange readers and students from his message.  I still highly recommend Why Evolution Is True because of the way Coyne makes the content approachable.  Additionally, I think that teachers should ask the students how the tone makes them feel.  Turn this controversy into a teachable moment.  I would devote an entire class session to discussing how evolution fits into our society.  Where are the sources of tension?  How can they be resolved?  Is there a place for religion (intelligent design) in a biology classroom?  What happens when your biology teacher doesn’t believe in evolution?

These are important questions that still need to be resolved.  Engaging students from diverse backgrounds in the conversation can help them understand the arguments and form their own opinions.  The scientific community needs a lot more allies in the general public, and we can start by demystifying the tensions around evolution.

Three Principles for Cultivating Excellence – A Comment

It seems like science deadlines always coincide with busy times in your life.  That is certainly true at the moment as I’m working to finish my first draft of a textbook chapter while still getting my ducks in a row for pre-Christmas festivities and complete my holiday gift preparation.  So for now, I’m going to do a quick post – a comment on an interesting article I read in Faculty Focus.  Please follow this link for the original article, “Three Principles for Cultivating Excellence.”

In the article, Dr. Nangia draws parallels between yoga and academic success in undergraduate studies.  I love to see the connections between two seemingly disparate fields, and I feel Dr. Nangia does a great job establishing her three principles.

My only comment is in regard to her “100 Percent” Principle.  I believe she is correct that you achieve the most in an area of your life when you immerse yourself in it and focus your energies.  This can extend to undergraduate coursework, but not always.  I’m the product of a large state school, and while I immersed myself in a research experience, I did not do the same with my classes.  I cut corners where I could and still I earned A grades.  I never felt like I focused on my subjects any more than was required.

The onus is on the student to do the work, but the instructor also bears a responsibility.  Don’t tell the students to give 100% if you’re not putting 100% into course design.  We as teachers have to engage our students in the material.  If we can elicit buy-in, then the students are more likely to give it their all.  Instructors will benefit from student engagement, creating a truly exciting environment of exploration.  The 100% Principle is, in reality, a codependent, mutualistic, relationship.

The Purpose of Higher Education

I recently reviewed the book Higher Education? (see it here).  The authors expect colleges to perform very specific duties for their students.  Most of their focus is on a true liberal arts education to expand students’ minds and thinking.  Students should discuss the finer points of fine art, then debate the existence of free will, and later explore how Darwin’s travels shaped the theory of evolution.  The authors eschew any sort of vocational training and think students should forestall decisions about careers until after college.

My view of higher education is more pragmatic.  It is a place for young adults to go to start their transition to the real world, and it is the university’s responsibility to prepare them.  The following is my take on the purposes of higher education.

1. Independence

   Essential for making the move from living with Mom and Dad to striking out on their own, independence means students should learn to assess options and make responsible decisions.  To accomplish this, they’ll need to learn organization, time management, budgeting, and general responsibility.  They don’t need to know everything.  Just like good leadership, students need to learn how to find the information they need.

2. Critical thinking

   Part of the path to independence is learning to think critically:  analyzing facts, identifying bias, maintaining a healthy skepticism.  Students need directed practice with all of this.  I feel that teachers often tell students to think critically without guidance and explaining the process.  If more undergraduates learn to use reason, then we might be able to expect the same from the news media and politicians.

3. Understanding others’ points of view

   The third point on my list stems from a personal observation.  In recent years, it seems that our nation is polarizing.  We need to force students to consider other points of view.  What motivates other people?  What are their goals, methods and needs?  What value is there in their arguments?  Where is the common ground?  Without this understanding, we get the Tea Party movement:  a group of extreme conservatives who enter politics (a supposedly balanced system based on negotiation) vowing to never compromise.  Outside of politics, there are many different cultures and walks of life; we all have a lot to learn from each other

4. How to learn

   One of the greatest advances of Homo sapiens over our primate ancestors appears to be our ability to learn and pass on information between generations.  As such students need to not only learn lots of information, but they need to learn how to learn.  Whether it’s cramming a lot of information into short-term memory or cementing important ideas into long-term memory, we need to draw upon our knowledge to solve problems.  Learning to think about how you think (metacognition) can also tell you about how you’re learning and why you’re thinking the way you are.  Plus, one way to be creative is to apply concepts and ideas you’ve seen before to a new context.

5. Creative outlets

   No matter how much you ask students to do for class, they need to identify creative outlets.  I know that my mind works in a logical, structured manner.  In high school, I still used formulas for constructing paragraphs (intro sentence, three sentences of support, conclusion sentence).  But I still crave a way to engage the creative side of my brain, so I cook, bake, craft, garden, and write.  All of our students need ways to use the right side of their brains.  We should encourage this outside the classroom, but we can also provide alternative assignments.  Instead of writing an essay, make a video or record a podcast.  Be careful, though, because you may end up with a few models of DNA made from toothpicks.

6. Technology

   Most students enter college with a passable understanding of technology.  It may seem like they’re nearly technokinetic, but they still have a lot to learn about appropriate uses of technology.  Sure, they can set up your iPad to ePrint, but do they know how to weigh the merits of their resources?  Is their only recourse for research Google?  It is our duty to expand their tech repertoire beyond P2P filesharing systems to make sure they are responsible netizens.  It’s especially easy in the online environment to let social mores slide, relying on sarcasm and snarkiness instead of consideration and thoughtfulness.  We need to help them remember that human beings, not computers, are at the other end.

7. Career guidance

   In my personal experience, one of the biggest failings of academia is providing each student with sufficient career guidance.  At most schools, career centers are opt-in opportunities.  It’s feasible that a student could obtain a degree in Spanish and then realize that he has no idea what his career options are.  The “pre” tracks (pre-med, pre-law, pre-vet, etc.) make it clear what their suggested coursework is and the main career options are fairly obvious.  The same cannot be said for other majors.

   In order to tackle this, I believe that our career and advising centers should be merged.  Start at orientation and make advising an open, genuine discussion.  Continue to meet with students at least every semester to get them into the career frame of mind.  College is about learning and growing, but the college experience should help students frame their career goals.  What jobs do they want to do?  What skills and experiences will they need to get there?  It’s great if you major in a topic you find interesting (psychology, philosophy, chemistry), but another option is to choose the major most in line with your goals and keep interesting classes for minors or one-off electives.  Each department should also have career counselors to delineate common paths.  You could go to graduate school in biology, become a laboratory tech, work at a museum, teach in the public schools, etc.  Many students face these options alone after graduation, so we can demystify this process and provide them with the resources to succeed.

8. Health – physical, mental, social

   For many students, college is the first time they’re in total control of their lives, including food choices, schedules, and friends.  As educators, we have the opportunity to teach our students about their health from academics to application:  biochemistry and physical wellness; psychology and self-awareness; sociology and empathy.  We can have a profound impact on their overall health if we help them establish sound, balanced habits as they prepare for the real world.

9. Sense of local and global community

   No man is an island and it seems like no part of the world is disconnected.  Colleges, for that matter, are rooted in their local community and connected to the world.  Our curricula should encourage students to explore their local communities and get involved in town politics and volunteerism.  Courses should include themes of globalism.  Ask students to consider how the material they’re studying affects problems in industrialized and developing countries.  Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected, so we should help our students start to make those mental connections.

10. Passable understanding of art, science, etc.

    Nearly all schools promote a liberal arts education through general studies requirements.  No matter your major, all students will take classes on history, social science, writing, science, etc.  Advanced Placement classes in high school can help students opt out of many of these requirements.  Many students barely eke through non-major classes because they have to.  Admittedly, as a science student, I had trouble seeing the significance of my non-science courses.  I’ve also talked with non-science people and it’s clear that they did not have good experiences with biology and chemistry.

    A liberal arts education is more than making “well-rounded” students.  While students are specializing in their majors, they should also understand the basics of other fields.  By studying different subjects, students should be making connections gaining new perspective.  How does history influence chemistry and vice versa?  What can we learn from biology and apply that to psychology and sociology?  Moreover, if our students can tell fact from spin, then they can make more informed decisions.

Book Review: Higher Education? by Andrew Hacker & Claudia Dreifus

After 4 years as an undergraduate and another 4 doing research at Duke as a graduate student, I feel I’m beginning to understand how academia works.  In an effort to further edify myself on the inner workings of academia, I read Higher Education? by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus.  The authors’ primary goal is to compare what higher education was originally designed to do against what it looks like now.  They make some good points, but sometimes take their ideas too far in my opinion.  Here’s a rundown of their main points:

Put the “education” back in higher education

The focus of higher education should be on education.  On first read, this may seem to be a reflexive statement, but it reflects a pervasive issue at colleges and universities.  Professors’ jobs consist of research, teaching, and service, with most of the emphasis on the first two.  As long as those activities are in balance, everything is right with the world.  But currently it seems that many professors’ careers are off-kilter.  At top-tier universities, research is paramount.  MIT, Harvard, and their ilk recruit those who are the best scientists and academics but not necessarily the best teachers.  As such, education for undergraduates suffers to the point that professors try to get out of as much teaching as possible.  It becomes difficult to find enough faculty to cover all the courses.

My personal experience with this is that research mentors are minimally supportive or sometimes outright hostile to students who want to take time away from their thesis projects to teach.  At many institutions, there is no support system to receive training in pedagogy and course design.  If a student decides to pursue a position at a liberal arts institution or community college, they have to navigate those waters on their own.  Academic PIs breed more academic PIs, so don’t expect many of them to make inroads into industry, education, or other not-strictly-academic institutions.

While this problem is a great disservice to the undergraduates, I strongly disagree with how little value Hacker and Dreifus place in research.  They audaciously question the importance of other’s research in a manner reminiscent of Sarah Palin (did you know they do research on flies?).  While I think there is a need to encourage more teaching from the faculty, I would not curtail others’ research.

One method to get around this problem at larger research universities is to allow researchers to keep working and hire more lecturers.  Like buying carbon offsets, the lecturers would be able to pick up the teaching slack without rocking the research boat too much.  Plus, the lecturers would be able to experiment with their teaching, something that fits within an academic paradigm but falters because professors often have too little time to tinker with their teaching.  If we are going to place such emphasis on research at universities, we need to split the roles of the faculty.  There should still be cross-talk and contribution, but let’s let the researchers research and the teachers teach.

Reigning in student debt

If your son or daughter is considering a private school or an out-of-state college, you will soon be hearing a $40,000+ per year ca-ching from your bank account.  If you don’t have $160,000 gathering dust in your bank account to cover these costs, then you and/or your progeny will have to take out student loans, in which interest greatly increases the total price tag.  Graduate degrees are more hit-or-miss.  For the most part, masters programs cost money (at five times the per credit price) while doctoral programs pay money (sometimes through a teaching requirement), though if they pay it may not be much.

However, this is only half of the student debt story.  It would not matter how much debt students rack up if going to college guaranteed them a salary large enough to pay off the loans quickly.  If we all earned $100,000 straight out of college, loans could be paid back in as little as 2-5 years.  Ignoring the current high unemployment among recent college graduates, very few students earn a six-figure paycheck after graduation.  A good friend of mine earned a BS in psychology and then went on to earn a masters degree to become a middle school counselor, all paid using student loans.  Not only does she earn a public education salary, but she has less job security if governments keep tightening budgets for education.  Assuming she stays gainfully employed, it will take her 30 years to pay back her loans.  Meanwhile, like the rest of us, she wants to buy a house and start a family at some point, but it will be that much harder with these student loans sapping her paychecks.

The authors of Higher Education? are correct that we need to make college more affordable.  Graduation from college increases earning potential and job stability, but should we force students to owe hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to get there?  Maybe there should be a way to scale the cost of school to the earning potential of careers for a given degree.  State schools are also a much more viable alternative to the more costly private schools, but I acknowledge that they are a very different experience than smaller, more intimate campuses.  More work-study programs would help students pay off tuition while still in school.  These could even be developed into career training programs to give students paid, part-time internships in research, education, sustainability, and outreach.

Restructure tenure

Tenure has become a sticking point in education over the past few years, mostly in K-12 education.  Reform proponents say that we should value teachers based on their effectiveness, not on how many years they’ve spent in the classroom.  While we kick around this idea for public school teachers this lens is never applied to academia.

After professors have tenure, their job security is around 99%.  They are still expected to perform their duties, but if you look at the reviews on ratemyprofessors.com it is clear that they don’t have to teach well to stay a teacher.  With tenure, there is no incentive to improve teaching and undergrads are left to memorize, regurgitate and accept whatever grade the professor hands down to them.

The problem with reforming tenure is that you’ll never have the faculty’s cooperation.  Such a measure would likely lead to insurrection on college campuses.  While tenure may be indestructible, it does need reform.  More incentives are needed to persuade professors that teaching is worth their time, either through direct compensation, further research dollars, less time spent on committees, more sabbatical time, etc.  Recruiting faculty interested in and with a successful history in teaching could also help to improve the academic culture.

Splitting research and teaching responsibilities would also get around this issue.  Research professors could debate their tenure terms with the university, and teaching professors could do the same.  I still believe we need to actively assess teaching and encourage good practices, so maybe as a trade-off for less job security (80-90%, say) would be additional resources to improve.

Treat adjuncts fairly

Adjunct instructors and graduate students do a great deal of teaching at colleges and universities, but if they cobble together a full schedule of courses they still can’t make a comfortable living.  I wholeheartedly agree with the authors of Higher Education? that if universities are going to rely on adjuncts and graduate students to do the nitty-gritty teaching jobs, they should earn money and benefits that make it worth their time.  Moving many of the adjuncts to full-time teaching positions could also help to resolve this issue.

Take caution with “techno-teaching”

Many schools are moving their classroom content online with courses that never meet face-to-face.  The Internet is a fabulous way to disseminate information to a broad audience.  Moreover, schools can make a hefty profit on online classes because they don’t have to invest as many resources in maintaining a classroom, and teaching online can be scaled up more easily that in real life.  I doubt many students would be interested in taking a macroeconomics course inside of a 70,000 seat football stadium.

The caution in all this is not to let teaching quality falter.  Students should still be expected to engage with, not memorize, the material.  If you receive credit for a course, then you should know something about that subject when you finish.  Many institutions are ironing out these difficult wrinkles and their peers need to take note of their progress.  All schools bear the responsibility to their students to utilize the online classroom as a tool for teaching, not profit-making.

Define the purpose of academic learning

One major point of contention I have with Hacker and Dreifus is on the purpose of higher education.  The authors maintain a classical view of the university life where students broaden their minds through a liberal arts education.  This ideal is sensible; however, they draw the line at vocational training.  They posit that students should not contemplate jobs and careers until after college and to do so between the ages of 18 and 22 is meaningless without further exposure to the world and new ideas.

While there is value in a liberal arts education and understanding how art, social science, basic science, and the humanities function, it’s a missed opportunity not to train students for the workplace.  If you find that you like biology, why not explore what it means to be a biologist?  Learning teamwork, cooperation, technical writing, organization, and time management are essential in many careers.  The earlier we start to grapple with these skills, the more easily we can move into the professional work environment.

Overall, the authors make some good points with ample facts and figures for support, but they take many of their recommendations too far.  Universities were created to expand minds and prepare students for the real world with new perspectives.

George Gopen’s Books & Seminars

Reflecting on my writing, I feel I only truly began to write purposefully in graduate school.  In high school and most of college, my writing constituted a form of contained verbal diarrhea.  As long as I put everything I knew on paper, I was bound to hit all the points that my teachers wanted, and therefore deserve the best grade.  I think of this as the fire hose method – a little better than a full-on information eruption, at least the information has a direction and, hopefully, makes an interesting point or two.

While I was a teaching assistant, I realized how awful this style of writing can be for the reader.  Students know that only the teacher will read what they write, so as long as they pander to that person and hit the important points, they believe they deserve a good grade.  If students thought that their writing would be read by a wider audience, it’s likely that they would put a little more polish and direction into their work.  That’s where peer and group review activities can be useful in the classroom.

In graduate school, I participated in a four-seminar series led by Dr. George Gopen, Professor Emeritus in the Duke English Department.  Gopen has written books and articles about how to write more effectively.  You can also hire him as a consultant if you have an extra few thousand dollars burning a hole in your pocket.  Barring that, his books (The Sense of Structure and Expectations) are available through Amazon at a more modest price.  He also has a piece in American Scientist about writing in science.

Gopen makes some excellent points with clear examples in his books and seminars.  His overarching theme is to give the readers the information they need when they need it.  To accomplish this, he illustrates how to structure a sentence so it says precisely what you mean effectively and efficiently.  Don’t make lengthy, overwrought sentences (I’m looking at you technical and statistical papers).  Don’t end a sentence with a parenthetical statement (like I just did in the preceding and current sentences).  Your words have more impact if you don’t suddenly tag on an extra thought at the end of a statement.

After mastering sentences, Gopen continues with piecing sentences together into paragraphs and paragraphs into sections.  Each statement and paragraph should lean backward on the material that came before.  Connect your points in a clear and logical fashion.  Don’t make your reader have to guess where an idea came from.  Lastly, make your information lean forward toward the next point.  Each sentence and paragraph should have hands reaching out to those that come before and after, creating a human chain throughout your narrative.

If you go to Duke, I’d highly recommend attending Gopen’s yearly seminars.  Sign up early as they fill up quickly.  Otherwise, the books contain much of the same information, but they you don’t get to hear Gopen’s interesting way of vividly describing his writing advice.

If you want to include Gopen’s writing tips in the classroom, I’d recommend assigning readings from his books.  After your students have read through his examples, give them some poorly written paragraphs to improve.  These paragraphs can either be made de novo or can be found in the literature.  As the students make corrections, show them how their improvements make for generalizations on what constitutes good and bad writing.  Keep referring back to these principles throughout the semester as the students complete more writing assignments, blogs and even tests.  Maybe even add some extra credit or point incentives for good writing.  Stressing writing in different courses will help students realize that communication in any subject requires a little extra attention and direction.