About a month ago, the FUTURE in Biomedical Sciences group here at the University held a forum, of sorts, to help answer questions from graduate students and postdocs regarding what it takes to get a job at a Liberal Arts institution, especially in the State of Iowa (where these four individuals reside). The FUTURE group, now in its second year, has multiple professors from Liberal Arts schools across the state (this year’s participants came from Loras College, Drake University, Morningside College and Wartburg College) come to Iowa City to do research for the summer, learning some new experimental techniques and generally expanding their horizons beyond what they can do at their respective institutions. The forum was very informative, covering a variety of topics including how to write up your resume, what kinds of places to apply to, what to look for in a school, when to start looking for jobs, and what the jobs tend to be like. More than anything, however, they all stressed the need for experience: the more experience you have on your application, the better chance you’ll stand against other applicants. I’m not really looking for another job yet or anything, but it’s really good to have this information at the back of my mind as I keep building up that resume. Hearing them talk about their jobs makes me want to get to that stage even more, providing me with some much needed motivation to get a few things done while I’m here!
Thankfully, I already have a leg up on that one. Back at SLU, I had the good fortune of getting to teach in “Drugs We Use and Abuse,” a course run by the graduate students of the Pharm/Phys Department. It is team-taught each Fall to around 50 non-majors (e.g. Business majors, History majors, etc.) and generally centers around…well…just what it sounds like. If you ever wanted to learn what meth, cocaine, opiates, depressants and caffeine do to your body, then this is the class for you. I taught in it for 3 years: I was a section director for 2 of those years and course director for 1 year. The experience was very good, so much that I decided I want to do it full-time as a career: teach at the undergraduate level.
When I took the position here at the University of Iowa, I asked my mentor if it would be alright for me to continue teaching occasionally alongside the rest of the research I’m doing. He was kind enough to allow it (if anything, he was excited that I’d take a few lectures off his hands). This October, I’ll be teaching two classes of Advanced Toxicology, one talking about neurotransmission and the other talking about neurotoxic agents (e.g. cocaine, methamphetamine and ecstasy). Both of these subjects are within my proverbial wheelhouse, so they shouldn’t take up all that much preparation time. That, and I have the previous year’s lectures in a Powerpoint file to help me throw something together. While Drugs We Use and Abuse was directed at non-major undergraduates, this class is for graduate students and there are only 12 in the class, so the dynamic will be quite a bit different than what I’m used to.
I will likely get the opportunity to teach in the Spring as well. That course is in our department, Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, and is also targeted at graduate students (and will likely be just as small, if not smaller). Not sure when we’ll get that going, but it probably won’t be until January, knowing how things go around here.
Either way, I think I’m doing a reasonably decent job at preparing for what’s ahead, with regards to that whole “career” thing. At the very least, getting to add a few “guest lecturer” points on my CV is always a welcome addition.
And maybe I’ll even have a little fun doing it. 🙂
I like this post.
Do you think you’ll stay in Iowa? Fridged Iowa?
If you were offered a position at a large research school, like MU, would you take it?
Is that “Fridged” or “Frigid?” 😛
My ideal school, or at least what I’ve got in the forefront of my brain noodle, is something like Truman: smaller, liberal arts-based, and more of an 80/20 ratio of teaching to research. There seem to be more schools in Iowa that are suited to that task, including the ones I linked to above, but also including many others. In Missouri, those schools exist (Truman, Drury, Westminster, etc.), but I think there are fewer. When I’m ready to apply, I’ll probably shop around Iowa and Missouri, primarily, but may extend into southern Illinois, depending on what jobs are available by that time.
A “position at a large research school” would be a harder sell. At any other point in the last decade, I could see it working, but it sure seems like, now, you need an NIH R01 grant to even get the offer. And if you don’t have an R01, you need some other kind of grant to help pay for your research/salary, and then you need to be able to write and win another grant in order to attain tenure within 8 years of getting the position. Dr. Lubahn at Mizzou told me that it’s possible to go to that 80/20 ratio, but you need that R01 and tenure first. Once you’ve got that, if you work the deal with your department head, you can work it so you take on more of the teaching load while other researchers take on more of the grant-writing load (as many researchers are happy to teach less and research more).
So would I take such a position? Possibly. It’d have to get a pretty good deal, and I’d have to be pretty confident in my ability to get a grant. Honestly, though, I’m just fine with the idea of $40-$50k/year (initially) with summers off to spend with my kid(s). 😛
I’m hearing more and more about the frustrations of getting grants from the PhDs I’m working with. LA schools would be lucky to get you………………
Yeah, Carol, that’s part of the reason I don’t want to deal with it. They’ll tell you that funding “goes up and down in cycles,” and while we’re in a “down” cycle now (that will only go up?), I know that I’d have to deal with it eventually. It’s just not a game I’m interested in playing.
“LA Schools” meaning “Louisiana,” or “Los Angeles?” …’cause I’m afraid both of those options are a bit far for Meg’s grandparents to visit regularly. 🙂
I’d never suggest something so far….LA as in Liberal Arts…
Hehehehe…sorry…my misunderstanding! I was gonna say – Mom wouldn’t be very happy with you for the suggestion!! 😉
I was hoping Louisiana. I’d visit you more often if I had to use a fan powered boat to get to your house. Though I suppose this winter I might need a snowmobile, yes? 😉
nathan, you could always take your boat-moped!
Louisiana?? Los Angeles?? Heaven help me!!
Brooke,
Amazing. I’ll start retrofitting it now. The in-seat compartment will house the iodine tablets your husband is certain to forget.
Believe you me, when I wrote this, I never thought it would cross 10 comments. Fascinating.
But for the record, Nathan, I brought the water filter. You were supposed to bring the iodine tablets. Therefore, you still owe me some. I’ll expect them delivered via boat moped in the coming months.
Come teach in Columbia and I’ll buy a welder, and we can actually build a boat-moped.
And, you brought a *broken* water filter. That doesn’t count.
I think you boys need to go camping again