On Hiring Science Faculty with Education Specialties for Your Science (Not Education) Department

Abstract

The CBE—Life Sciences Education (CBE-LSE) Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning feature most often focuses on translating research and scholarship in science education into practical, accessible teaching strategies that can support CBE-LSE readers in their own efforts as science instructors, primarily at the college and university level. In this column, we highlight an issue in science education facing many university and college science departments: hiring faculty who can bring to the department specialized expertise in science education. With increased attention on the scholarship of teaching and on research on teaching and learning approaches unique to individual science disciplines, many science departments find themselves exploring the hiring of a faculty member who is both a scientist by training and a specialist in science education. Although a relatively recent idea in most biology departments, it is increasingly common to find biology, chemistry, geosciences, and physics educators in science departments in colleges across the country. As the visibility of these positions grows, more administrators and faculty in science departments are posing variations on the following questions: How can our science department hire faculty members with expertise in the teaching and learning of our scientific discipline? What roles could this individual play in our department? What background and training would we expect this individual to have? How would the responsibilities for a “science educator” position in our department compare with those of other faculty members? And how do we begin to facilitate a conversation among our science faculty about hiring a specialist in education for our science department? To begin to address these questions, a collaborative team of tenure-track faculty—all of whom are primarily trained in science and have pursued additional professional development to become education specialists within their discipline—have contributed their collective wisdom on this topic. Among this author group alone, we are aware of more than 18 recent failed departmental searches for these types of faculty positions, indicating the challenges departments face in successfully hiring and retaining Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES). Many of these searches remain open because of a lack of candidates matching the advertised qualifications and because of disagreements among science faculty about the nature of the person they want to hire. In addition, there are examples of SFES who have been successfully hired but who leave science departments before tenure because of dissatisfaction with the position. The aim of this article is to share a variety of perspectives on the goals for such appointments and the potential roles of the appointed SFES, providing a document to foster and guide conversations among faculty who are considering hiring a science educator for their science department. The authors of this article represent seven universities and occupy different points along the career trajectory as SFES. The author team includes four assistant professors, one associate professor, and two full professors, of whom five are “biology educators” and two are “chemistry educators.” These authors not only bring their own collective professional experiences to bear, but also those of colleagues from other disciplines and universities who have both informally and formally contributed to discussions on this topic in the context of scientific professional societies and science education communities, such as the American Chemical Society, the American Society for Cell Biology, the Ecological Society of America, the American Physiological Society, and MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning Online and Teaching). In particular, the authors of this article have been informed by conversations around these questions in two key venues. First, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) held a Workshop for Discipline-based Science Education Research in December 2005 (NAS, 2006 ). This meeting brought together administrators who have pioneered the hiring of these positions at their universities and colleges, along with junior faculty who have been recently hired as “science educators” within science departments. The entirety of the meeting's proceedings can be viewed online (NAS, 2006 ). In addition, the California State University (CSU), which is the largest university in the country and serves more than 400,000 students on 23 campuses, held a System-wide Colloquium on Science Education in May 2006 to explore a variety of topics, one of which was how to better engage the scientific disciplines in K–16+ science education reform efforts (CSU, 2006 ). What emerged at this Colloquium on Science Education was the conclusion that the integration of specialists in science education within science departments was a key, yet underdeveloped, approach to that goal. It appeared that a common barrier facing science departments was a lack of clarity about how to design such a position, as well as how to hire, retain, and support these individuals through the tenure and promotion process. Both the NAS Workshop and the CSU Colloquium served to clarify questions and challenges that arise in pioneering these unique positions for scientists who specialize in science education. The issues appear to be similar across scientific disciplines, whether the context is biology, chemistry, geosciences, physics, or even engineering. Therefore, we attempt to provide here a practical resource on the hiring into science departments of SFES by addressing the following questions: What do “SFES” look like? How are these positions similar to and different from other tenure-track faculty positions in science departments? with respect to research? with respect to teaching? with respect to service? Why create these positions within science departments? What are common myths associated with the hiring of new faculty in these positions? What conversations should take place before a department decides to hire an SFES? And, finally, how can you as an individual faculty member broker this conversation in your own department?