Life at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution

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00:00:15.29 I'd like to talk to you about my career where I am primarily a teacher, but also a biologist.
00:00:20.02 So many people think that there is a correct way to become a faculty member
00:00:26.21 at a primarily undergraduate institution or PUI.
00:00:29.10 And the best thing that you can do is to take a straight line from beginning to end.
00:00:33.21 Right? You want to try to get this perfect fit to the points.
00:00:37.24 But my career did not take a straight path.
00:00:40.27 I had a Watson Fellowship to study in Australia for a year,
00:00:42.27 and then my wife and I taught in Kenya for a year.
00:00:45.17 So I took two years off within my graduate school training.
00:00:49.17 Then I took a non-traditional postdoc as a teaching postdoc
00:00:53.11 before I finally wound up with the job I got now.
00:00:56.10 So pathways do not have to be straight,
00:01:00.03 in fact some of these detours probably helped my teaching.
00:01:04.20 So I had 3 years between undergraduate and graduate school
00:01:07.05 and I really would not trade those for anything.
00:01:09.26 So once I got to graduate school I am going to describe to you a couple things
00:01:12.28 to help you understand what I went through.
00:01:14.23 And I knew I wanted to teach at a PUI, and so I chose a good project, but not a risky project.
00:01:21.17 And I learned a lot of methods, but when I got to my thesis lab,
00:01:24.26 my advisor when he realized that I wanted to teach,
00:01:27.22 he said you are going to go brain-dead, don't go into teaching.
00:01:30.18 Well, we had a disagreement, but by the end of my PhD,
00:01:35.24 I was prepared to teach Cell, Molecular, Immunology or Introductory Biology.
00:01:39.06 And I did go on to get a postdoc. I debated whether that was appropriate,
00:01:42.28 but it was good because it helped me start from fresh and get up and productive quickly,
00:01:47.05 but as indicated, I did not have a standard postdoc.
00:01:50.05 I spent one year at Washington University with Ursula Goodenough,
00:01:53.06 and she is a very good teacher, and I learned to work with Chlamydomonas,
00:01:57.06 this unicellular green algae, which allowed me to teach Genetics.
00:02:00.18 And during this time I supervised my first undergraduate student.
00:02:03.22 Then for the second year of my postdoc, I went to Macalester College
00:02:07.11 and there I worked with Jan Serie, who was by far the best teacher I have ever met.
00:02:12.14 And so she really mentored me in teaching, and that is my first piece of advice.
00:02:17.08 If you are thinking about a teaching career, get with a master teacher and study under that person.
00:02:21.16 You will learn a lot.
00:02:23.16 Go to as many classes as you can and understand the dynamics of a good teacher and her class.
00:02:28.17 Then I also at this time developed a teaching lab where students could take a single hair,
00:02:34.17 isolate the DNA, and get a genetic fingerprint.
00:02:38.17 And I published that, and I got a lot of positive feedback from that.
00:02:41.03 And that's when I realized that I can actually do research in two areas,
00:02:44.06 the basic research I was trained in and now pedagogy or the way to teach.
00:02:48.25 So these experiences really helped me move into the current job that I've had for 18 years at Davidson College.
00:02:55.05 So let me describe to you how the job is described, and how you typically spend time.
00:03:01.05 And it is by and far all about teaching, then research, and a little bit of advising
00:03:05.17 and service to give you the 100%.
00:03:07.17 But in reality, if you are really motivated and you love your job, like I do,
00:03:11.22 then you are going to spend more time working with the students and advising them and also doing service.
00:03:16.01 So that in fact this is not a job where you go to relax and sort of kick back and have early retirement.
00:03:22.00 You can do a lot of exciting work with undergraduates at schools like this.
00:03:26.04 So I often get asked by graduate students and postdocs, what does it take to get tenure at a place?
00:03:33.15 They are familiar with the research jobs, but not the teaching jobs.
00:03:36.07 And it's the same 3-legged stool where teaching, scholarship, and service,
00:03:39.07 are taken into consideration, but at a teaching institution, that is the major category.
00:03:46.03 Then scholarship, then service.
00:03:47.19 So let me describe to you how I spend my time in these three areas.
00:03:50.20 So the first thing that I wanted to tell you is when I start teaching molecular biology,
00:03:55.28 I started with the textbook, but very quickly,
00:03:57.29 I published a series of papers, not published, but modified for the web,
00:04:01.28 a series of papers, and I stopped using textbooks.
00:04:04.23 And students got to learn how to read papers and analyze data,
00:04:08.10 and think about it as a science, not a vocabulary lesson.
00:04:11.21 The next course where I did some innovation was in Immunology.
00:04:15.15 And if you go to a small school, you are going to have to teach something
00:04:18.29 outside your comfort zone oftentimes.
00:04:20.26 And immunology was a stretch for me, but as part of my ability to teach it,
00:04:24.19 I learned how to do animations with Flash,
00:04:27.02 so again I was able to develop some new teaching tools
00:04:29.22 that I shared with teachers around the country through the web.
00:04:33.14 Then for my sabbatical in the year 2000, I went to the Institute for Systems Biology
00:04:38.21 where Lee Hood helped me learn a lot of genomics.
00:04:41.09 And with my colleague, Laurie Heyer, who is a mathematician,
00:04:43.23 we wrote the first true genomics textbook,
00:04:46.12 and then that has gone into a second edition,
00:04:48.12 where we help bring genomics into the undergraduate curriculum.
00:04:51.13 After that we started doing research in synthetic biology
00:04:55.29 so we developed a seminar course and then brought teaching and research together with synthetic biology
00:05:02.25 where we have had teams of students, undergraduates,
00:05:05.23 go to the international genetically engineered machines competition
00:05:08.23 called iGEM that is hosted at MIT. And we have competed in that competition for many years.
00:05:14.14 The last area that I want to share with you is Introductory Biology.
00:05:18.20 And this course has been taught the same way for many, many years,
00:05:22.07 and it is sort of not taught in the best way because memorization is over emphasized.
00:05:27.11 And students don't really understand how we know what we know.
00:05:30.20 So with my colleagues, Laurie Heyer again, and Chris Paradise, an ecologist,
00:05:35.15 we decided to redesign Intro Bio, and we focused on 5 big ideas:
00:05:39.17 information, evolution, cells as a functional unit, emergent properties, and homeostasis.
00:05:44.15 And each of these five big ideas are taught at five levels of organization:
00:05:47.23 molecular, cellular, organismal, population, and ecological system.
00:05:52.16 I've been doing this for a couple of years.
00:05:53.24 The learning outcome with the students is very impressive, and I look forward to continuing this with my colleagues.
00:05:59.20 So I've told you a little bit about the teaching part, now I want to talk some about the scholarship.
00:06:05.09 Now scholarship has two definitions for me.
00:06:07.28 There is the basic research and the pedagogical research or educational research.
00:06:12.18 In the 18 years that I have been at Davidson, I've been able to publish about 50 papers
00:06:16.29 with undergraduates and faculty members co-authoring this in a range of different kinds of journals,
00:06:22.10 all the way from the famous basic research to more pedagogical journals.
00:06:27.05 The area of research has changed for me over time.
00:06:31.22 For the basic research I started with Cell and Molecular Biology,
00:06:34.08 then moved into genomics using DNA microarrays,
00:06:37.24 and this is an example of a DNA microarray that some undergraduates printed at Davidson,
00:06:41.20 where they figured out how to control the robot so well that they could even print in DNA the Davidson logo.
00:06:49.10 And more recently we have moved into synthetic biology where students blend math,
00:06:53.18 computer science, and molecular biology to design and build bacterial computers that solve math problems.
00:07:00.13 So the scholarship has always focused on undergraduates.
00:07:04.23 We don't have any graduate students and they do the work.
00:07:07.29 We mentor them. I've been working with Todd Eckdahl and Jeff Poet
00:07:11.25 at Missouri Western State University in synthetic biology.
00:07:14.18 My students have gone on to graduate programs, won fellowships to study around the world.
00:07:18.03 They've gone into a range of different professions, including medicine.
00:07:22.17 And that's a really good outcome to have a scientifically trained physician.
00:07:26.10 And our research has been funded by other agencies.
00:07:29.20 Now let's describe service, and service not only on the campus which I won't really talk about,
00:07:35.22 but more service in the larger community.
00:07:38.00 And one of the first things I did was I joined the ASCB, American Society for Cell Biology's Education Committee.
00:07:43.22 And that was a great move, and I really recommend that to those of you who are graduate students or postdocs
00:07:48.01 to get involved in your professional society's educational programs.
00:07:53.08 To get the network of other faculty who do this for a living.
00:07:55.19 The next major initiative was becoming editor of CBE Life Sciences Education.
00:08:00.28 And in this position, I really came up with an understanding of assessment,
00:08:07.08 and that is my second suggestion to those of you who are thinking about educational careers
00:08:12.00 is to learn about the scholarship of teaching.
00:08:13.20 Learn about how to assess learning goals, and in this process, I learned how to design courses properly.
00:08:21.05 And that is you start with the educational goals,
00:08:23.10 and then you think about how do I assess whether I accomplished my goals.
00:08:26.21 And then focus on the content, not the other way around, which is how I started off teaching.
00:08:31.17 I've also given a number of workshops in pedagogy and then I started GCAT.
00:08:35.12 The Genome Consortium for Active Teaching.
00:08:37.04 Now GCAT started in 2000 when I was in Seattle at the Institute for Systems Biology.
00:08:43.21 And we focused on DNA microarrays as a way to measure the transcription of genes in whole organisms.
00:08:50.08 And through funding from NSF and Howard Hughes Medical Institute
00:08:55.13 we've been able to train over 360 faculty members and have more than 24,000 students
00:09:00.28 do original research experiments with DNA microarrays.
00:09:04.15 But DNA microarrays are fading out, so we split GCAT into three areas
00:09:08.13 and we focus now more on synthetic biology and sequencing, the next-gen sequencing,
00:09:13.11 which is being run out of Juniata College in Pennsylvania.
00:09:16.06 And Todd, and Laurie, and Jeff, and I are leading in the synthetic biology efforts for GCAT,
00:09:23.19 and this is again where we blend math and biology to produce students who are cross trained.
00:09:29.23 And that's a great preparation for future careers.
00:09:32.26 So in summation, my scholarship, my teaching has allowed me to blend biology, math, computer science,
00:09:40.08 work with some great colleagues at Missouri Western State University, but my research is not grant dependent.
00:09:45.01 We use grants, but if funding dries up, like right now,
00:09:50.11 it is a very difficult time to get grants,
00:09:51.28 my students can still graduate in time.
00:09:54.10 They can still do research and if we need to we can change directions easily,
00:09:58.23 and my research component of my job, the scholarship, is a low stress environment
00:10:03.23 because nothing is dependent on getting the grants, and we publish as we can.
00:10:08.01 So when you are thinking about a career, and you are thinking about what should I do,
00:10:12.13 I want to just go through one point with you,
00:10:15.26 and remember that my early publications were in Journal of Biological Chemistry,
00:10:20.08 and in 2010 they published 42,000 pages.
00:10:23.13 And there are journals, 2500 journals, that publish in the life sciences.
00:10:28.20 So if you do that multiplication, you realize that there is lots and lots of basic research going on,
00:10:33.16 but which ones have impact?
00:10:35.08 And so you want to blend your talents with where you can have the greatest impact.
00:10:40.01 Since you'll spend a lot of time at work, have as big of an impact as you can.
00:10:44.14 So at Missouri Western and at Davidson,
00:10:47.11 we have three goals, or three rules really in the lab.
00:10:50.24 Everybody has to learn. Everybody has to have fun, and we try to contribute to the body of science.
00:10:55.24 So we have diverse students from lots of different backgrounds.
00:10:59.00 We have fun, we learn, and we publish.
00:11:02.03 It is a great way to influence students who can go on to lots of different fields.
00:11:06.06 So when I was trying to weigh these things out, I could have gone with a job at research 1 institution
00:11:11.29 where research, salary, fame, prestige, scientific prestige,
00:11:16.18 would be much higher than at a small school.
00:11:20.18 But for me there were so many other factors that made it very easy to decide.
00:11:25.14 So I work with students, I love my job, a lot less pressure, I have great equipment, and I just have fun.
00:11:32.04 So try to choose a job where you have fun, where you get to do what you always wanted to do.
00:11:36.14 So in ending here, I would like to thank many people,
00:11:40.00 especially Jan Serie, Laurie Heyer, Todd and Jeff, and all of the faculty members at GCAT.
00:11:45.19 And then Sally O'Connor at NSF who really recognized the capacity to have a large impact
00:11:51.16 by funding pedagogical workshops where you train the teachers so they can train all of the students.
00:11:56.23 So as you sort out what is the right choice for you,
00:11:59.17 try to have the greatest impact you can, and have fun the way I do as a teacher.

This Talk

Speaker: A. Malcolm Campbell

Audience:

Educators of H. School / Intro Undergrad
Educators of Adv. Undergrad / Grad
Researcher
Educators

Recorded: September 2012

Talk Overview

Campbell tells us about his experiences as a professor at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution, or PUI. He has developed course curricula, written a textbook, published papers, and together with his students, he conducts genomic and synthetic biology research. He loves his work and encourages everybody to seek out a job that allows them to have fun.

Speaker Bio

A. Malcolm Campbell

A. Malcolm Campbell is a Professor of Biology at Davidson College where he has worked for eighteen years. He has been involved in many projects outside of the classroom including being co-editor of CBE Life Sciences Education and founding the Genome Consortium for Active Teaching (GCAT). Continue Reading