Whither teaching postdocs?

Over the years, people have asked me about the various programs that bring in new Ph.D.s for "teaching" postdoctoral positions. I've had another such conversation recently, so I'm bringing the issue up again.

I'll be completely up front and say that I'm quite skeptical of them, but I don't have any strong data to back up my skepticism. Here are my qualms:

• Why is the institution hiring postdocs as opposed to full-time lecturers? Isn't this just a money play? 
• What kind of career development program is available to the selected postdocs outside of "here, teach these classes"? 
• If there's a research component, how much support does the PI offer the postdoc? No one likes dual mandates, and I can't imagine PIs are enthusiastic about postdocs that come with outside commitments. 
• What is the track record of the program? 

One of the oldest such programs is Boston University chemistry Postdoctoral Faculty Fellowship program. They note the track record of their alumni; it seems to me that most of those graduates have been hired as assistant professors, so there's that. But a real analysis of their value would ask this: 

• Do the BU PFF alumni get hired as PUI faculty at a higher rate than research postdocs? 
• Do the BU PFF alumni get promoted to tenure at a higher rate than other assistant professors? 
• Do they show better track records in teaching or gaining outside funding? 
• Does the BU program demonstrate "added value"?, i.e. do their alumni outcomes show that they have actually improved participants' chances of getting assistant professor positions? 

We don't actually have any of the background statistics, so I am not sure an analysis of BU's alumni would actually be demonstrative of anything.* 

Now for the other side: I mentioned my skepticism about these programs to a friend of mine who is a retired PUI chemistry professor; to my surprise, he was actually quite positive about such programs. He felt these programs actually offered some level of predictive power to hiring committees, i.e. they demonstrate to hiring committees that they can, at the very least, teach college students something about chemistry. He felt that traditional research postdoctoral fellows could not offer that same data point. He did agree more prestigious PUIs would probably still select research postdocs as assistant professors over teaching postdocs. So to counter my skepticism, I have one data point that was in favor of such programs. 

Readers, as you know, I'm not an academic, so I am undoubtedly wrong somewhere here. I invite you to correct me. 

*What percentage of newly-hired assistant professors in chemistry are actually promoted to tenure? I don't think anyone actually knows. 

The most incorrect article you will read this week on undergraduate chemical education

From the comments, a shockingly wrong article in the Wall Street Journal: 

Chemistry Departments Try to Attract More Students by Retooling the Major 

Universities begin to overhaul traditional curricula in science field that some worry is churning out too few graduates for nation’s needs 

Forget economics. Chemistry might be the real dismal science. 

Undergraduate programs have been characterized for decades by rigid, yearlong sequences of organic, physical and biochemistry classes that emphasized rote memorization and taught about reactions in isolation. They left little room to pursue side passions—and attracted worrisomely few students, policy makers say. 

As business and biology majors get a reboot, chemistry professors find themselves waging a fierce battle to appeal to undergraduates who might want a scientific grounding to pursue careers in forensics, molecular gastronomy or politics, but who are turned off by the degree’s onerous demands...

I think it's rather interesting to note that the number of chemistry graduates is actually up, according to the NSF's most recent data, from 10,388 in 2000 to 12,888 in 2011.* **

The article goes on to suggest that goes on to suggest that the American Chemical Society is an industry group (it's not - it's a non-profit professional society), that medicinal chemistry is useful to attending medical school (nope, not really), and that Emory University didn't tell its students what "bonds" do until their sophomore year. It suggests that chemotherapy and nuclear chemistry are related (uh, sort of, not really?) and that the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University are teaching their students something called "three-step synthesis." What the heck is that?

A couple of other random questions: who interviews for Ph.D. admissions to organic chemistry programs these days? There can't be very many schools that have instituted this. Who are the policy makers who believe that there are a shortage of chemistry majors? I want to know this, so I can egg their homes tell them they're wrong. Which one of you has been through rote memorization for physical chemistry? That's a really dumb approach, so dumb that I doubt anyone actually does it.

Finally, I would really, really, really like to know this: who is responsible for this mess of an article? There are many good articles to be had about innovative approaches to chemical education - this is not one of them.

*link to NSF SEI Excel spreadsheet here.
** Also, holding fire on the headline and subhed, because reporter may not be responsible for them.

Memorizing the periodic table seems like a waste of time to me

Sparked by a tweet from Anne Helmenstine (About.com's chemistry expert) suggesting ways that students can memorize the periodic table, I was amused to find that some tweeps had strong feelings about the memorization of the periodic table: 

@stephengdavey: I can think of literally no reason to want to do this. Never once had a chemistry exam where this was a requirement. 

@jkemsley:  To be clear: IMO it's ridiculous to require students to memorize the PT. Understand? Yes. Memorize? No.

I am not an expert in the pedagogy of chemistry, but it seems to me that there is a lot more to be gained from the understanding of why the periodic table is organized in the fashion that it is, as opposed to memorization of where the elements are. Understanding the trends in electronegativity, atomic number, size (or memorizing them, even) would seem to me to be far more important.

I think it's fair to expect upper-level undergraduates and graduate students to have significant chunks (transition metals, etc.) of the periodic table memorized, more as a byproduct of familiarity than an actual end goal. (Here's one professor who expects this.)

From a practical perspective, I am always under the impression that most high school and early college students have access to the periodic table for exams. Does anyone out there require memorization of the whole periodic table? It's definitely a neat parlor trick, but why?

(To a great extent, this is part and parcel of the seeming resistance of the majority of chemists to memorization. For example, there's no better way to get a bunch of organic chemists really upset than to say "o-chem is just a bunch of memorization.")

Thoreau: what's wrong with "weeding out"?

Further comments from undergraduate science professor Thoreau on both "weeding out" and the logistics of large courses. First, on weeding out: 

1) When I was a freshman, I was surrounded by aspiring scientists, engineers, and doctors.  When I was in my second year, I was surrounded by people with a much wider range of career ambitions, in part because some of them got their asses kicked in intro STEM classes.  I understand that this trend has largely continued. 

2) At my current veal farm, I see people who are in their third year and still taking intro STEM classes (and are still getting mediocre grades) because they placed into math classes lower than calculus, floundered and failed in some classes, repeated classes, etc.  Nobody wants to tell them to change majors. 

3) My current veal farm has a graduation rate that is pathetic compared to my alma mater. 

4) Time is money.  Delayed graduation means more loans and delayed income.
Is it really so bad to use freshman classes to weed people out, and encourage those who are floundering to consider a different major?  Indeed, from a social justice perspective, might weed-out freshman courses be ethically necessary responses to a world where students are paying higher and higher tuition and taking out more and more loans?

I agree with much of what Thoreau is saying, although I suspect the rejoinder from the anti-weeders is "Look, your course structure/lecture style/whatever is what is unintentionally doing the weeding. Maybe if you changed how you lecture, you'd get more kids who understood things better." I'm not really sure that's been borne out in the literature, though.

Also, over at Just Like Cooking, Thoreau has some interesting comments about the logistics of large classes and how seemingly draconian rules are really about teaching life skills and also taking edge-case decision making out of the hands of TAs who may otherwise be put in difficult spots. All worth thinking about.

One more thing I don't think that New York Times article addresses -- how much "new hotness" interactive-style courses would cost (in time and money) in comparison to classic large lecture courses.