Recently there has been considerable enthusiasm towards incorporating scientific teaching into our ecology classrooms and conducting research on those activities. Subsequently, as more faculty in science departments engage in research and other professional activities about teaching and learning science, the profiles and responsibilites of faculty are changing. Science departments of the California State University (CSU) system, the largest university in the country serving more than 400,000 students on 23 campuses, have been making an effort to hire faculty members with training as a scientist and as a specialist in science education. In addition, other faculty originally hired for their disciplinary science research have incorporated science education into their scholarly activities. However, departments have encountered challenges in structuring the positions, finding candidates that match advertised qualifications, and retaining such faculty. Recently, the National Academy of Sciences held a workshop for Discipline-based Science Education Research, and the CSU held a system-wide Colloquium on Science Education, both of which raised issues regarding such faculty positions, across scientific disciplines. A collaborative team of tenure-track CSU faculty holding such science education positions has investigated factors leading to more or less successful positions by surveying faculty in the system. This team aimed to answer the following general questions: What do Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES) look like? How are these positions similar to and different from other tenure-track faculty positions in science departments? with respect to research? teaching? service? Why create these positions within science departments? Survey questions were developed specifically to evaluate seven commonly held myths about what SFES do and why departments should hire such faculty.
Results/Conclusions
Approximately 100 faculty anonymously completed surveys characterizing expectations and realities of teaching, research, and service, and how their job expectations compared to other faculty in their science departments. Initial results indicated some differences and some similarities in responses from two typical profiles: faculty hired, often recently, as SFES, and faculty hired to conduct basic science (not education) research, who converted to SFES at some point in their career. Both groups refuted some commonly held ideas about resource needs and activities of SFES. These data will stimulate productive discussions in university science departments about hiring, retaining, and supporting the SFES who can link research and education and help us improve ecology education for all.
