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Thinking Smaller

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By Travis J. Ryan

I entered graduate school young, recently married, anxious, and willing to start down the road toward academia. I saw teaching and research as more-or-less mutually exclusive alternative career paths in my field, the biological sciences.

The model for a successful research-oriented career includes, almost without exception, a stint or two as a postdoctoral researcher. The key goals of this extended apprenticeship are to publish dissertation research and obtain experience in grantsmanship.

After the postdoc (and maybe a second postdoc) comes the first "real" job, in the form of a faculty position at a research university. Teaching enters the picture here, although it is frequently a distraction from big-time research, where getting hefty grants, producing graduate students and postdocs, and of course publishing, are the measures of a productive career. The most talented researchers can buy their way out of teaching altogether by generating enough research money and publications.

I perceived the alternative to a research-centered career as teaching, teaching, teaching. Landing such a job doesn't necessarily require postdoctoral experience, but, instead, a willingness to teach three (or more) laboratory-based courses a semester. In this alternative world -- because of the heavy teaching loads, committee assignments, and advising duties -- research takes a back seat if it is offered a seat at all.

It had long been clear to me which path I would follow. Research challenged me and satisfied my intellectual curiosity as well as my need for creative expression. Two years into my degree program at a research university in the Midwest, I accepted a fellowship at a leading ecological research facility in my native Southeast to concentrate on my research. Over the next couple of years I was busy winning financial support for my work, publishing my research, presenting it at national meetings, reviewing manuscripts for journals, and generally doing all the things required to establish myself as an up-and-coming researcher.

A year before finishing my dissertation, I interviewed for a postdoc at a research university out West. The position appeared to have everything I needed, but particularly attractive was the faculty adviser, whose interests overlapped mine but whose work was different enough from my dissertation research, in terms of techniques and methodology, to be challenging. I returned from the interview feeling well on my way to a successful life of research; the position would be waiting for me until after I finished my dissertation.

However, even as I interviewed for the postdoc position, my resolve to pursue a research career began to weaken.

To pick up extra money to support my family (which now included a child), I had been hired as a part-time lecturer at a small, regional university near the ecology lab. I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed the intimacy of the small school. (For more information on scientists choosing small colleges over research universities, see an article from The Chronicle, August 18.)

I had always enjoyed teaching, having been a teaching assistant as both a master's and doctoral student, but I found my new teaching assignments, with increased flexibility and responsibility, more rewarding than before. I began to wonder how much I would miss teaching when I settled into a predominantly research role. While I was, at times, dismayed that the students didn't always care enough to rise to the challenge of the material, I liked being a part of the small school.

At the same time, I was becoming very active in the undergraduate research program at the ecology laboratory. The experience of training young researchers was time-consuming, at times frustrating, but overwhelmingly satisfying. I was amazed to find that I was learning more about how to do research by working with the undergraduates than by doing my own dissertation research.

One event more than any other transformed my career plans. A friend who had recently been hired at a top liberal-arts college invited me to give a guest lecture to one of his classes. On that day I saw a small campus where research was regarded as an integral part of undergraduate education. The students were bright, familiar with the primary literature on which my lecture was based, and enthusiastic about the material.

In talking to my friend, I found him happy and productive, involved in research as much as teaching, and actively using research as a way to enhance his classroom teaching. Furthermore, he was doing it all without the pressure of constantly bringing in big research money and producing graduate students and postdocs.

I began to see, for the first time, that research didn't have to be limited to satisfying my intellectual curiosity. It could also be used to stoke the curiosity and enhance the learning of students. Research could become a powerful pedagogical tool that would allow me to do more than produce observations, hypotheses, and arguments: it could be an opportunity to hone critical thinking and introduce students to the essential activity of discovery that continues to inspire me.

Early on, I had missed this goal of research, seeing only that the large class sizes at most research universities preclude using original research in the curriculum. In a liberal-arts college, however, where there is an emphasis on small class size and close contact between students and professors, research can play a vital role in undergraduate education.

I was quickly sold on the liberal-arts college as a place where I could balance teaching with directing talented undergraduates in research, both in the classroom and in independent projects.

As I was questioning a research-centered career, additional factors came into play: my small family of three grew, with the addition of twins, to a family of five. My extended family in the Southeast gained a new importance, as my wife and I wanted to raise our children near their grandparents, aunts, and uncles. And so, although I hadn't planned on being in the job pool so soon -- with the postdoc position out West a sure thing -- I decided I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying for a gig at a liberal-arts college.

By last April, with less than a month left until my doctoral defense, I had applied for just six jobs, all but one at liberal-arts institutions. Then events began to move so quickly I barely had time to take it all in. A private, liberal-arts college in South Carolina expressed interest in my application, and a few days before my defense, the head of the search committee called to set up a phone interview. A week and a half later, I was on campus for an interview.

The position, for a non-tenure-track assistant professorship on a renewable contract, did not include long-term security but it did offer all I could have hoped for: an excellent academic reputation; bright, talented students; a friendly, collegial faculty; support for research as an integral component of undergraduate education; a beautiful campus within a few hours of family, my field sites, and the ecological laboratory where much of my research was based.

Less than a week after my interview, I was offered the position.

I happily asked the dean to send along the contract. Before it arrived, I was contacted by a small state university in the Mid-Atlantic region regarding a tenure-track position. That job would have offered more job security as well as a potential affiliation with another ecological research laboratory. A couple of weeks later, the university invited me to campus for an interview. It seems my preparation for the big-time research path had also made me attractive to smaller schools that value research as a pedagogical tool.

Although it is somewhat uncommon for a newly minted Ph.D. to get serious consideration for a tenure-track position in the natural sciences, I declined the interview. For now, I am sold on the liberal-arts college as a place where I can combine my interests in research and teaching. I accepted the job offer from the college in South Carolina. Even though that job, which I started this fall, is temporary, I am confident that the experience I am going to get teaching and leading serious undergraduate research for the next year or two will be just what the next liberal-arts college will be looking for, or perhaps even the one where I am now.

I entered graduate school convinced I would leave headed for a job where research would be my focus. In the intervening five years, my dream job shifted to a small, liberal-arts college. I left graduate school with the same passion for research, only now, by thinking smaller, I have gained a much larger appreciation of the vital role that my research, when combined with teaching, can play in not only my academic life, but also that of my students.