by Mary Beth Anzovino

The dreaded question for so many graduate students (perhaps second only to “so when are you going to graduate?”). Even if you have a sense of where you ultimately want to end up, career-wise, there is still a lot of uncertainty until you actually secure that position. 

In early 2013, my answer to that question was something along the lines of “I’m not sure what’s next, but ultimately I’d like to have a position as a faculty member, teaching organic chemistry and mentoring students in chemistry education research.”  I knew that postdoctoral research experience would be extremely helpful in obtaining such a job, but I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of spending even more time in a transient position before searching for (and hopefully getting) a more long-term, and potentially permanent, position.  I took the long way through graduate school, drastically changing my research focus (from synthetic organic methodology to chemistry education) and effectively starting over after two years.  In early 2013, I had been working toward my Ph.D. for six and a half years, with the better part of a year left to go.  Graduate school is inherently temporary (even though it sometimes doesn’t feel that way!) and I felt like I was ready to do something with at least the potential for permanency.

So I did what I often do when it comes to big decisions: I solicited advice from people I trust.  In this case, those people were colleagues in the chemistry education research community. I talked to people who did postdoctoral research, asking them about what they took away from their experiences.  And I talked to people who went directly from graduate school to their first faculty position.  Obviously every person’s experience is going to be different, but everyone I talked to in both categories seemed really satisfied with their choice and spoke excitedly about their work either as a postdoc or as a faculty member.  Basically, either path still seemed like it could be the right one, so I had to engage in some more serious self-reflection.

I considered my own experiences as a graduate student.  For my dissertation research, I developed new general chemistry laboratory experiments and a survey instrument to assess the impacts of these new experiments on students’ awareness of and attitudes toward scientific research.  This work was mostly quantitative in nature.  But I had a lot of other ideas, unrelated to my dissertation project (and therefore filed away in the “to revisit in the future” list), that seemed more suited to qualitative research methods, with which I had very little experience.  Framed as “a year or two in which I could pursue some of my ideas and engage in a new kind of research under the guidance of a dedicated mentor,” it seemed silly that I would even consider not seeking out a postdoctoral position.

Getting a postdoc is similar to getting any other job in that there has to be a suitable position available at the right time. Although a lot of postdoc positions are advertised on a similar time frame to faculty job openings (in the fall, about a year prior to the desired start date), there are also positions announced throughout the year. As I was coming around to the idea of looking for a postdoc, there happened to be one available that sounded ideal for the kind of experience I hoped to gain: Stacey Lowery Bretz, at Miami University, was seeking a researcher and the position was not limited to a particular project, so I would have the opportunity to design my own research plan. After applying for the position and talking with Stacey about potential research ideas, we both decided I would be a good fit for her research group.

I have been at Miami since January 2014; thus far I have begun collecting data for a qualitative research project with organic chemistry students, providing a nice complement to my quantitative dissertation research with general chemistry students. I have also written manuscripts based on my dissertation work and begun to prepare for my eventual search for a faculty position. My time in the Bretz group has been an opportunity not only to do new and exciting research that I’ve had a significant role in designing, but also to wrap up remaining publications from my graduate work and more seriously contemplate what’s next – both in terms of the types of faculty positions I want to apply for and what kinds of research questions I want to attack in the future.

My biggest piece of advice to anyone considering a postdoc or looking for a postdoc position is the same advice I’d give to anyone looking for any kind of job: network, network, network!  Go to conferences, if you can, and participate in the Q&A after the talks.  If there is a topic that particularly interests you, try to connect with the speaker after the session ends and continue the conversation.  Make a point to meet and talk to new people at each conference.  Talk about your work, talk about their work, talk about your ideas, talk about their ideas…you may just stumble upon a common interest or a new approach to a particular problem or research question.  Ask them about their own experiences and what they gained from those experiences.  The members of the chemistry education research community come from a wide variety of backgrounds and I have yet to encounter someone who isn’t willing to take at least a few minutes to chat.

Mary Beth Anzovino is a postdoctoral researcher at Miami University in Oxford, OH. She earned a B.A. in chemistry from Williams College and a Ph.D. in chemistry, specializing in chemistry education research, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

by Thomas Bussey, University of California, San Diego

ChemEd can sometime be an isolating and uphill battle. For those of us in a science department, many of our colleagues/other students, however supportive, may not really understand what it is that we do.  For those of us fortunate enough to have ChemEd colleagues/group members, we may find that the diversity of our field leads us to very different research agendas while the demands of teaching/coursework take up a significant portion of our time.

With an already full plate, why not add a little more, right? In fact, getting involved in the wider ChemEd community is often extremely beneficial as this outlet can offer a unique source of camaraderie, for networking, and for possible collaboration, and can begin to prepare you for the competing demands of your future career.

Careers in academia generally embody three areas of demand on your time: research, teaching, and service. Even outside of academia, job performance is often measured against your ability to juggle multiple demands on your time and expertise. Graduate school often focuses primarily (and often exclusively) on research and scholarship. Sometimes (and quite often to a lesser extent) some graduate students can develop their abilities in the classroom as well. However, classroom experience is often gained after graduate school. Similarly, post-doctoral positions often focus primarily on research. It often isn’t until you begin your career that the demands on your time diverge. At this point, your competing roles can seem overwhelming. While early involvement in service to the ChemEd community will not lessen the demands of your early career, it will provide you with resources, supports, and invaluable experience that can give you a competitive advantage.

So how can you get involved? Here are three things you can do to gain service experience.

1. Be a part of a DivCHED Committee.
   The ACS Division of Chemical Education has a variety of committees. Graduate students, post-docs, and early career faculty who are DivCHED members can be involved in committee service.

   The easiest way to get involved in a committee is to attend open committee meetings during the ACS or BCCE conferences. Prior to a conference, a list of committee meeting times, dates, and locations will be posted on the Division website. As conferences generally begin on Sundays, these meetings are generally held the Saturday immediately prior to the conference (sometimes these meetings can be as early as the Friday before up through the Sunday of the conference). You don’t need to be a member of the committee to attend an open meeting of that committee. This is a great way to see what the various committees do and how you might be able to get further involved. A description of the various division committees can be found on the DivCHED website.

   The next step of committee involvement would be to become a member of a committee. If you are interested in joining a particular committee, I would suggest contacting the committee chair and expressing your interest in participating. The chair would be able to advise you regarding the needs and demands of the particular committee. You may also submit your name for nomination to a CHED committee via the DivCHED website.

   The Younger Chemistry Education Scholar (YCES) Committee is a great committee with which to begin your involvement. This committee was designed specifically to support and engage graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and early career (EC) faculty. YCES is currently looking for interested graduate students, post-docs, and/or EC faculty to join the committee. Terms of appointment run for 3 years. If you are interested in joining or if you have additional questions about YCES or other CHED committee, feel free to reach out to me (tbussey@ucsd.edu).

2. Be a Symposium Organizer.
   Another great way to get involved is to become a symposium organizer. Conference chairs general post a Call for Symposia about a year or so prior to a conference. In fact, the end of one conference is a great time to start thinking about and planning a symposium for the next conference. Consider what you liked and did not like about the conference you just attended. What would you like to see next time? This is a great place to begin.

   To submit a proposal for a symposium, you would write an abstract similar to that of a paper or poster. This abstract would detail the purpose, aims, outcomes, and target audience for this symposium. It may be very helpful to team up with a co-organizer who has previously organized a conference symposium. This would give you a reliable and knowledge partner. If you are not sure how, where, or when to submit a proposal for a symposium, contact the conference chair as early as possible. They will be able to provide you with more information about the specific submission process and timeline for that particular conference.

   If your symposium is accepted, your next job would be to organize submissions to your symposium. As such, it may be necessary to solicit presenters to consider presenting in your specific symposium. Consider directly emailing desired presenters or posting notices of your symposium in public domains such as the CER listserv.

   Once the abstract submission deadline passes, you will be asked to review, possibly edit, and accept/reject the abstracts submitted to your symposium. This is often where a co-organizer comes in handy. The turn around time for this is generally very short, so it can be helpful to split the work amongst each other. This also provides an extra set of eyes to catch any mistakes or oversights you may make.

   Following the acceptance of your papers, you will then be asked to periodically communicate symposium or conference information to your presenters. To do so, it is often very helpful to create an email list of all the presenters. I generally create a spreadsheet for each symposium with the name of the primary presenter for each talk/poster, their email address, any additional authors names, the title of their work, the text of their abstract, and, later on, the date, time, and location of each talk. This allows you to easily access and update this information and disseminate it as need be.

   At the conference, I would recommend finding your symposium room a day or so early (if possible). This will allow you to anticipate any last minute announcements that may need to be made about the symposium location or logistics. On the day of your symposium, show up to the location early. Presenters may be lost, flustered, late, and/or nervous, so it will help ease the tension and make things run smoother if you give off an air of confidence (even if you are faking it). You are the leader of this symposium, and presenters and audience members alike want to feel as though you know what you are doing and that you are in control. This is also a time in which an experienced co-organizer comes in handy. They can help answer any questions you might have and will take some of the stress off of you. However, if you run into a question or situation you don’t know how to answer of deal with, please ask for help. The organizer in the room next to yours is a great place to start. In general, people will help you out. We have all been there.

   During the symposium, your role becomes that of a facilitator. You will be timing the presenters and leading the follow-up questions at the end of each presentation. You are also generally asked to prepare opening and closing statements to welcome and summarize your symposium. It is also important to monitor and manage the audience. The conference chair will generally ask for a count of your audience as well as other possible feedback following your symposium. As such, it is helpful to periodically count the number of audience members during the symposium. The highest number of audience members at a given time is generally reported.

   Following the symposium, make sure to complete any follow-up paperwork asked of you by the conference chair. Also, send thank yous to your presenters (email is sufficient) thanking them for their participation and contribution to your symposium. Although it may seem daunting at first, I assure you, it will get easier with time. This is a great way to become more involved and contribute to the discourse in our field.

3. Be a Reviewer.
   A third way to become more involved in the CER community is to become a reviewer. Journals and grant funding agencies require peer-reviews to assess and critique submissions. Traditionally, individuals whose PhD expertise closely relates to the material being reviewed are asked to conduct the peer-review. In general, offers to become a reviewer will come with experience, i.e., once you have created a body of work, editors and program officers may solicit you for your expertise. However, you may also contact them to express your interest in becoming a reviewer. Examples of research journals to which you could contribute are the Journal of Chemical Education, Chemical Education Research and Practice, or the Journal of Research in Science Teaching or grant funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation or the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  You should plan to submit a current CV to the editor or program officer in order to allow them to evaluate your ability to contribute as a reviewer.

   While you must gain some experience submitting journal manuscripts or grant proposals prior to becoming a reviewer, being a reviewer in these roles can be extremely beneficial to you as an author. As a reviewer, you are offered a glimpse behind the curtain to see how manuscripts or proposals are evaluated, what aspects are deemed good, and (often more importantly) what aspects are deemed not good. With this insight, you can substantially improve your own submissions while adding to the overall discourse and rigor of our field.

If you are (relatively) new to CER, consider becoming more involved. Your involvement on committees, with conference symposia, and or as a reviewer will help you and the broader CER community.

Thomas J. Bussey
LPSOE, University of California, San Diego
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

by Daniel Cruz-Ramírez de Arellano, Ph.D.

A little over a year ago I graduated from a doctoral program in chemistry education research. It was a long road filled with challenges and triumphs. Of course, it is easy to generically call them “challenges and triumphs” when one is looking back on an already completed goal; but when one is living it, going through the daily trials, the process might seem more arduous than what was anticipated. In order to keep my motivation up, I found it extremely helpful to keep my eye on the prize, to constantly remind myself why I had decided to embark on the journey through graduate school. In my case, I wanted to be a college professor.

I wanted to be able to teach chemistry to society’s future scientists, physicians, pharmacists, and any other professional who might go on to have a positive impact in the world. I wanted to impact students in an encouraging and supportive way; me being a minority twice over (Latino and gay), I particularly wished to mentor and inspire students from underrepresented groups in STEM. The desire to teach and mentor became my driving force, and that lead me to the decision that I would focus on “instructor positions” as I planned my next step after graduation.

The jargon in academia can sometimes be confusing, so let me tell you what I mean by “instructor positions”. By that I mean positions in academia that focus on teaching and service, not so much on research. Don’t get me wrong, I think research is cool and I enjoyed doing research during my graduate school years, but it is honestly not something I can envision doing every day for the rest of my life. I wanted to be in the classroom as much as possible, I wanted to interact with undergraduates and help them as much as I could, and I realized that an instructor position would permit me to fully dedicate myself to these endeavors. So after many applications and interviews, I ended up accepting an instructor position at the University of South Florida, and I am extremely happy with my decision.

So what has it been like so far? Most of my time is spent teaching, designing course curricula, helping students in office hours, and training/mentoring my graduate teaching assistants (T.A.s). It has definitely been challenging, but when you are doing something you love, you do not mind the hard work. This semester I have around 650 undergraduate students spread across all my sections, and most of them are first-year students. Since most of them are new to college life, I have found that it is my job not only to teach them chemistry, but also to teach them how college works. I am constantly answering questions like: What exactly are office hours? How does the online homework system work? How should I prepare for the exam? And so on and so forth. It takes a huge amount of patience and dedication. Nobody tells you that “working with people” really means “having to repeat the same thing at least ten times within a single hour”. But that’s ok, you know why? Because it is precisely those students with questions who need the most help, and helping them is my job! Having a positive experience during the first year of college can make the difference between a student finishing a STEM degree or not finishing it, or even finishing any degree for that matter. So I try to see it as a privilege. I teach a gatekeeper course, and I have to open that gate as far as I can, so that all students can pass through and achieve their goals.

If you are thinking about applying for instructor positions, you need to get as much teaching experience as you can. This can most commonly be achieved through teaching assistantships, which are fairly common among graduate programs in chemistry. Contribute as much as you can: volunteer for implementing relevant curricular reforms, volunteer to design new laboratory experiences, volunteer to be the “head T.A.” for a course, try serving both as a laboratory T.A. and a lecture T.A. Do a good job so that your faculty supervisor can write you a good letter of recommendation when the moment arrives. When you prepare your CV, include all of these things under “Teaching Experience”, offer details of all your responsibilities and duties. I think it is better to include too much information than too little information, so be specific about your skills, contributions, and achieved goals within each course for which you are a T.A. (or instructor).

Another important aspect of applying for instructor positions is having a solid teaching philosophy statement. Your teaching philosophy should reflect the underlying assumptions and strategies that inform your daily practice as an educator. It should have some sort of a theoretical framework as the foundation, but make sure you include tangible ways in which that theoretical framework informs your practice. Be as inspiring as you can be but stay grounded in reality, and include a couple of references within it for good measure.

Announcements for instructor positions can be found in online academic jobs sites (e.g. higheredjobs.com) or on academic periodicals (e.g. Chemical & Engineering News). In the end, just focus on being yourself and being sincere. People can tell when you are really passionate about something, and they often respond positively to passion and genuine interest.

Even though instructor positions (typically) earn a little less money than tenure-track positions, I am happy because I am doing exactly what I always wanted to do. I certainly do not discard the option of getting involved with research down the road, but for now I am happy and fulfilled where I am. I feel like I am making a positive difference in the world, and that is the best feeling ever!

So go ahead, follow your dream, remind yourself of it on a daily basis if you must, but keep at it because there is light at the end of the tunnel, and it is shiny and beautiful!!

Do not hesitate to e-mail me to dcruz5@usf.edu if I can be of assistance to you in any way.

Daniel Cruz-Ramírez de Arellano is a permanent instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, FL. He earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico – Río Piedras Campus and a Ph.D. in chemistry, specializing in chemistry education research, from Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

by Jordan Harshman

*A list of stat program acronyms that I use throughout this blog is at the end.

Chances are, sometime in your CER-related career you’ll end up with the need (possibly even the desire) to analyze quantitative data. In the analysis and visualization of quantitative data, you have a growing list of statistical programs to choose from. The impetus for writing this blog post is something that I hope I can convince you of: which program(s) you choose to analyze your data directly influences the quality of your analysis, therefore your research.

First, let’s divide the available packages into two main categories: those that can be (and usually are) operated primarily via a graphical user interface (GUI) versus a command line interface (CLI). The two categories essentially boil down into this question: Will you write code (CLI) or will you point-and-click (GUI) in order to make discoveries and communicate them to the world? Some examples for GUIs would be Excel and SPSS; CLIs include R and SAS.

If you think the answer to this question is solely about preference, please reconsider as I walk you through thoughts about time requirements, reproducibility, and quality of analyses in different programs. To establish some credibility, I would humbly deem myself “endurably proficient” in operating SAS, R, SPSS, and Excel, so these programs are what I will talk about here. Secondly, in the interest of bias, R is my program of choice – it has become an inseparable part of the way I conduct research, but I will attempt to be objectionable in order to give you helpful information.

For each topic (time, reproducibility, and capabilities), you’ll read a conversation-style paragraph or two from myself (pro-CLI) and two from my alter-ego (pro-GUI) regarding that particular criteria. It’s my hope that this discussion format might put these considerations in a light that you can relate to as a researcher in CER.

Time
Pro-CLI
Unless you’ve had previous coding experiences, point-and-click programs such as SPSS and Excel will undoubtedly take less time to pick up the basics and have you generating your first analysis or plot in a very short amount of time. However, considering the bigger picture, it may actually be less time consuming to master the relatively steep learning curve of a CLI program.

Consider a simple scenario: You’ve got a 10-question multiple choice survey with 4 response choices each to be administered 3 times a semester for 3 different courses. If you want to produce a bar plot broken down by question, administration, and class, that’s 90 graphs to make. With a GUI, you’d have to change the title, maybe the axis label, and the data for each graph, preferably making them look the same (color, axis range, etc.).

Generally, this is a very time consuming and monotonous task in GUIs that require many repetitive mouse clicks to get everything the way you want it. Alternatively, CLIs will generally have programming loops that will do this after an initial investment of coding and approximately 0.47 seconds to actually run the command and produce the plots. To be fair, I recognize that there are ways to make this go faster in GUIs as you can usually integrate macros and set default formatting, but on general principle, I’ve found repetitive tasks that need to be done in a consistent manner go by much faster in CLIs than in GUIs.

Pro-GUI
For many people without any coding experience, the “learning curve” to mastering CLIs bears resemblance to the T1 relaxation state in NMR – you will expend a great deal of time and effort and even after years will fall short of mastery. Coding headaches brought upon by CLI programs take little chunks of time away where GUIs are much easier to pick up and get to analysis. Altering aesthetic characteristics don’t require you to memorize functions and are generally intuitive.

As far as reproducing analyses and graphs many times, programming may be able to help this process go faster, but sometimes you will spend more time writing a code to do something than the time it would take to just do it yourself in another program. All in all, it could be said that the amount of time it takes to do equivalent tasks in GUIs vs. CLIs boils down to the users’ aptitude with the stat package. Even if a program can produce 90 bar plots in less than a second, it’s on the user to check enough of them to make sure the program did it correctly, which can be just as time consuming as making them yourself.

Reproducibility
Pro-CLI
Let’s say you’re on a GUI and you’re making your 65th bar plot. Are you, the tired human behind the controls, more reliable than a computer program in this repetitive task? Assuming that the program is coded correctly to do what you want it to do (and you should of course check this), computers are more consistent than humans in this context.

Now assume you want to run EFA on your survey just like you did in a previous test administration. It’s been two months since you did the last one and now you need to remember every click that will produce the exact same output for a different set of data. If you haven’t been diligently documenting these decisions, you may end up applying different assumptions that affect the results, especially if you do not have a strong expertise in the nuanced options for the analysis you’re doing. In a CLI interface, you would generally only have to change the name of the data set you’re running the analysis on and away the program will go, with every option you had previously.

Pro-GUI
In order to address reproducibility, we don’t need to talk about “which is better” between CLIs and GUIs because it all boils down to the research skills of the person behind the computer. Stated otherwise, CLIs are only as good as the person writing the code. If the code is constructed to produce output according to a pattern that closely, but doesn’t quite match the data, the code will not run or worse, it will run and produce inaccurate results. These types of mistakes can be very difficult to spot and can be avoided altogether in GUIs because the user is always in control of producing the results.

Capabilities
Pro-CLI
As a rule, CLIs can perform statistical techniques that GUIs cannot. However, we generally don’t see those techniques being performed in our field and thus GUIs are great for the things we do see commonly in the field (a comparison of what these programs can do may be found here: http://stanfordphd.com/Statistical_Software.html). However, certain techniques might not be widely used precisely because people cannot perform them on the software they use.

I would additionally argue that the quantity of analyses/visualizations are not always possible with GUI programs. This is very interesting because, for me anyway, I will often find valuable findings just by looking at a graph. You might find a completely unplanned yet extremely valuable line of inquiry just by looking at the item response curve of Item #7 and a histogram of Item #2, for example. The point here is that you would have had to generate these two plots, which you might not do on a GUI because it takes too much time and you never had a strong reason to in the first place, making CLIs more apt for data exploration.

Pro-GUI
While it’s true that GUIs cannot always perform some of the more advanced statistics, they can perform a vast majority of what CER needs to get the job done correctly. Additionally, for those specialized techniques that only other programs can do, it is really not necessary to learn the entire program in order to run an analysis. Many times on the web, it’s easy to find an example similar to what you want to do complete with instructions for entering your data, running the analysis, and interpreting the output with no programming knowledge required. If the data needs to be in a different format, you can use your GUIs to get it there and export it when you’re done.

I could argue as well that data exploration is just as alive and well in GUIs as it is in CLIs. There is no reason that a researcher can’t produce a couple hundred plots in Excel/SPSS and look at them to discover trends. It is, again, simply an argument of time commitment as opposed to being an advantage/disadvantage from one type of stat package to another.

Additional Considerations

Just to put a note on a few additional considerations...

Price
The cost of a stat program vary. SAS and SPSS are both generally pricey, but they may or may not be subsidized by university-wide licenses. Excel is obviously reasonably priced for an individual license and will no doubt be accessible wherever you are now and wherever you will end up (this is an important consideration). Lastly, R is open-source, so it’s free, which is a pretty good price. Some of these programs also offer student pricing.

Training
Regardless of programs, the internet has opened an incredibly large amount of resources. Simply typing the name of the statistic you want to do followed by the program’s name will most likely solve most troubleshooting woes, but additionally, books are available for many of the programs as well.

Nuances in programs
If you run a stat in one program, you may not get the same result as another. Differences in defined algorithms, rounding defaults, available adjustments, and memory storage can have an impact on the results. Generally, these are small, but can be problematic. Also, you don’t get the same output (same information) on every program, so it’s important to dig behind the scenes to find out what’s happening when you run any analysis.

Caution about using what you know
In my experience, if you learned something on SPSS, you’re likely to continue using SPSS. If you learned on R, you’re likely to continue with R and so on. My suggestion would be to experiment with the different programs while you’re “young” (professionally young). You should decide which program(s) to use for a reason beyond “this is what I know” and actually consider the ramifications of using different stat programs.

In Closing...
The choice, of course, is yours to make. Also, you will probably never exclusively use one program. Therefore, having skills in several programs is a great benefit to conducting research. And I hope this point goes without saying, but it’s less important about whether or not your stat program knows how to do a certain analysis. It’s more important that you know how that stat is calculated and what it means. No program interprets your data for you.

I hope this article has given you some things to think about that you might not have otherwise. I reiterate the importance of making a conscious decision about what programs you want to investigate and use in the future and invite you contact me if you have any questions!

*Some readers may be unfamiliar to the software I referenced throughout this blog. For those, here is a list of the acronyms for stat programs:
SPSS – IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
SAS – Statistical Analysis System
R – Rumored to stand for its original creators; this is a programming language
Excel – Microsoft’s spreadsheet program

Not talked about in this post, but used in CER:
STATA – Name based on word combination of “statistics and data”
MATLAB – MATrix LABoratory
Mathematica – Wolfram Alpha’s stat package
Minitab – I haven’t been able to find out why this is called as it is. Sorry.

Jordan Harshman
Doctoral Student
Miami University
harshmjt@miamioh.edu

By:  Stephanie Ryan, Ph.D., Science Test Development Specialist, American Institutes for Research

Welcome to Part 2 of the “What’s Behind Door Number Two? Other Chemistry Education Research Career Options” series. Check out Part 1 for introductory material and a discussion about teaching opportunities.

Research is your passion?
If you answered the question “What do I enjoy doing?” with: Research is my passion but teaching isn’t really my thing, this section is for you!

In general, you can conduct research on how people learn science at any level in informal or formal contexts. This can range from elementary school students to training programs for adults. This category also involves using your skills to develop materials (e.g. assessments, curricular materials).

Rather than focus on each of these examples, I will elaborate on a few of them. Other blog writers have described some of these positions in previous posts.

Industry
Don’t forget! You have a degree in Chemistry. You can still apply for bench chemist positions in industry if that is something you are interested in pursuing. This work is often hard money but can sometimes be soft money grant work.

You have a unique skill set that will allow you to train others in instrumentation and you understand the chemistry behind the work. Many companies in industry also have outreach programs in which you could study the efficacy of such programs.

Researcher at an Institute
Principal Investigators (PIs) rely on many people to conduct large-scale research studies. You encountered this as a graduate student or postdoc working on a project with your advisor. If you really enjoy conducting educational research, many positions exist for you to do this. This type of work is soft money and you would work contract to contract. This can occur at a not-for-profit company or at an R1 university. Many R1 universities have a STEM education research center or other types of educational research/resource centers.

Contracts can range in number of years from short term to 3-5 years. You may have the opportunity to renew your contract depending on the success of the project. There will likely be a management aspect to the position such as overseeing junior staff and you will report directly to a PI. Your job will include writing papers and possibly presenting your research at a conference.

There are many examples of institutions where you conduct this type of work. A few of them are: Learning Sciences Research Institute, American Institutes for Research, and WestEd.

Curriculum Development / Commercial Education Materials
These positions can be hard or soft money and can be contract work. You could work for a textbook company like Houghton Mifflin collecting and analyzing data for research studies. You could also research the efficacy of a curriculum or how it is used in an educational setting at a University. For example, my postdoc work was to help develop and study The Connected Chemistry Curriculum in order to redesign the simulations and materials with the stakeholders using it.

Kit development companies also offer opportunities to train instructors, develop materials, and research outcomes. You could work with companies like Flinn Scientific or Ward’s Science.

If you want to get your feet wet in this realm, there are often consulting positions available for short term work as a chemistry education specialist.

Professional Development (PD)
Remember when I mentioned PD in the Part 1 blog post? The same applies for research! Just add “conducting research on” before it! Commercial education development companies and PIs want to study their curricular materials and how they are used in educational settings. They also want to make sure that they are delivering the most effective PD to teachers. This all involves collecting data and analyzing it to determine what aspects of PD could be improved.

Some university and college campuses have centers for learning and teaching to help faculty and teaching assistants to become better teachers by offering professional development events. They often conduct research or aid in the design and analysis of research on the efficacy of instruction. The person doing that research could be you!

Journalism
There are many scientists who write for chemistry blogs, magazines, and national news articles. Having a background in chemistry education makes you uniquely qualified to do this. You are able to communicate scientific information to the masses. This type of work is hard money but also is likely contract work.

Evaluator
If you have written or reviewed a grant, you may have noticed an “advisory board” or “evaluator” component. Granting institutions want to ensure that a PI has an outside perspective on their work to make sure that it is progressing forward and that their analysis of data is unbiased. You could join an educational consulting firm or work part time on your own in this capacity. This is a consulting position that is dependent on other people’s soft money. Others can write you into grants as their external evaluator on their research. Some people make their living on this as a consultant, but work is dependant on the economic climate.

Assessment Writing
You can write test items for standardized tests. This can either be a full time position at a company like American Institutes for Research or contract work with a company like The American Chemical Society. In a full-time position you can write formative or summative exams for a variety of different content areas. Sometimes companies seek outside item writers to write items and this work would be contract-based. Textbooks are often accompanied with a test bank and textbook companies often hire freelance item writers. Item writers are usually required to have some kind of teaching or assessment background and a strong content background. For example, the American Chemical Society regularly hires outside item writers to create test bank items. This is something that I worked as a contractor doing for years while in graduate school.

I presented these two blog posts as a talk at the 2013 National ACS Spring Meeting. Several months later I interviewed and was hired for my current position at the American Institutes for Research. I identified that assessment was my favorite aspect of all of my project work and decided to make a career of it.

So what next?
If after reading these two blog posts you still aren’t sure which aspects of Chemistry Education you like the most, that is totally fine. Your degree just opened a lot of doors and a postdoc is a great experience to try out other areas and develop other skills.

The piece of advice I mentioned in Part 1 still rings with me years later. “Five to seven years is a long time to be unhappy.” Think about what interests you and makes you happy and investigate opportunities. Remember that choosing one path does not preclude other paths. Choosing an opportunity that doesn’t end up being your favorite isn’t a failure – it is building your skillset.

The YCES Blog is a great resource for this exercise. Guest bloggers describe their different paths and a variety of tools for teaching and research that might be useful for your development. If you have already chosen your path, volunteer to write a blog post so that others can learn!

Meeting people in our YCES community is also a great way to learn more about the different paths out there. We are active at ACS meetings and BCCE meetings. Come visit us!

Stephanie Ryan is a Science Test Development Specialist at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). She earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Saint Mary's College, an M.S. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

by David Wren, Assistant Teaching Professor & Director of the Chemistry Center at Wake Forest University, Department of Chemistry

Congratulations, you have a “real” job in academia. Prepare for the crushing weight of expectations, doubt that you really belong in front of the class, and unmatched excitement that you have finally “made it”. My first year teaching at Wake Forest University was the most difficult year of my life. It was also one of the most exciting. What I expected to be hard was much easier than what expected to be easy. Here is my autoethnographic study of my first year of as a new faculty member in a Chemistry department.

Before I continue, I should give you a little background on my experience and training upon arriving to my office first my first day as a professor. My teaching experience was extensive (TA of 30+ lab sections, 20+ guest lectures, and 1 co-taught course—thank you 8 years of graduate school!), so I was actually looking forward to preparing my curriculum. I was assigned 2 courses (general chemistry lecture and lab), along with getting a chemistry tutoring center up and running before the first day of class. Given that I was making revisions to my dissertation the night before I left my pregnant wife, 1.5 year old son and an unsold house in Colorado (they would stay for 10 more weeks before moving out to NC), I had no time to prepare for any of my courses before I arrived, two weeks before classes were to begin. The moment I realized things were different is when I suddenly went to “first-name status” with all the other faculty in the department. Given that three days prior I was addressing the all my graduate school faculty as “Dr.” it took a little time to adjust. If you are going from a post-doctoral fellowship this may be less disconcerting. Another thing that I quickly found annoying was that I need to dress up (e.g. wearing slacks and shirts) so not to be confused with incoming freshman (this happened several times). Given how hot and humid August can be in the South, it was not ideal. But, I will say that investing in some nice pants and shoes are worth the money, even if you didn’t realize pants could cost that much. Also, don’t be shy to procure a nice office chair, especially if you inherit an old stained swivel chair from your office’s previous occupant. I found that most universities have procurement departments with office surplus in which you can upgrade office furniture, if funds are not available to buy new. Ok, let’s get to some real advice.

Teaching
Teaching responsibilities will vary widely depending on your institution, department, and specific appointment. However, there are 3 universal time-sponges the soak up much or your free time during your first year: (1) preparing lecture notes or slides, (2) face-to-face student interactions, and (3) digital course management (e.g., email, course website, online homework, etc.). I am a luddite and choose to use chalk and the blackboard, so I prepared my lecture notes by hand, on paper. I found using a large-format art sketch pad to get all the material down helped me organized each of my lectures. I quickly found out that three of my pages of lecture notes took one class period, so I could estimate a good stopping point for each lecture. Never end a lecture late and never end it early. I find that if students know you will not go over but will say something important up to the end of class, they do not annoyingly pack up their bags before the end of lecture. I really enjoy one-on-one student interaction and my door is always open. Teaching freshman, especially after the first exam can lead to many important, though not always easy, conversations. I value these interactions immensely, but they can steal hours of your day and lead your wife to question “what did you exactly do all day?” on days I do not teach and still have to prepare for the next day’s lecture that night. I find that getting to the office early and working on the most time-sensitive material first allowed me to be more present in these conversations. During my first year, I very rarely had more than one lecture written in advance, mostly because I spent much time on each lecture and because I am really good at procrastinating. This approach is not for everyone, but did allow me to adapt to issues that arose in lecture. I did have learning outcomes written and posted at the beginning of each chapter, so students knew where we were going next. I found learning four new digital platforms in one week (email, course website, textbook homework system, university intranet, appointment management system for tutoring center) to be overwhelming. These were a big part of the first-year learning curve. I would suggest not getting too fancy with how you utilize these digital tools during your first semester—keep it simple for you and your students. I also found that I could figure things out 3 times slower than just asking a colleague. There is a fine balance between being lazy and being resourceful, but don’t feel you need to reinvent the wheel every time you hit a digital hurdle.

Service
I was not expecting service to be a large time commitment. I was wrong. Faculty meeting, committee meetings, or any time multiple faculty get into a room tend to take longer to accomplish less than planned. Years with faculty searches, program reviews or curriculum reform will double or triple your commitments to the department. Preparing before each meeting is essential to your ability to contribute something worth considering by other faculty members. An important lesson I learned is to not overcommit your time spent doing service. It is easy to be enthusiastic at the beginning of the year, and say yes to everything. Don’t. I have found that you gain more respect from colleagues if you say no and not overcommit than say yes and do a poor job. There may also be many professional service obligations, such as reviewing papers, joining ACS committees (#YCES), community outreach, etc. These are a great way to stay connected to the CER community and maintain a certain level of exposure in the field. However, remember that there is a law of diminishing returns for time spent on professional service.

Research
My specific appointment does not include a research component (80% teaching, 20% service), but I still spend at least 10% of my first year working on publishing papers from my dissertation work, investigating and starting new collaborations, and staying up-to-date with the literature. Giving invited talks can take big chunks of time during the semester, so I would advise deferring until your second year before accepting speaking invitations. I did find giving talks at summer conferences to be a great way to have time to prepare a new talk and insert myself back in the CER community.

The Hardest Thing During my First Year as a Faculty Member was …
A good analogy for my first year would be juggling different sized balls, gaining more as the year progressed. These balls could be an email I needed to respond to, a worksheet I needed to create, a chemical I needed to order, a test key I needed to post, etc. My biggest fear was to simply drop a ball. Forget to do something I committed to doing, or was responsible to complete or felt I should do as part of my teaching obligations. In graduate school you become very good at focusing on one task (or browsing ESPN) and generally spend large blocks of time on specific tasks. As a faculty member you are constantly starting a new task, then start another task, going to a meeting and agreeing to do two more tasks. Students will walk in your office at random times and course preparation always takes priority, constantly putting less immediate tasks on the backburner. During my first year I felt like I spent all of my time doing little things, a proverbial death by 1000 tasks. Responding to emails drain so much of your time and kills your spirit. I found I had to label important but non-immediate emails with a “need to respond” label in my mail client so that I would not forget to respond after it disappears past the first page of my inbox. Some more disciplined new faculty members only respond to emails twice a day—this works great if you do not have a Pavlovian response to the sound of a new email. I found writing a To-Do lists each morning helped focus my efforts, with “Write a To-Do list” as the first entry. These lists were always overly optimistic, but served to remind me what I needed to do later in the week. I never left the office with that “well I got everything I wanted to get done today” feeling. That’s OK. I have improved my multitasking skills greatly since my first semester, and found a daily rhythm that allows me to maximize my efforts with my schedule. I give myself a specified amount of time to finish a task and I try not to be such a perfectionist about less-important tasks. I still work late some nights to keep all the balls in the air, but much fewer than in my first year.

Final Thoughts
So what is the take away message? Joining the ranks of a Chemistry department faculty is awesome. You toil through graduate school and post docs, feeling like you are under-appreciated and overworked. Getting a faculty position validates your hard work and sacrifices, and allows you to show your true potential. It is easy to get overwhelmed by your own expectations and can be challenging to get comfortable in your new role in a Chemistry department. It took me almost an entire year before I felt like I proved to myself that I belonged and I could cut it as a faculty member. Having doubts is normal. They are very good motivators. Don’t forget to maintain a work-life balance. I signed up for a bike race at the end of the Spring semester to force myself to continue exercising when I felt like I was always too busy. Get out of your building and enjoy some of the campus life every once and a while. Make some non-chemistry friends at your new faculty orientation. Go to happy hour if you are invited (or even if you are not). And lastly, give yourself some down time after the end of the school year to recharge. You will have earned it!

David Wren is an Assistant Teaching Professor & Director of the Chemistry Center at Wake Forest University, Department of Chemistry. Learn more about David Wren here.

by William Marmor, Rochester Institute of Technology

An Unexpected Beginning
So many people wonder how the influential and prestigious men and women of the world end up where they are today. Who would not want to be successful and admired for years of hard work finally paying off. For some it happens, accepting a Nobel Prize in front of your family, friends and that one high school teacher who never believed in you. As you reach out and grasp that medal a grin comes across your face as cameras flash and an applause erupts! Then, the sound and lights instantly disappear as the medal shoots out of your hand. Your grin slips away and your eyes open wide, as only the sound of the shower head fills your ears. Groggy and tired you bend down and grab the bar of soap, once a gold medal, off the shower floor. Brought back to reality, you can’t help but enjoy the day dreams of an early morning shower. Time to get ready for work.

I have often pondered what prevents people from becoming successful. What I have come to accept is that there is an important distinction between those who find success in their lives and those who do not, the fearless drive to ask a question that could end in rejection. My question as a college sophomore at the Rochester Institute of Technology was, “Dr. Goudreau, do you have room on your research team?” That very familiar Nobel Prize winning grin appeared as she responded “Yes, would you like to join?”

Seeing the Chemistry in Chemistry Education Research
The next semester I was in the lab working three hours a week under the guidance of an upperclassmen, adding one credit to my 16 credit load. While under his wing and with the help of Dr. Goudreau I began to develop a better understanding of our project and its future progress. Our objective was to rework and enhance the typical organic chemistry lab experience. So, how does one do that? First, we needed to design experiments that could be executed in a typical undergraduate chemistry lab and improve on those that are already in practice to better fit our new model. Then we needed to implement these modules into a legitimate setting and collect data using the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) as a tool to compare the old method to our new one. Was this a dream come true? An opportunity for me to question current methods and spend time thinking constructively about how to better chemistry labs, really at my fingertips? It couldn’t get better than this! But with every high hope of success comes with it that nagging fear: potential failure. It set in within the first month in my lab, my lack of confidence and fear of unexpected experimental results. My foot tapping on the ground as I waited for my eluent front to rise to the top of my TLC plate, hoping that I would see what should have been my final product. Nope, not there again.

Noticing my look of dissatisfaction, the upperclassman helping me knew what I needed to hear. He told me that this was a good thing, and that now I need to ask some important questions, experiment and have fun. Now this worked for almost everything except my fear of the NMR.

Don’t Break the NMR
Never had I dealt with a tool of similar value and I had convinced myself that I would somehow break it. Only when my instructor provide me the opportunity to work on this project during the summer and my upperclassman guide left for a master program did I shed that fear. I now had to do this all by myself, nobody was there to hold my hand. I would sit in that NMR room, flinching at every unfamiliar noise thinking, “It’s broken. It must be broken. I have never heard that noise before. I’m going to owe this school half a million dollars.” Yet with practice and time that icy fear soon melted away and I was running an NMR at full speed and without any doubt or fear of debt. I wish I could tell myself that there was no need for that anxiety but I’m sure in some ways it helped me.

Catching the Research Bug
The next ten weeks of my summer term went splendidly. I ran experiments and with the lessons I learned from the previous semester I was able to excavate important clues to help make the experiments I was running better than they had ever been. With the help of others I condensed the collected RTOP data into easily understood graphs and was ready to present my findings at the RIT symposium and the American Chemical Society conference in Boston. Currently, I am traveling to institutions in my region to collect RTOP data to further substantiate our findings.

Advice To Any Undergraduate Interested in Conducting Research in Chemical Education
First and foremost, if you have an opportunity for research in chemical education take it! The wonderful thing about this type of research is that there is variability in the environment you may work. I was not always conducting experiments in a lab and had opportunities for immersing myself in a classroom setting. One week I was conducting the bromination of an alkene and the next I was analyzing the efficiency of an experiment in teaching undergraduates basic chemical principles. As someone who would one day love to teach, this was a great opportunity for me to externally observe the current educational model.

Further, research for an undergraduate is by no means overwhelming and can be handled by any individual who is willing to put in the work. I highly recommend that any undergraduate students interested in research talk to their professors. Showing interest and getting involved is always impressive and the more you do of this the higher likelihood you will have of obtaining a position in research. You will never know what opportunities are out there if you never ask. Trust me you will want to know.

Don’t be afraid! I can say from experience that fear will only hold you back. Of course it is easy to say this now having some experience and having conquered my fear of the NMR. If I could tell myself one thing in my first semester of research it would be to not be so worried about everything and to relax and have fun. Research truly is an enjoyable experience and should be treated as such.

Finally, be confident and know your stuff. You will be surprised the impact that confidence can have on your performance and way others treat you. One of the best ways to generate confidence is to have a solid grasp of what you are talking about. This ability will come in handy in both the quality of your presentation of research and the impression you make on other people. Another way to create confidence is to research something you love. The joy the topic inspires will certainly be apparent to yourself and those around you.

I have not yet won the Nobel Prize, but what I have gained from undergraduate research has been invaluable. Don’t let an opportunity slip through your fingers and take your first step toward success.

William Marmor is an undergraduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, College of Health Sciences and Technology. William is expected to recieve his Bachelors of Science in Biomedical Sciences with a Minor in Psychology in May 2017.

If you see a fork in the road, take it!
As a beginning researcher wondering how I was going to make anything out of my interest in chemistry education, the international travel award from the CHED International Activities Committee was just such a fork. And boy, am I glad I took it!

It’s very common for recent PhD graduates to feel isolated and have moments when they wonder whether anyone cares about what they are doing. Even if they were in a big research group, they are often on their own at the forefront of something new, uncertain if it will turn out well. I know that after four years of my PhD work, done while I was teaching undergraduate labs full time, I had no real idea if what I was doing would really be interesting to others in the field or whether I was simply retreading old ground. I’d read their papers of course, downloaded their studies, and dug into their experimental designs, but the author names I was filling my reference manager with were just symbols. They might as well have been hieroglyphs. The notion of a community of scholarship around chemistry education was purely a theoretical concept. Lacking geographically close colleagues with similar interests I was craving collaborations and conversations, opportunities to discuss methodology and data analysis. 

Hey this is crazy, I just referenced you, coffee maybe?
With the ICCE in Toronto in 2014, I saw an opportunity. I didn’t have any funded grants, and travel support from my department was extremely limited, but the list of speakers – the same names I had in my citations! – called out to me. These were the authors of papers that inspired my dissertation, people from around the world that I never imagined I would get to meet in person. I applied for the IAC travel funding, not confident that I would get it, but determined to do anything to make the trip – even if it meant sleeping on someone’s floor and using frequent flier miles to get there.

Fortunately, the travel grant came through, and for the first time, I found myself really engaging with our academic community in person. I got to the conference, and I can’t forget the excitement I felt as I coyly looked at the name badges of the other attendees. More than simply author names in a database, here were the real, flesh and blood people! Names that had up to then been mere talismans, were now actual men and women, with different styles of dress, patterns of speech, haircuts, accents, and manner. 

A friend advised me that while at the conference I should never eat alone. Despite my trepidation and nervousness at the thought, my first day there I forced myself to approach speakers and other graduate students who seemed to be doing interesting things. It was far easier than I ever imagined it would be – people were open, interesting to talk to and interested in my progress and ideas. My imagined fears of being shut out from conversations vanished, and I found myself excitedly making new friends and diving deep into the research areas we had in common. 

I talked to people I whose research inspired my own, others I’d never heard of but should have, and recent graduates, who like me, were attending their first conferences. The liberating feeling of finally being in a room where I didn’t need to explain why I was interested in chemistry and where I didn’t need to defend my interest in education research, was exhilarating. The response I received from experienced colleagues was amazing, the atmosphere was welcoming and encouraging. I gained experience helping run a symposium and support developing symposium topics for future conferences. I met with colleagues over coffee, lunch, and dinner. Even sightseeing was an opportunity to relax and build new connections. The isolation I had felt was gone, these were people who wanted to talk about their research design and findings, people I looked forward to catching up with over the years. 

Walk the walk, now give a talk!
I was nervous for my first presentation to an international crowd and feared that no-one would show up for my talk, and so I was astounded by the turn out (well, not quite standing room only), but that many of the people I was citing were in the audience!  And they were interested in what I had to say! After my talk they came up to me wanting to continue the conversation and introduce me to their graduate students. The speakers whose work inspired me wanted to discuss my analysis!

With all the interesting conversations I had at the conference, I knew that I did not want these connections to fade. I wanted to bring some of this back to my department and share with our chemistry faculty the best of what the chemistry education field had to offer. I met with and sounded out a number of potential speakers who I felt could really bridge the gaps between the two groups. When I got back, I had just the right ammunition to persuade my department to start inviting chemistry education research specialists to the sought after departmental colloquium slots. Looking back now after a couple of hugely successful visits, I know that without this travel opportunity, they never would have happened.

More personally, I made key connections with other researchers, got invites to speak at other departments, and became a port-of-call in my hometown for researchers passing through. My work on quantitative eye tracking analyses of students got noticed, and led directly to collaborations, a grant proposal, and regular Skype conversations that keep those connections going. From one travel grant, I found myself part of the community that I’d previously only seen from the outside.

I now sit on the committee that helps award these grants, and I see in the applications, that same yearnings I had to learn, to speak and to be part of this community. Conferences are the ‘villages’ that it takes to raise a researcher into academia, and especially in a field like chemistry education, these meetings are often the only time that everyone in the room will ‘get it’. By making sure that we bring in new researchers to participate in these events we are seeding the future of the field and hopefully benefiting from the huge diversity of talent, approaches and styles that exist. Too many early career researchers don’t get enough feedback and exposure and end up leaving the field. My experience shows that even a small helping hand can have a major impact on the researcher, their institution and the research field itself.

Looking back, I never did eat alone. Good job I picked up that fork.

Sarah J.R. Hansen, Ph.D.
Lecturer in Chemistry
Columbia University
3000 Broadway, MC 3184
New York, NY 10027

by Jordan Harshman

Fresh from graduate school, I was really looking forward to my first shot at teaching at the University of Iowa. Being a visiting assistant professor was finally my time where I could exercise autonomy and teach the class how I wanted to teach it. No more being a teaching assistant where everything was prescribed for me, no more asking anyone else “is it okay if a student does x, y, or z?”

While I am very happy to be teaching where Herky calls home and the people here are great to work with, being in a temporary teaching position brought a number of things I never really thought of previously. I hope that as I share these thoughts here, anyone currently in or thinking of being in a temporary teaching position may find them helpful.

But first, how did I get here? Most of us realize that chemistry departments are often looking for temporary instructors (often called visiting assistant professors, VAP, visiting lecturer, teaching postdocs, etc.) from time to time. My VAP came with my postdoc, which is not uncommon. Others want teaching experience after grad school or a postdoc. Still others are looking for a temp job because they are waiting for that “dream job” of theirs to come up. It’s even possible that someone takes a job intending for full time teaching, but then life happens, priorities change (you know, the usual…) and then you come to the realization that your days of teaching at that institution are numbered.

I should explain the rather unique teaching position that I am currently in as it’s not exactly a traditional or common situation. I team-teach the laboratory section of a second-semester general chemistry course. Instead of going to labs every week, students here go to labs once every two weeks. The week students are not in lab, they attend a case study, an 80 minute pre-lab, context-rich lecture, which I (and a team teacher, who happens to also be my wife) teach 6 times per week, covering 6 different topics throughout the semester. In addition to case studies, we also prepare and manage our teaching assistants to effectively instruct students in the laboratory.

Regardless of how you ended up or may end up in a temporary teaching gig, here are some tidbits I’ve picked up nearing the end of my first semester in a temporary position.

Protip #1 You are temporary, the department is permanent
This is easily the most important lesson I’ve learned. It’s rare that someone earns a Ph.D. and doesn’t really have opinions about how things should be done – I know I do. Before I started teaching, I was given a plethora of materials: complete lecture slides, case study activities, pre and post lab assignments and grading keys, TA meeting notes, the whole shebang. And as a result, my first impression was that all of that autonomy and independence I so desperately craved was to be a fading dream which would give way to being a cookie-cutter instructor. In the end, this wasn’t true at all and I had plenty of flexibility, but I was initially bummed out. Through the experience, I learned a valuable lesson: I am temporary, the department is permanent. The department had put in many years to get the course content to where it was. If every VAP in that teaching position drastically changed the content and the way a course is taught, that is bad for the department in the long run. In that way, their needs and the way that they can reach the students should take higher precedence than my own addiction to autonomy. And to be honest, I greatly appreciated that a lot of the kinks in the curriculum were already worked out and ultimately have not felt lacking in autonomy.

Protip #2 A cautionary tale of making changes

Seeing that I wouldn’t be there for long, it was interesting when I came across things that I would maybe do differently than in the past. I was able to make decisions and direct the course policies, activities, and lectures, but the people in the department clearly had a lot of time and experience with the course events. What kind of message is given when a new, temporary employee comes in and wants to change everything? This shouldn’t bar anyone away from making any suggestions and changes, but I would certainly recommend thinking about the long term for the department, not just for your course in the short term. 

Protip #3 Discovering the culture is always beneficial

Being in a VAP is kind of like visiting another country. While you can feel welcomed, you still likely feel like a guest as opposed to one of the family. This isn’t a bad thing at all, it’s just a part of the deal when you’re in a temporary position. As a result, however, it is a very good idea to quickly learn the culture of the department you are in and consider altering your own ideas to better fit in with theirs. How do they view things like late work, extra credit, grading philosophy, role of a teaching assistant, and other variable beliefs? While you may input a few of your suggestions and beliefs, someone in a temporary position is better off not making too many changes because you won’t always be around to see the long-term impact they have.

Protip #4 Stand up for what you need out of the position

While I would argue that the emphasis of a temporary teaching position should be more about what’s good for the department in the long run, that doesn’t give a department unbridled authority to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. This has not been a problem I’ve encountered directly, but could see happening. No matter the reason that you are in the teaching position temporarily, you still need to make sure that you get the experience(s) that you want out of it. Again, this didn’t really apply to me, but if you want to try a new pedagogical style, new content, new policies, don’t immediately give in if the department is opposed to it initially. Rather, carefully choose your battles and be willing to compromise. That way, you’ll be able to balance what you need short term while considering the long term goals of the department.

In summary, temporary teaching positions can be a great place to try new things and gain valuable experiences. As should be clear though, the teaching position is not just about you and someone in that position needs to think about the department as well. Any time I want to bring about major changes, I have to remind myself that those changes are much easier when/if you find a permanent position where you can see things throughout a large portion of time.

Jordan Harshman
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Iowa
Department of Chemistry

by David Wren and Sonia Underwood 
 
Introduction:

Congratulations! You worked hard and finished your degree and are now ready to put all your dedication and hard work to practice. In other words, you need to get a job. A real one. Scanning through pages of ambiguous job postings, you are not sure what jobs entail, what are the qualifications (what does “or related field” really mean, anyway?), and how to filter those for which you can be competitive. Added to the fish-out-of-water feeling, you may have other restrictions of location or coordinating a job hunt with a significant other (see “Navigating the Two-Body Problem”). Applying for jobs can be daunting, especially when you are in the middle of finishing up your Ph.D. program, post-doctoral fellowship, or teaching 5 classes a semester. Your application writing will most likely not happen in a nice coffee shop during the morning, but at night, while your friends/significant other are laughing at the new season of Orange is the New Black. But there is good news! Actually, two very good bits of news for you. Good news bit one: your degree sets you apart from most applicants, which is HUGE in the screening process. The second bit of good news is there is a process that can maximize your success in your job hunt (see below).

It should be noted that “success” in the job hunt can mean many things. It could mean getting gainful employment, regardless of the location or the fit of job to your skillset or interest. It could mean being hired near a location where you would like to live. Generally, a compromise is made with location and job fit, as your dream job may not come up during the window you are searching. That’s OK. Getting any job will make it easier to get your dream job, but you should try to avoid locations or positions where you will be miserable. In other words, shoot for the stars (plan A) but have a plan B (e.g., teach at your graduate school as an adjunct professor) or plan C (e.g., post-doc) as backups.

Step 0: When to start, what materials and letters should you have ready?

Generally, job posting start in the summer and continue through the fiscal year (July 1). If you want a job July 1 (2017) you should start looking for jobs as early as August 2016. This gives you the best opportunity to find a job with the best fit. The early bird does catch the worm per sae in that positions could begin to fill as early as December 2016 for Tenure-Track positions for the following academic year (start date of August 2017). The point being that you should apply to positions of interest as they come available and not delay your application. On the other end of this comment, it should be noted that even though you see an apply-by date that has past, however, if you are interested in the position still apply! If they have selected someone already then no harm, however, if they have not even better for you. Some postings in late summer/early fall will have January start date, or a flexible start date. Job postings start to drop off around the new year, but there are always positions being posted, so don’t give up! Some ads are posted as late as needing someone to start the next month.

Having certain application materials on standby is crucial to being able to make all deadlines and making your application as competitive as possible. You might find your dream job posting a week before the application deadline or a job posting may be accepting applications and reviewing until a qualified candidate is found. Each position will require slightly different materials, but you should have the following ready to go before you start looking for positions: Curriculum vitae (CV), Philosophy of Teaching (1 page and 2-4 pages), Research Proposal (for tenure-track positions), Teaching Portfolio, transcripts from undergraduate and graduate institutions, and contact information for three letter of recommendation writers. Most likely you will need to modify your Philosophy of Teaching statement and Research Proposal for each institution. Having a long version (2-4 pages) and short version (1 page) of both can make this modification process more efficient. I provided all letter writers my CV and any other information that could be used to personalize their letter. More information about the application itself is below in Step 3.

Step 1: Where to look for job posting

Coming out of a Ph.D. program, both post-doctoral positions and teaching positions may be of interest. I would suggest not ruling either one out when conducting your search. For either type of position, networking through your advisor and your CER colleagues is crucial (See “Networking” blog by Megan Grunert). Let everyone know what type of job you are looking for, make sure you have an updated LinkedIn profile, and go to professional meetings prepared to network with people who are at institutions or have jobs for which you have an interest. Job openings are often known well before they are posted, so getting a head start with inside information can strengthen your preparation and application.

There are many websites that aggregate job posting. Sites such as www.higheredjobs.com allow you to search by field, location, and position which can be very helpful. Some sites will provide RSS feeds which you can just check daily like email (or hourly). In addition, there is a listserv for CER in which job ads for post-doctoral positions and faculty positions (of all ranges) are posted and archived at http://listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A0=CER. Also with this listserv you can subscribe so that you can get all the positions sent directly to your email.

Step 2: What criteria should you use to narrow the job search
 
Narrowing the number of applications you prepare will allow you to personalize your cover letter, teaching and research statements, and avoid fatiguing your letter of recommendation writers. Having served on hiring committees, an application with a generic cover letter does not generally end up in the short pile. It takes time to research the institution, program, or department to which you are applying. How will your skillset complement the current faculty or staff? What classes need to be taught, data need to be collected, students mentored? Is this a permanent position? What is the student population like?

Knowing what makes YOU unique is important, and selling this uniqueness is critical. Why does having a CER degree make you more qualified for the position. There will be some on hiring committees who are not familiar with CER Ph.D. programs. They will want to know if you know the chemistry content (be prepared to have transcripts available to help illustrate this if requested), so make sure you communicate your teaching and research accomplishments in the domains you focused on in graduate school. There are many skills that are valuable to faculty that you might not even be aware. Most CER research involves knowledge in cognition and factors that affect meaningful learning. Not many faculty have knowledge in this domain. For example, during my first month I was asked to co-author a grant section dealing with student outcomes and assessment, as I was the expert in the department. You know what no one likes to do in any Chemistry department? Assessment. Everyone hates continuous accreditation via assessment. Guess what? You are probably more qualified than most faculty to run statistical analysis, collect qualitative data, and provide suggestions for data collection instruments. As an applicant for a teaching-track position, if you can make someone’s life easier, you go to the short pile. Define yourself as more than just an instructor, but an asset. Don’t commit to doing all of the department’s assessment work, but clearly define your skill set and how it can be an asset for a department.

 
Step 3: The application

When submitting an application, there are many moving parts. While all of these pieces may not be required to the specific job you are interested in, we will discuss a variety here as well a view important aspects we believe should be kept in mind.

Cover letter: The first thing someone reads! This one page cover letter must be personalized to the institution and type of position you are applying to. Make sure what you write is appropriate and make every application have a unique cover letter. No cutting and pasting for this part! For example, it is not helpful to write about why you are qualified for a tenure-track position if you are apply for an instructor position (this has happened!). Furthermore, nothing is more damaging to your application than submitting more than one cover letter where one is for a different institution (seen this one too!). Therefore, care and detail should be taken with your entire application, but especially the cover letter. Each cover letter should consist of information about why you fit the position you are applying to, what you could bring to their specific institution (hence the need to personalize), and how you are qualified for the position (without reciting your CV). Including these parts to the cover letter imply to the search committee that you have thought about the position and how you would fit into their institution.

CV: All the amazing things you have done! The CV is where your creativity shows the most in that it depends entirely on what you want to include and how you want to display it. Of course information of where you went to school and the degrees you worked so hard for are necessary, but whether you include project details or thesis/dissertation tiles to show your specific skill set or how many details about the professional service you have done is a personal choice. The CV is what is most circulated around departments to inform faculty of applicants etc., so it matters and should be clear and concise. Assume that a lazy reader will only look at the first page, so organize and format your CV to put all of the most important information on the first page. One thing to note with your CV is that again it should be tailored to the type of position you want. Meaning that if you are applying to a position with more of a teaching focus, than teaching experiences before research experiences, whereas if you are applying for a position with more of a research focus then research experiences before teaching experiences. If listing publications in your CV, be sure to include the title of your papers so the search committee can easily look up the papers as well as know what you have been up to at a quick glance. Noting any talk for which you were invited (e.g., using an asterisk and a footnote) can make these accomplishments stand out. These simple efforts can assist a search committee in locating the more relevant sections of your CV to the position. On a final note for CVs, if grant writing is going to be a part of your desired position than be sure to include any grants from funding agencies as well as travel grants that you have submitted (whether pending, funded or unsuccessful) to show you have experience.

Philosophy of teaching: A document which should describe who you are and what you believe with respect to how people learn. What would your normal class period look like? What would you have your students do during class and why? Personalize your teaching philosophy to draw upon examples from your teaching experiences. If you have not taught before, that’s ok, describe what you would do when given the opportunity to teach in the classroom. If you have only taught laboratory sections during your graduate school days and there’s an example of a great teaching moment then feel free to use it. This best shows the search committee what your class would look like and why you believe it should be structured in a specific manner. Keep in mind that of all the documents in your application, this may be the last read (if at all for tenure-track positions) by some committee members. Try to catch the reader's attention in the beginning and keep the organization tight and use a unifying theme so it is easy to follow and read.

Research statement (if applicable): What amazing studies are you going to conduct when given those start-up funds as well as land that first successfully funded grant proposal? This part of the application should let the search committee know that you are ready to hit the ground running on your first day at their institution! Details about what you want to study, how this builds upon your prior research background, how you are going to carry the proposed studies out, etc. should be included. Information about what funding agency you are going to submit the idea to suggests that you know how to research the funding calls and are prepared for this part of the position. If possible, details about a specific funding call and when it will be submitted will set your application apart in that the search committee knows you are ready and committed to being successful in your new position (but make sure it’s something obtainable for you if you list it). Also, it should be apparent that you have more than one research idea. Meaning that you should provide the search committee with more than one study and how they are connected to show that if one direction is unsuccessful in being funded that you have a backup plan for another proposal ready to go. This is important as you will have more than one pending at a time and to brainstorm some initial projects helps.

Teaching portfolio (if applicable): Let the search committee know about how much you care about your students. This is the chance to include exemplars from your best teaching moments. It is the place to show them how you would structure your course (e.g. a syllabus), the types of activities you would have your students engage in (e.g. directions for a hands on activity or a group worksheet), examples showing the effort your students put into your class (e.g. a couple of unique examples of student work). Include artifacts that help support your teaching philosophy. Meaning that if you state in your teaching philosophy that it is important to give students opportunities to construct their knowledge, then your examples in your teaching portfolio should support that claim. Similarly, your artifacts should all support each other. This is another place to be creative in what you want to highlight as well as how your present your materials.

Step 4: Waiting...
 
You have spent hours on your application, triple-checked spelling, and sent your application off. Now what? Waiting is hard, especially when you really have your heart set on a particular position. Often, you will receive some acknowledgment of reception of your application material. Then, nothing. Some search committee’s will let you know when the search has closed and someone has accepted the position, some will say you did not make the cut, and some you will never hear from again. I would not expect to hear anything for 4-6 weeks after the application deadline, but it could be longer. If you have not heard anything after 6 weeks and you feel you are a strong candidate and need to make a decision about moving forward, it is not unreasonable to email the contact for the search to see their progress, restating your excitement and interest in the position. You most likely will not lower the probability of getting the job by expressing continued interest in the job opportunity. Often you will hear something back, but not always. Don’t keep emailing if you do not hear anything back. It might feel like you have no leverage in the job search, that “no one wants you”, but it is important to remember there are many factors outside of your qualification that influence search committee decisions. All positions must be posted publically, but sometimes an internal candidate has applied to the position, who are in a stronger position as a “known quantity”. However, having a unique degree and research/teaching experience can provide a contrast to internal candidates, so make sure you highlight these in your application! Internal politics can also play a role into who gets a Skype/phone interview. You have no control over this, but just remember extremely qualified applicants do not get a phone interview all of the time. A good fit between an applicant and a department/company include many factors that are always not clear to applicants. All you can do is make sure you highlight your strengths, your passions, and your vision to best help search committees see if you fit.

Step 5: The phone interview

Congratulations, your application has caught the interest of the search committee and they would like to learn more. Phone interviews are more often moving to video conferences (e.g., Skype, Google Talk, etc.), making it feel more like a real interview but also testing your technical abilities. Be sure you have researched the position and the university thoroughly before your interview date and time, being prepared sets you apart. Don’t walk in like you have no idea what’s going on. It also means you need to dress like a real interview, at least from the waist up. Phone interviews confirm your strength as a candidate by verifying your communication skills, affect, and enthusiasm for the position. Most interviews also include questions related to how you have handled adversity, why you want the position, issues concerning student diversity, and questions relating to your own background and application materials. I found writing out a paragraph summary of your dissertation research streamlines responses and helps you distill down what you accomplished in easy-to-understand terms. Also have a couple examples of adversity that you overcame, examples of accomplishments you are most proud of, and examples of working with students of different preparation or cultural background. Most importantly, have questions about the position. What will be the expected teaching load, what courses are you expected to teach, are there professional development funds available to attend conferences, does the position have a track to secure employment or promotion (for non-tenure track positions)? Try not to ask questions about doing things outside the scope of the advertised position (e.g., teaching upper-division courses for a lower-division teaching position, or ability to conduct research for a teaching-track position).

The most important thing to focus on during your phone interview is to be yourself and to be relaxed. This means booking a room with a lock on the door so you will not be disturbed. Pick a place where you know the internet will work flawlessly if you are meeting virtually. Being familiar with the technology used for the interview. Remembering to breathe. Your goal is to confirm that you are a person that the committee members would like to work with, you are worthy of an onsite interview, and your answers to their questions are not off-base.
 
Step 6: The onsite interview
Onsite interviews are as much about you interviewing the department/company for a good fit as well as them interviewing you. It might not feel like it from the applicant seat, but having sat on search committees, a good applicant has most of the leverage. Remember that it takes a lot of effort to obtain a new faculty line, much time to screen applications and narrow the search down to 2-3 finalists. The search committee wants to succeed (failed searches are equivalent to losing the Superbowl by a field goal in overtime) and it is your job to validate their selection. Coming prepared, enthusiastic about the department and the faculty’s research, and giving solid research/teaching presentations will go a long way in the selection process. Alternatively, I’ve seen candidates who looked extremely strong on paper lose a job by showing a lack of interest in the department, giving a sub-par presentation, or just not coming to an interview prepared. So, do your homework, practice your presentation(s), and remember that you have what it takes for the position or you would not be invited for an onsite interview.

Be prepared for a very busy schedule on the day of your interview. If you are a person who needs to drink water or eat a snack between meals, bring these with you. I carried a bag with me during all of my interviews that had water, coffee, and snacks. Most interview schedules start at 8:00 AM and go until 8:00 PM with little or no scheduled breaks. Most candidates are scheduled to meet with people for meals, so make sure you take the time to actually eat your food (ask questions to others that involve long answers as a way to take some bites). You will be talking non-stop for about 12 hours, so make sure you stay hydrated. Also, wear shoes that are comfortable for walking and clothes that can be layered for going inside and outside (you will be shuttled between offices and buildings throughout the day). I always made a cheat sheet with notes about the background and research of all of the faculty I was scheduled to meet. Showing that you are interested enough in the institution and department to look up information of faculty and remember it goes a long way on making a good first impression.  

Teaching demonstration (if applicable)

Teaching demonstrations can be the most nerve-racking and stressful part of your interview. Some departments will have you teach an actual class with real students on material that is planned to be covered that day. Others will have you teach to faculty and graduate students or upper-division classes on a topic related but not part of the course. If you act as a guest lecturer for a live class, it is critical that you obtain the course textbook, syllabus, and details what the students have covered up to your lecture. Make sure to assume the students have no prior knowledge of prerequisite material and build in questions to verify knowledge and notes for quick reviews. Teaching presentations are less about your mastery of content (this is generally assumed to be high for all candidates) and more about your control of a classroom, interaction with students, and enthusiasm for material you are teaching. Making an error while teaching is not a deal breaker, but faculty will be very interested on how you handle the mistake. If you or a student catches the mistake, make a joke that you were simply using a teaching technique called “making an intentional mistake” to see if everyone was paying attention. I actually did this during one interview and making this joke neutralized the mistake and got a pretty good laugh from everyone. The faculty remembered the recovery and not the mistake. Practicing your lecture with your colleagues before you go will dramatically improve the final product during your interview. The more comfortable you are in front of a classroom, the more comfortable the search committee will be putting in front of their classrooms.

Generally at the end of the interview there is an exit interview with the entire search committee or with the chair of the committee and/or the department chair. These can range from formal to casual, so prepare for both. It is not out-of-line to ask when the committee will expect to make their offer to the top candidate. This communicates that you are very interested in their decision and that you are considering other opportunities and need to have a timeline to make a decision.
 
Other notes of importance: 1) If you have a two-body problem in which the other would like a job at the institution this should be known from the beginning. Spousal hires are made under special occasions and should not be done during negotiations where the committee is blind-sided for example.  2) Also, if you are interviewing for a position that is more research focused, have a start-up package budget drafted before you go. Some institutions will want this up front when you start your interview (paper copy and digital as well). This should include what you need to hit the ground running at their institution (assume you have no supplies). Don’t go overboard with the budget, if you are completely in left-field that’s not good. The advice given to me was to have three tiers of a budget: must haves, comfortable, and wish list. This is where your network can come in handy ask to see what is needed to start a research lab if you don’t know (think of what you use on a daily basis from the software on your computer to the paper and pens). 3) If you are applying for a research position that is split between departments, be sure to ask if there is a department where your tenure goes through. If it’s multiple departments ask what the expectations are to know if they are like night and day or in-sync.
 
Step 7: Negotiations

Great news! You got the job! But, don’t let the warm embrace of gainful employment let your guard down for the most important part of the job hunt--negotiations. The most important thing to remember is ask for everything! At this point, you have all of the leverage and anything you ask for will not change the search committee’s decision that you are the top candidate. After you sign your contract, you go back to zero leverage. Again here is where research becomes a necessity. If you are trying to negotiate salary, etc. know what is reasonable for that position as well as for that institution. Consider cost of living, state taxes, etc. Know your battles when negotiating. Yes, most everything is negotiable, but be prepared to walk away from certain requests if they say no. But, if they really want you, they will try to meet all reasonable requests to the best of their ability. If you really need a piece of equipment to get your research started, make it separate from your start-up package. If you have a 9-month contract, ask for summer salary for your first year so you can get necessary data to apply for grants to pay for future summers. Make sure your teaching load is clearly stated in your offer letter (ask this during the interview as well) if it differs from others with the same title in your department. If you have a spouse that needs help relocating and finding a job, ask for assistance by the Human Resource department. It is very helpful to justify all of your requests, so that the department chair or Dean can better understand why you need more money. Rationales should be reasonable, and ground with something concrete like higher salary (does it meet a living wage in that city or are you more experienced than what might be expected) or moving expense (you are moving across the country). For example, I calculated that it would cost $8K to move my family across country for our given circumstances of the move (we needed professional movers because my wife was pregnant and I had to move out 10 weeks before we sold our house). I rationalized that the relocation package was insufficient and the Department was able to find money to lessen this burden. Negotiations are a way for you to help ensure your happiness and productivity down the line. This is beneficial for you and for your future employer. They want to help make you successful in your new position.

Other Great Resources: As it turns out, this is not the first or last post on how to navigate the hiring process. Here are some examples of previous blog posts and literature reads that are relevant:

10 Tips for a Successful Academic Job Search by LaKeisha McClary:  http://www.divched.org/blogentry/10-tips-successful-academic-job-search

What’s behind Door Number Two: Other Chemistry Education Research Career Options - Part 1 by Stephanie Ryan: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/what’s-behind-door-number-two-other-chemistry-education-research-career-options-part-1

What’s behind Door Number Two: Other Chemistry Education Research Career Options - Part 2 by Stephanie Ryan: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/what’s-behind-door-number-two-other-chemistry-education-research-career-options-–-part-2

Chemical Education Research and Education Technology Industry by Erik Epp: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/chemical-education-research-and-education-technology-industry

Why I Chose an Instructor Position After Graduation by Daniel Cruz-Ramírez de Arellano: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/why-i-chose-instructor-position-after-graduation

Informal Chemistry Education by Brittany Christian: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/informal-chemistry-education

CER in Teacher Prep Positions by Michelle Dean: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/cer-teacher-prep-positions

Using Chemistry Educaiton Research in a Teaching-Centered Position by Seth Anthony: http://www.divched.org/blogentry/using-chemistry-education-research-teaching-centered-position

Oliver-Hoyo, M. T. et al. Hiring and Promotion in Chemical Education J. Chem. Educ., 2008, 85 (7), p 898.