Innovation in College Teaching
Project Management: Shifting Perspectives
Prior to my graduate studies, I spent three years working in the field of environmental consulting in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. I found that this type of consulting did not provoke the scientific inquisitiveness or require the critical thinking that I ultimately crave for my professional career – and I decided to return to school for my PhD, to sharpen my skills as a researcher. It wasn’t until about halfway through my doctoral studies, that I began to reflect back on the benefits of having experience outside of academia. My short career in industry, both in environmental consulting and mining, provided me with insight to strong management techniques, and how yearly reviews are done to gauge professional performance and communication skills.
Project management is considered an essential skill in a variety of industries, and often there is specific training that one must complete before they are able to oversee a project at their company. Project management training is imperative for two primary reasons, 1. supervision of the budget and 2. coworkers who will be assisting completion of the project. In environmental consulting for example, the budget can be dictated by the client or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the team typically consists of lower-level coworkers who will conduct field assignments, data entry, and generate deliverables. Poor management skills can negatively impact budgeting and schedules, possibly resulting in few contracts which ultimately loses the company money. Unfortunately, project management skills are not identified as valuable in academia. Research professors are highly similar to project managers in that they oversee those two previously mentioned items as part of their research: 1. their budget of grant funding (i.e. NSF or NIH) and 2. their graduate students, a team helping them get the work done. Professors do not identify as managers, and there are no incentives or motivations at the university administration level to have strong project management skills.
Thus, a teaching innovation I would like to implement is focused on the next generation of professors - highlighting diversity of people and their experiences. Many current full professors did not have work experience outside of an academic environment prior to their university position. Managing people effectively is an imperative skill (but not considered) for research advisors that directly benefits them and their graduate students. This innovation advocates for best managerial practices by training future professors who may have direct-reports (students conducting research for them) as part of a future position. This also has applications for PhD students who do not plan on becoming professors. Research can be so narrowly focused and isolated with limited value of working with others, PhD students aren't necessarily well-equipped for a career outside of academia. This innovative teaching method would motivate and incentivize professors to improve their project management skills... and make a PhD program stand out.
While they are still early in their doctoral studies (second year or prior to comprehensive exams, etc.), a PhD student would choose 1 of 2 paths:
1. Academia: if they hope to work at a university or research institution
2. Industry/ Non-profit: if they hope to work for a company or organization
The academic path would have the PhD student mentor a undergraduate who is interested in pursuing undergraduate research but doesn't necessarily want to do an Honors thesis or take additional credits for their departmental undergrad thesis. The PhD student would help the undergrad pick a topic or question that ideally aligns with their own research. Ideally this could be something the PhD student didn't have time for or slightly fell outside the scope of their immediate research. They would then assist the undergraduate on their project and ideally see it through to some final presentation, either at a national conference or symposium at the home institution. For these PhD students it would give them experience with mentorship - a quality that many university's value for new hires whether it be an R1, R2, or small liberal arts school.
The industry and non-profit organization path, would have the PhD student would find 2-4 undergraduate students who are looking for work experience through an internship, but cannot dedicate a full summer, etc. These undergraduates would assist the PhD student in more hands-on activities related to their research, which could entail field based work or a series of tasks to complete as part of a team. There is also room for practice of verbal and writing skills through science communication. This would provide the PhD student management experience by having multiple direct-reports and potentially make their university experience more seamless with "real-world" working environments.
References
https://community.chronicle.com/news/2314-how-to-work-well-with-graduate-students
Shortlidge, E.E. and Eddy, S.L., 2018. The trade-off between graduate student research and teaching: A myth?. PloS one, 13(6), p.e0199576.