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Chemistry postdoctoral program boosts undergraduate courses, professors-to-be
By Tim Stoddard
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Chemistry department postdoctoral faculty fellows (from left) Amy Bradley, Laurie Tyler, Thomas Castonguay, and Alison Moore. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
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When Amy Bradley, Laurie Tyler, and Alison Moore finished their Ph.D.s in chemistry two years ago, they wanted to hone their teaching skills before applying for a faculty position at a small liberal arts college. Aspiring chemistry professors traditionally work for several years in a laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow, or postdoc, learning new techniques and perfecting research skills. Bradley, Tyler, and Moore chose a path less traveled, joining a novel program in BU’s chemistry department that gives equal weight to teaching and research.
Now in its second year, the postdoctoral faculty fellowship (PFF) program teaches recent Ph.D.s how to teach. With Thomas Castonguay, who joined the program this academic year, the PFFs have played a significant role in teaching freshman and sophomore chemistry courses, leading discussion sections for large lecture courses, running laboratories, and occasionally substituting for professors in the lecture hall.
At many universities, incoming graduate students teach the discussion sections of lecture courses. But J. Scott Whitaker, a GRS associate dean and professor of physics, says this system isn’t necessarily best for chemistry graduate and undergraduate students. “Teaching fellows are an important part of our instructional staff,” he says, “but graduate students are generally better teachers when they’re further along in their programs. That first year, they’re trying to learn their discipline, get core graduate courses under their belts, pick research areas, get to know research faculty, and start doing lab rotations — if they’re a teaching fellow, they’re also learning how to teach.”
Whitaker proposed the PFF program to help shift teaching responsibilities from first-year graduate students to postdocs, who can bring greater experience and confidence into the classroom. “It’s an incredible benefit to our undergraduates,” says Thomas Tullius, a CAS chemistry professor and department chairman. “It allows us to put Ph.D.s in charge of the discussion sections in Chemistry 101, which hadn’t happened before and isn’t true at almost any place that I know of. The students just love the PFFs. They get very good reviews.”
The new PFF program has been a “win, win, win situation,” says Whitaker. “The incoming graduate students get down to their course work and research preparations faster. The undergraduates have more experienced teachers in the classroom. And our postdoctoral faculty fellows are making an important career step.”
Better teaching through chemistry
PFFs are full, active members of the chemistry faculty, paid a 12-month salary with benefits. For Moore, who has been in charge of nine discussion sections for Chemistry 101 and 102, the program has been above and beyond her teaching experience as a graduate student. “I knew that I wanted to teach by the end of graduate school,” she says, “but while I had been a teaching assistant, I still had no experience running courses or lecturing. It’s just not the same.”
Last spring, Moore took over part of the course for a few days when two of its professors were out of town at a meeting. Preparing and delivering the lectures before the sea of students was “a great experience,” she says. “Before the professors left, I talked with them about their plans for the chapters and what they wanted the students to learn, and I proposed my own ideas as well.”
Tyler, a PFF for inorganic chemistry, says her teaching responsibilities have given her more confidence in the classroom and lecture hall. “I feel so much more comfortable with the material,” she says. “I have much more confidence. Just getting up in front of 80 people is not that easy to do. The first time, my heart was beating so fast and I was so nervous. I still get nervous before I give a lecture, but it’s not quite the same. It is easier.”
PFFs are mentored by the professors they work with, and receive informal advising from other department faculty. Bradley, who’s run all of the discussion sections and two lab sections of intensive organic chemistry, says she’s learned a lot by watching Professor John Snyder deliver lectures. “When I leave in the fall,” she says, “I’ll be taking John Snyder with me: the way I teach is going to be the way he teaches. I go to his lectures and just sit back and watch how he works, what he includes, how he does stuff on the board, the way he interacts with students. He’s fantastic.”
During the academic year, the PFFs spend about 30 hours a week teaching, with whatever time and energy left devoted to research. They don’t teach any classes in the summer, but focus exclusively on research.
PFFs have unusual flexibility in selecting a laboratory area of research. Most postdocs apply to dozens of laboratories around the country, hoping to match with specific researchers or lab groups working on their area of interest. But PFFs are free to work with any faculty member who’s amenable.
For Castonguay, that was attractive. “I had done my graduate studies in one area of research, experimental physical chemistry,” he says, “and towards the end I started to dabble in the theoretical side, and I fell in love with it and realized I wanted to get a little more expertise in that area.”
The gamble pays off
The first round of PFFs didn’t know whether such a nontraditional program would help or hurt their future job prospects. They’ve found, however, that the teaching-intensive program has made them very attractive to the smaller institutions where they wanted to work.
For Bradley, who will be an assistant professor of organic chemistry at Wilkes University, the PFF experience made a noticeable difference. “When I got out of grad school,” she says, “the professor I worked with said I could get teaching experience as an adjunct professor. I applied for 14 positions and didn’t get a single phone interview. This time, I was invited to 15 flyout interviews. Most of the places said they had 60 or 70 applicants, and flew out 3 or 4. One said, ‘If you didn’t have teaching experience, we threw you into the no-thank-you pile.’” Moore, who secured an assistant professorship of chemistry at Belmont University, and Tyler, a soon-to-be assistant professor at Union College, also had several job offers to choose from.
While larger research universities look for postdocs with extensive research experience, the PFFs’ range of teaching experiences is attractive to smaller institutions. “Their résumés display a familiarity with what a chemistry faculty member does,” Whitaker says. “They have many models they’ve observed, and they have course materials and syllabi that they’ve used. It’s unusual for a postdoc to go into a job interview having that level of professional development. And at the same time, they’ve been engaged in research.”
23
April 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations