Workshop on the Changing Environment for Biological Research and Graduate Education in Universities
National Science Foundation-Sponsored Workshop
The Pennsylvania State University
March 12, 1996
Summary
Purpose:
The objective of this workshop was to bring together faculty, students
and administrators to open a dialog with the National Science
Foundation on the changing agenda for universities in the biological
sciences. The research university model developed over the past
three decades is under pressure from: (1) decreasing availability
of support through research grants; (2) increased expectations
of its teaching mission; (3) changes in employment patterns of
graduates, and; (4) revolutionary changes in both the volume of
information available, as well as in storage and distribution
technology.
With the goal of maintaining the vitality of research
and graduate education in the biological sciences under increasing
budgetary constraints. NSF seeks information on how current pressures
are affecting the lives and careers of biological scientists
today.
Looking Toward A National Dialog Between Universities And Funding
Agencies
The Workshop's purpose was to:
1) define the impact of external changes on biological scientists
and 2) identify changes needed in the university's reward system
and its graduate education programs, as well as in government funding
mechanisms, to maintain the quality of university research and
better prepare its graduates with advanced degrees for changing
employment patterns.
Attendees:
The workshop was attended largely by members
of the life sciences research community at the Pennsylvania State
University, ranging from graduate students through full professors,
from both the main campus at University Park and the Hershey Medical
Center. The attendees included a number of individuals from the
College of Education and from the Institute for Higher Education
with interests in educational reform and innovation.
Organization:
The workshop commenced with short talks by the University's
President Graham Spanier, Provost John Brighton and NSF's Assistant
Director for Biological Sciences Mary Clutter. This was followed
by a panel discussion whose purpose was to articulate the issues
confronting graduate education from the perspective of a graduate
student, a post-doctoral fellow, a juniors faculty member and a
historian of the research university. The panel was followed by
breakout sessions of the indicated topics in the morning and afternoon.
The entire group reassembled in late afternoon and breakout group
leaders summarized each discussion. Salient points are summarized
below.
Morning Breakout Session: Identifying The External Pressures Which Universities Should Be Responding To And The Institutional Barriers Standing In The Way Of Change.
- The changing world demands a move toward interdisciplinarity
in research and education, driven by the need in the business
environment for team players with expertise in several areas
and a willingness to adapt to changing agendas. To meet the needs
of today's society, biological research requires a combination
of interdisciplinary teams working with information from independent
investigators to solve increasingly complex problems.
The current educational system is perceived as one in which problems are isolated and narrowed too much while often the big picture is overlooked. Finally, a smaller percentage of graduate students move on to academic positions and hence the educational system has a responsibility to prepare students for a wider range of career possibilities and realities. Graduate education needs to be aimed at producing scientists, not academics alone.
An individual with a Ph.D. should be educated to think critically and in depth on a broad range of topics and to respond to changing environments. It is further imperative that graduate students be exposed to all career opportunities. Obstacles to these changes are primarily social: the culture of academic science values success in academic research careers above others. Students must learn that there are many other career paths and that they are equally valuable.
- A major force driving
institutional change perceived by several breakout groups was
the decreasing availability of research funds and increasing
external demands by the public for better value for their educational
expenditures. There is demand for faculty in the sciences to
do more teaching. At the same time, faculty find themselves
in an increasingly disadvantageous position in securing external
research funds because of shrinking federal research dollars.
Simultaneously, reaching research objectives is becoming more
difficult and most amenable to interdisciplinary, collaborative
approaches. The view was also expressed that universities should
be responding to the changing demands of society by becoming
much more involved in the flow of talent and information from
the university to the public and to industry.
- The major institutional
barrier to change identified in virtually all groups was the
university's reward system, which evolved during a time when
research funding was increasing rapidly and were therefore
relatively easy to obtain. While faculty are technically hired
to teach, they are rewarded primarily for getting grants and
publishing research papers. Moreover, while collaborative and
interdisciplinary research are increasingly important in problem
solving, as well as in surviving in a difficult funding environment,
tenure criteria are often inimical to individuals involved in
collaborative research. In addition, faculty who become involved
in extra-departmental collaborations are sometimes perceived
as disloyal to their home department and not given credit either
for collaborative research or teaching done outside of the department.
Thus the traditional departmental structure of universities was
also perceived as a major barrier to change. The consensus view
of some breakout groups was that teaching should be an integral
part of every faculty member's portfolio and appropriately rewarded,
but that this was generally not the case, in part because of
the fact that research accomplishments are much easier for a
promotion and tenure committee to evaluate than teaching success.
- A
more immediate barrier to change at the level of graduate education
is the grant system itself. While it was generally perceived
that graduate students should be educated more broadly and exposed
to employment opportunities, perhaps in the form of internships
outside of the university, faculty with grants needed graduate
students to carry out the research in order to remain funded,
which they were increasingly under pressure from the university
to do. As a consequence, faculty have no motivation to broaden
graduate students' education by encouraging them to explore experiences
outside of the laboratory.
- Finally, national university performance standards are based on disciplines and departments acquire reputations for having outstanding researchers, not for carrying out other aspects of their university missions. Since universities vie for high marks in national rankings, there is no institutional incentive to support interdisciplinary research programs.
Afternoon Breakout Session: Suggested Changes In Universities To Foster Constructive Change In Response To External Pressures.
Suggested Changes In Promotion And Tenure Procedures:
- Promotion and tenure committees need to accept collaborative
research and education (this needs to be written into the P&T
guidelines). Collaborators should be asked to identify each investigator's
role in a project.
- New criteria for graduate education in interdisciplinary
research need to be embraced to encourage needed changes in
graduate education.
- Departmental boundaries need to be abolished
or restructured for P&T decision-making.
- Teaching and service to the university must be valued more highly. Internal incentives must be developed to encourage and reward better teaching.
Suggested Changes In Graduate Education:
- A major need in redesigning the graduate education program
was perceived to be the necessity of supporting each student
for at least l-2 years from sources other than individual grants.
NSF could play a role in this regard by shifting some of its
graduate student funding from individual grants to more broadly
conceived training grants, perhaps differing from both the traditional
disciplinary training grants and the more recent, narrowly focused
training grants, to encourage universities to foster interdisciplinary
research and graduate education simultaneously. This would accomplish
the goal of reducing the perception of graduate students as "slave
labor."
- Current and new graduate programs need to explore different
ways of teaching, such as "active" or "problem-based" learning,
reassess student evaluation mechanisms, such as candidacy and
comprehensive examinations, for their relevance in preparing
students for life-long learning and provide training to graduate
students in grantsmanship and research project management.
- NSF
could also play a role in supporting both interdisciplinary
research and graduate programs that encourage collaborative ventures
with organizations outside of the university. Industry could
play a stronger role by providing state-of-the-art equipment
for graduate education (industries complain that students are
trained on out-dated equipment).
- The view was expressed that NSF
could play a very useful role in encouraging academic institutions
to reexamine their responsibilities to the students they train
and the public that support their efforts. This might take
the form of requiring teaching and service components for every
funded grant, much as CAREER awards are designed. However, the
cautionary note was issued that faculty priorities should be
reoriented with care so as not to damage the extremely successful
U. S. research enterprise.
- The view was expressed that while all graduate students needed to learn to teach, the teaching experiences that most graduate students had were inadequately guided, hence better preparation for teaching was felt to be a much-needed improvement in graduate education.
Suggested Improvements In The Relationship Between University Research/Teaching Enterprise And The Public:
- It was suggested that interactions between graduate students/faculty
and local, state and national communities are extremely important
to the long-term well-being of the scientific enterprise. It
was noted that the lack of reward for this type of service within
the university and the scientific community discouraged it.
- It
was recommended that faculty be required to perform one day
per year of secondary or elementary school service as a requirement
for promotions.
- Department budgets should have allocations for
public relations and outreach.
- Graduate students and faculty need to be trained better to communicate with the non-scientific public. To this end, it was suggested that there be an option in graduate programs for science writers. It was also suggested that university public relations offices needed to have scientists on their staff or as consultants.
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