|
Nurturing
the Next Generation of Scientist-Teachers
By Dorothy Wright
There is an urgent national
need for programs that will create a community
of scientists and mathematicians who are both
committed to, and well prepared for, the undergraduate
teaching enterprise. There is also a national
need for expertise in the teaching and encouragement
of women with interest and promise in science
and mathematics. A new program at Bryn Mawr —
the Bryn Mawr College Keck Postdoctoral Research/Teaching
Fellowships in Sciences/Mathematics — is
designed to meet these needs.
The College received a $750,000
grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation of Los Angeles
to establish and test a postdoctoral science program
for training in research and undergraduate teaching.
The Keck grant will fund the first five years
of the program, after which the College will provide
continuing support.
 |
|
|
The program has been designed
for young scientists trained in graduate programs
with a traditional focus on research who want
to make an equal, or greater, commitment to undergraduate
teaching. "Scientists and mathematicians
trained in traditional university doctoral programs
have been primarily trained to conduct research,
not to teach," explains Alfonso Albano, Marion
Reilly Professor of Physics and program director.
"When they obtain a faculty position at a
liberal arts college, they often are unprepared
to teach undergraduates. Our hope is that a program
like this will educate them in the art of teaching,
as well as the science of research. There are
very few programs in the country that address
this need."
The first two fellows will
begin their three-year terms in fall 2001, with
two additional fellows to be appointed in fall
2002. During the initial development phase, additional
appointments will be made to include four fellows
in the program.
Balancing
Research and Teaching
The scale of the College's
research programs make it a perfect setting for
a program of this nature. "It allows for
extraordinarily close working relationships among
undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral
fellows and their faculty mentors," says
Paul Grobstein, Eleanor A. Bliss Professor of
Biology and director of Bryn Mawr’s new Center
for Science in Society, who is serving as the
program’s acting director for 2000-01. Indeed,
in awarding the grant, the Keck Foundation recognized
Bryn Mawr’s distinctiveness as an institution
with a dual focus on quality research and an excellent
liberal arts education. Keck Program Director
Maria Pellegrini said Bryn Mawr is an "ideal
site" to test this program.
Grobstein notes that the grant
came at just the right time: "The aims of
the program intersect with those of the Center
for Science in Society, whose general thrust is
to contribute to producing scientists who take
a broader view of their activities and, at the
same time, to make the rest of the world more
aware of — and part of — the development
of the scientific enterprise."
As in traditional postdoctoral
programs, fellows will conduct research in collaboration
with Bryn Mawr faculty members. The program, however,
is distinctive in providing fellows with an apprenticeship
in how to teach a variety of different courses,
and how to guide undergraduate researchers. Over
their three-year terms, fellows will spend half
of their time on teaching and half on research.
Multidisciplinary
Teaching Apprenticeship
While at Bryn Mawr, fellows
will be expected to sustain active research programs,
producing results worthy of presentation at national
meetings and publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Fellows will teach in their respective departments,
and will have the opportunity to participate in
interdisciplinary activities — including
the College Seminar Program, programs in environmental
sciences as well as neural and behavioral sciences,
and the Center for Science in Society — to
extend their teaching into new areas.
Fellows’ teaching experiences,
spanning introductory through advanced courses,
will vary over their three-year terms. These will
include shadowing mentors and team teaching, progressing
through responsibility for teaching a regular
departmental offering each semester, and, finally,
teaching a one-semester course on a topic that
is of special interest to them or collaborating
on the development of a new interdisciplinary
course. They also will learn how to develop and
supervise undergraduate research projects. "Alison
Cook-Sather, director of the Education Program
of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges and assistant
professor of education at Bryn Mawr, has been
working closely with us in developing this program,"
Grobstein says.
Fellowship opportunities are
currently available with 18 faculty in the departments
of biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics.
Opportunities with faculty in the department of
geology will be announced in fall 2001 for the
academic year 2002-2003. The program is described
in detail on the College’s Web site at www.serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/keck,
a site that also lists the areas of specialization
of sponsoring faculty members.
Interested applicants must
first contact a sponsoring faculty member to discuss
their interest, then submit an application with
the endorsement of that faculty member. "Faculty
in every department have been contacted, so there
is a lot of interest in the program," Grobstein
says. "The faculty tell us applicants are
saying that this is exactly what they have been
looking for."
About the Author
Dorothy Wright contributes
news and feature articles on science, technology,
engineering and general interest topics to a variety
of publications, including Civil Engineering,
Engineering News Record and Bryn Mawr
Now.
|
