ISTOCK, FATCAMERASupervising the teaching practices of eight newly minted PhDs across STEM disciplines changed my thinking about how academia trains, or rather doesn’t train, doctoral students for this very important job. For the last four years, I have been the director of an undergraduate research program at Binghamton University-State University of New York that consists of a sequence of three course-based research experiences (aka CRE) that starts when students are first-term freshmen.
The hallmarks of CRE, a national model begun about 10 years ago, are real research with student ownership and professionalization.
Each of the research tracks (representing anthropology, computer science, biochemistry, environmental studies, geology, materials science, microbiology, and neuroscience) has its own research assistant professor, and annually about 30 freshmen and 25 sophomores participate. The main objectives are to improve students’ understanding of the process of science and the graduation rate of STEM majors—and to contribute to authentic research.
The main difference between these CRE professors and traditional appointments is that the latter face teaching and research responsibilities as largely separate endeavors, whereas our CRE instructors must learn how to handle those endeavors as a true continuum. Rather than shifting from teaching to research and back ...
