Postdocs need to focus on research first, teaching second, says Jo Handelsman (left). But they do need to learn how to teach, says Diane Ebert-May, and the earlier the better.

But the very experience she thought would cement her desire to teach instead drew her back to research. She decided to follow her two-year postdoc with a traditional research postdoc in synthetic biology at Harvard University.

“When I immersed myself in teaching there were some things I missed, like being able to mentor grad students and postdocs,” Haynes says. “So I wanted to make sure I was competitive for a small liberal arts college job or a research university job.”

The College Myth

Haynes made a wise choice. Schools at all levels—liberal arts colleges, regional public universities, and major research institutions—look first at research, says Jo Handelsman, an HHMI professor and national education leader who runs a science education training program for graduate students and postdocs at Yale University.

		Postdocs as Teachers Learn how four postdocs went the extra mile to get the training they wanted. Launch Chalkboard

“If people want to go into academic positions, a pure teaching postdoc can be fatal,” Handelsman explains. “There is a myth out there that you don’t need a research postdoc if you are going to a predominantly undergraduate institution, but many of them expect a strong research program.”

Chris Himes learned that lesson the hard way.

As a graduate student at the University of Washington, Himes sought out teaching opportunities and eventually won his university’s teaching award for co-developing a course that teaches study skills to students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. When it came time to graduate, Himes had an offer for a traditional research postdoc, but he decided to take a two-year teaching postdoc position at Williams College in rural western Massachusetts instead. “I wanted to see how research is done at a college, see how teaching is done, and learn what a liberal arts college is like.”

The two-year postdoc was set up to include both research and hands-on teaching experience, but because of his interests—and the shock of being in such a different environment, with so few colleagues at his level with similar scientific interests—he did more teaching than research. He taught in a whole range of settings: labs, seminars, and large lecture courses.

Himes had a great experience at Williams and learned a lot about teaching. He may even want to work at a liberal arts college someday. But when he looked for a job after the first year of his postdoc, he didn’t get a single offer. Williams had an open position in his area; he applied but didn’t even get an interview. “That was an eye opener for me,” Himes says. “Here I am doing the work at a liberal arts college that I would be expected to do later, but I wasn’t considered for the job.”

Wendy Raymond, who oversaw the postdoc program at Williams, says the school doesn’t emphasize teaching experience when hiring faculty. Any postdoc with only two years of experience would be in the same boat as Himes, she says. “We wouldn’t hire a teaching postdoc for a faculty position without a strong research record,” she says.

Himes doesn’t regret going to Williams, but he does wish he had had different priorities. “My advice: even if you are going to do a teaching postdoc, focus on research and take the teaching experience as a plus,” says Himes, who is now in a second teaching postdoc with a stronger emphasis on research. “At the end of the day, it is the publication record that will get you the interview, then the job.”

Many in the academic community have a negative view of teaching postdocs and other teaching positions for newly minted Ph.D.s. Rather than helping postdocs become better teachers or get better jobs, they think schools just use them to fill teaching slots. “All too often teaching postdocs are primarily … to teach a class or two to relieve a faculty member from his or her teaching duties,” says Chris Craney, an Occidental College chemistry professor. “We didn’t want to do that.”

Photos: Handelsman: James Kegley, Ebert-May: Peter Baker

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