Strategies and techniques for new tenure-track faculty to become successful in Academia

Abstract

Although engineering and engineering technology (E and ET) programs are part of STEM, in many cases E and ET faculty have different academic backgrounds and job responsibilities compared to other branches of STEM. E and ET faculty often require industry experience with the highest academic degree, and have higher teaching and research loads. Faculty are required to do a number of things that graduate school and/or industry practice don't teach them, such as planning and delivering courses effectively, designing and starting a research program to getting it funded, attracting and managing graduate students and undergraduate students, finding and working with appropriate faculty or industrial collaborators, writing assignments and tests that are both rigorous and fair, dealing with classroom management problems and students with a bewildering assortment of academic and personal problems, doing what it takes to learn about and integrate into the campus culture, and finding the time to do all that and still have a personal life (Adam et al. 2008, Felder et al. 2012; Kember and Kwan 2000). It becomes more challenging to get established when the department or the college does not have the adequate resources to support the new faculty, and lacks a formal faculty development and mentoring program on campus. There are some tricks of the trade-what I have learned from the literature and from my personal experience that will be shared in this article so that new E and ET faculty become more successful in their careers. Some of the key issues for E and ET faculty are related to effective teaching practices, finding time for research, inadequate feedback/recognition, unrealistic expectations from supervisors, insufficient resources and the lack of mentors. Tenure and promotion depends on faculty performance, university and departmental policy and procedures and academic and collegial environment on campus. This article will address some of the common issues and provide some ideas that new faculty can follow, and ultimately get tenured and become successful in his/her career. As Austin's study (2003) identified, concerns over leading a balanced faculty life and navigating the uncertainties coming from unclear expectations in new faculty roles, were plainly sources of stress for our participants. Budget cuts place stress on institutions and faculty to do more with less; shifts in preferred teaching methods from lecturing to active student-centered learning, and changing student and faculty demographics all contribute to a turbulent time on college campuses. As the newest institutional members, recent faculty hires are caught up in this changing context at the same time they are trying to establish themselves as new teachers and researchers. It is not surprising that one of the main points of stress for the participants was seeking a work-life balance. Charles Vest, President of National Academy of Engineering has mentioned the following: "the engineering workforce of tomorrow, and indeed that of today, will face profound new challenges. Every day the men and women of this workforce will face the stress of competing in the fast-paced world of change we call the knowledge-based global economy of the twenty-first century. They will also face even larger challenges because the nation and world will need to call on them to seize opportunities and solve global problems of unprecedented scope and scale" (Vest, Charles, 2008)". In the long run, his suggestion is to make engineering and engineering technology schools exciting, creative, adventurous, rigorous, demanding, and empowering. That means faculty who design curricula, pedagogy, and student experiences will profitably contemplate the new context, competition, content, and challenges of engineering. Due to the part of the rapidly increasing power and changes of technology, routine tasks that were traditionally performed by engineers and/or engineering technologists (E and ET) are now performed by technicians using computers while E and ETs are called upon to design, develop and use innovative products and processes, exercise new and unfamiliar technical and professional skills, and function in an increasingly global environment. What it will mean to be an E and ET in the twenty-first century and the incompatibility of current E and ET curricula with that meaning have been the subject of many high-level studies. The debate so far has had little impact on STEM educators. According to the criteria set by Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET), we must strengthen our coverage of fundamentals; teach more about "real-world" engineering design, development, and operations; cover more material in frontier areas of engineering and engineering technologists; offer better instruction in both oral and written communication skills and teamwork skills; provide training in critical and creative thinking skills and problem-solving methods; produce graduates who are conversant with engineering ethics and the connections between technology and society so that the average student can complete the undergraduate degree in four years (ABET.org). In view of the broadening and rapidly shifting scope of the profession and ABET criteria, it is imperative to shift the focus of E and ET curricula from transmission of content to the development of skills, that support thinking and professional judgment. Future E and ETs will need to adapt to rapidly changing work environments and technology, direct their own learning, broaden an understanding of impact, work across different perspectives, and continually revisit what it means to be an engineer and engineering technologist. Traditional approaches to E and ET education (chalk-and-talk lectures, individual homework) are becoming incompatible. Furthermore, research on student engagement has moved the boundaries of learning environments beyond formal classrooms to informal spaces such as student lounges, professional work spaces, and virtual community spaces. What remains crucial is the importance of social learning as students interact with others such as peers, educators, campus administrators, internship supervisors, alumni and professionals, and even in social media. As such, the teaching decisions E and ET educators make can impact learning in and out of the classroom (Adam and Felder, 2008). If courses are continued to be taught in a single subject format, (statics in one course, thermodynamics in another, technical writing in another, etc.) it will take a six-or sevenyear curriculum to produce engineers and/or engineering technologist who have the desired proficiency in the fundamentals, and are conversant with methods of modern E and ET practice, culturally literate, and skilled in communication. Moreover, if students are assigned only well-defined convergent problems, they will never gain the skills needed to tackle and solve challenging multidisciplinary problems that call for critical judgment and creativity according to ABET. Finally, even if nothing new is added to the existing curriculum, confining it to four years will be almost impossible, unless more efficient and effective ways to cover the material can be found (Felder et. All., 2000). In that case, it becomes very difficult for new faculty to teach undergraduate students at a level it should be, and become successful in their academic career with the further expectation of research and services. There is another belief among some of us: if we have significant industry experience, we can be an effective teacher and successful faculty or vice versa, meaning that successful researchers automatically convert to an effective teacher. Although transferring skills is important and can be good for the academic career, it by no means suggests that industry experience or research success will be enough to make a faculty successful. Some of the advantages of new faculty having industry experience are discussed below.