So, You Want a Cushy Job Like Mine? William Tapprich University of Nebraska at Omaha

What is My Cushy Job?  Biology Faculty, UNO UNO, Recently reclassified as Doctoral/Research  Primarily undergraduate  Primarily a teaching institution  Research is expected and valued  Normally workload is 75% teaching, 25% research  Can make balance closer to 50-50

Biology Department at UNO  21 faculty, very diverse expertise Plant science - 5 Animal Science - 9 Cell/Molec/Micro – 7  6 undergraduate majors BA, BS, Biotechnology, Environmental Studies, Bioinformatics, Neuroscience  Master’s degree MS – thesis and non-thesis degrees

Why Would You Want My Job?  You enjoy interacting with students You want to help students make the transition from school to profession Mostly this means you enjoy teaching But you also want to mentor undergraduates in research projects  You enjoy research But you won’t get too frustrated when teaching takes most of your time  You want to strike a balance in your career There are several tenure profiles and all include contributions in teaching, research and service

How Do You Get a Cushy Job Like Mine?  Successful candidates must have a solid record of research productivity, good post doc is a must  We expect new hires to hit the ground running  We expect new hires to attract funding early on  Some, but not much, difference between candidates at UNO and candidates at Research I institutions  Teaching experience is a must in the current environment  Address the position, know the department

Nuts and Bolts  We are on a 9 month academic appointment  For the 9 months starting salaries in my department are around 54K, bennies are good  Summer salary can come from grants or teaching  Start up packages are dismal compared to research universities Close to dismal compared to peer institutions Generally 30-80K in cash depending on the year and the perception of “crisis” in the budget

Nuts and Bolts-Teaching  Workload is based on 12 hours per semester  We are expected to devote 9 hours to teaching  For a lecture course one hour of lecture time is equivalent to one hour of workload So a 9 hour load would be three 3 cr courses per semester  For a lab course three hours of lab time is equivalent to two hours of workload So a course that has 3 hours of lecture and 3 hours of lab each week is 5 workload hours

Nuts and Bolts-Teaching  Some (but not many) choose to teach 12 hour loads after tenure decision  No tenure if no research  A 9 hour load usually works out to 2-3 courses per semester  We have TA help for the laboratories, but we are expected to be in the lab with the TA If the TA is completely responsible for the lab then you cannot claim workload

Nuts and Bolts-Research  Very little justification is necessary to get 3 workload hours per semester for research (0.25 FTE) Approved by the Dean  More justification is needed for more Must be approved by the Vice Chancellor Usually must have grant support to defray cost of hiring someone to cover a course (buy teaching)  First year faculty have reduced teaching load  There is very little pressure to generate your salary in grant support (but this is changing)

Nuts and Bolts-Research  It is difficult to get grants, but possible  Life is much better with a grant Can hire technical help Can get post docs Can pay graduate students  In the periods between grants, there is a little internal money  Graduate students are good, but only two years  Major challenge is finishing a project (publicon)

Nuts and Bolts-Research  Instrumentation is good, but no core facilities  Collaborations are usually from the outside Research loneliness is an issue  You stay involved at the bench  You do substantial training of both graduate and undergraduate students  Makes it difficult to be a full time grant administrator, therefore it is difficult to be a leader in the field

Nuts and Bolts-Service  Very poorly understood component of workload  Incredible number of committees and administrative activities No workload credit So every service activity detracts from teaching and research  Must do fair share, it is evaluated for tenure  Must decide if service is important to you, if yes, can use it for tenure

Can You be Happy in a Job Like Mine?  Could be, there are many advantages  You have a great deal of independence Within the workload system, you determine how much effort to devote to research, teaching and service Must show “distinguished” rating in two of three to get tenure without a fight Required to show “distinguished” rating in either teaching or research to get tenure  Gratification from seeing students succeed

What Things will Make You Unhappy?  There are plenty of frustrations  Teaching is hard, if you don’t like it, don’t do it Student motivation can be uneven  Institutional support for research is spotty Very few resources to develop infrastructure Few requests justified by research are granted  Few colleagues in your field to talk to on a day to day basis