Tomorrow's Professor

Preparing for Academic Careers in Science and Engineering

Richard M. Reis

• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780780311367
• eBook ISBN: 9781118387122
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Tomorrow's Professor is designed to help you prepare for, find, and succeed at academic careers in science and engineering. It looks at the full range of North American four-year academic institutions while featuring 30 vignettes and more than 50 individual stories that bring to life the principles and strategies outlined in the book.

Tailored for today's graduate students, postdocs, and beginning professors, Tomorrow's Professor:

• Presents a no-holds-barred look at the academic enterprise
• Describes a powerful preparation strategy to make you competitive for academic positions while maintaining your options for worthwhile careers in government and industry
• Explains how to get the offer you want and start-up package you need to help ensure success in your first critical years on the job
• Provides essential insights from experienced faculty on how to develop a rewarding academic career and a quality of life that is both balanced and fulfilling
• Bonus material is available for free download at http://booksupport.wiley.com

At a time when anxiety about academic career opportunities for Ph.D.s in these field is at an all-time high, Tomorrow's Professor provides a much-needed practical approach to career development.

PART I

SETTING THE STAGE

CHAPTER 1

The Academic Enterprise

George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of state, of labor, and of treasury, was also a senior officer in the Bechtel Corporation, and former dean of the Business School at the University of Chicago. He is currently on the faculty at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Shultz was asked recently to compare the three types of organizations in which he had spent so much time; industry, government and academia. He replied, “When I worked in industry I had to be careful if I asked someone to do something because there was a very good chance they would do it. When I worked in government I didn’t have that problem. But at the university I very quickly came to understand that it was… inappropriate to ask”[1].

Tongue-in-cheek as his comment may be, Shultz is hinting at something important about how colleges and universities differ from industry, government, labor unions, churches, hospitals, and virtually every other institution in society.

Clark Kerr, president emeritus of the University of California, supports Shultz’s point in a more formal way by noting that [2]:

[American colleges and universities] have mostly been comparatively privileged entities of tolerant societies exercising great self-restraint toward them. And their principal participants—the faculties—have had more leeway to conduct their lives according to their individual wishes than most other members of the modern labor force—they have not viewed themselves, or been viewed by others, as “employees.” It has been a world of comparative institutional autonomy and comparative individual academic freedom.

As a possible future professor, it is important for you to understand the unique features of an institution in which you may spend the rest of your professional life. We begin the development of such an understanding in this chapter, first with a brief look at the evolution of higher education in North America. This historical discussion is followed by an examination of the key characteristics of academia, including governance and decision making. Some of the critical issues currently facing all colleges and universities are examined next. A new concept of scholarship originally proposed by Ernest Boyer, former president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, is then introduced. This scholarship concept forms the basis for important discussions in the chapters to follow. We then introduce seven sample schools representing the types of four-year institutions to which most science and engineering Ph.D.s and postdocs will go as new professors. The chapter concludes with a vignette describing Ernest Boyer’s views on the role of scholarship in undergraduate education.

UNLIKE ANY OTHER INSTITUTION

With all the downsizing and restructuring taking place in higher education, you might think colleges and universities are looking more, not less, like other institutions. Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, PA is a case in point. The Hahnemann administration recently threatened to fire any faculty member, tenured or not, who is not able to attract research grants providing between 50 and 100% of his or her salary. As Leonard L. Roos, dean of the Hahnemann School of Medicine, put it, “If IBM expects that of its employees, why can’t we expect it of the academic community? It’s a big business” [3].

Another industry-like characteristic, increasing demands for accountability and productivity, has resulted in mandated minimum college and university teaching loads in some states. Hawaii and Florida, for example, now require 12 hours of classroom instruction per week or the equivalent for faculty in four-year institutions [4].

On the other hand, industry has reduced its number of management levels, put more decision making in the hands of those who actually do the “value-added” work, sought consensus across functions, and so on. Could it be that private enterprise is taking on some of the characteristics long associated with colleges and universities? Perhaps, but fundamental differences remain in the culture, governance, mission, methods of generating income, employment security, and accountability between academia and other organizations with which we are familiar.

Historical Perspective

Before looking more closely at these differences, let us consider a little history. Higher education in the United States and Canada began during the 17th century as an outgrowth of both the medieval European universities and the British universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In these so-called colonial colleges, teaching was central. It was viewed, “… as a vocation—a sacred calling—an act of dedication honored as fully as the ministry” [5, Ch.1, p.4]. It was during this time that the self-governing nature of universities developed, as well as the idea that universities were “communities of scholars” [6, p.3]. It was also during this period that the notion of “Town and Gown” developed as a way of “separating” scholars from the local lay population [6, pp.22–23].

The number of institutions and students remained small until the passage in the United States in 1862 of the Morrill Act establishing land grant colleges and universities. Through this act, every state was granted 30,000 acres of land for each senator and representative it had in Congress. The land was then to be sold and the proceeds invested to create and maintain institutions that were to emphasize agriculture and mining (A&M) as a way to produce better educated farmers and engineers. The universities of Arizona, California, Illinois, Texas, and Washington are just a few such institutions formed during this period. The late 19th century was a time when colleges were to provide “useful studies,” and when “going to college” was viewed as a way of “getting ahead.” As one undergraduate put it in 1871, “A degree from Harvard is worth money in Chicago” [6, p.29]. By the end of the century, 59 separate land grant colleges had been established in 44 states under the Morrill Act [7]. Many of you have attended, are now attending, or will eventually teach at such institutions.

A second significant advance occurred in the 1890s with the establishment of research-oriented private universities such as Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Cornell, and Stanford [8]. A further growth period occurred after World War I with the passage of additional legislation and the involvement of state universities in large-scale applied research.

However, the Golden Age of higher education was clearly the one during the three decades following World War II. The 1950s and 1960s was a period of unprecedented expansion, both in the size of existing institutions and the number of new institutions. In the United States, it was a result of federally funded research, an outgrowth of experiences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory (radar) and the University of Chicago (atomic bomb) during the war. Expansion was also due to the GI Bill and subsequent equal opportunity funding initiatives, and the requirements of a labor force trained in emerging engineering fields, particularly electronics and computers [2, p.22].

Historian John Thelin put it this way [9]:

By 1965 one could speak of an “academic revolution” in which American society had come to rely on and accept the expertise of colleges and universities, indicative of an “information society” whose foundation was a “knowledge industry.” Student enrollments had grown, both in actual numbers and as a proportion of total population, such that higher education had been transformed from an elite to mass access.

During the period right after World War II to the early 1970s, the number of college and university professors and students approximately tripled. The number of institutions also grew, as did the number of graduate programs [10, p.229]. The most rapid growth in faculty occurred in the 1960s.

Most of these faculty will soon retire, a fact clearly relevant to those of you considering academic careers. You should be aware, however, that anticipated increase in demand expected from such retirements will be at least partly offset by advances in teaching productivity through instructional television and computers, the increasing use of part-time faculty, particularly at the community college level, and the downsizing or even elimination of some departments. We will discuss the supply and demand topic in greater detail in Chapter 4, “Your Professional Preparation Strategy.”

KEY CHARACTERISTICS

There are currently about 3600 (1600 public, 2000 private) accredited institutions of higher education in the United States, up from approximately 3400 in 1987, the last time a survey of such institutions was conducted by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching [11, p.A17]. These institutions enroll app...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Setting the Stage
• Part II: Preparing for an Academic Career
• Part III: Finding and Getting the Best Possible Academic Position
• Part IV: Looking Ahead to Your First Years on the Job—Advice from the Field
• Appendix A: Possible Items for Inclusion in a Teaching Portfolio
• Appendix B: Statement of Personal Philosophy Regarding Teaching and Learning
• Appendix C: Professional Associations for Academic Job Seekers in Science and Engineering
• Appendix D: Questions to Ask Before Accepting a Faculty Position
• Appendix E: Sample Offer Letters
• Appendix F: Elements Found in Most Successful Proposals
• Appendix G: Common Shortcomings of Grant Proposals
• Index
• About the Author