Today’s guest has built a lab that attracts both thriving graduate and undergraduate students. He currently oversees a doctoral student, 3 master’s students, and a few advanced undergraduates. The lab studies how human alteration of environmental factors influences the dynamics of animals in terrestrial and aquatic food webs and ecosystems using integrative approaches. Their work investigates basic ecological questions that have importance for achieving sustainable environmental management in a changing world. Their four key research areas include Terrestrial Water Webs, Water Quantity and Quality Effects on Aquatic-Terrestrial Linkages, Urbanization and Climate Change, and Riverine Macrosystems.

Today’s guest has been working very long hours to get his lab up and running over the past five years and he has recently been tenured in the Biological Sciences at BGSU. He is a friend and colleague. Please welcome Dr. Kevin McCluney.

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Table of Contents:

00:00 - Introduction - Academic Tenure, Undergraduate Research, & Sense of Community

10:19 - Interview with Dr. Kevin McCluney

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Introduction

 

In the United States, a tenured faculty position is an academic appointment that can only be dismissed for misconduct, or in rare cases, lack of funding or program discontinuation. The purpose of tenure is to allow academic freedom without the threat of losing one’s employment for promoting controversial ideas, such as evolutionary biology or contentious literature. The view is that academic freedom is crucial in teaching and research; and society will benefit if scholars are free to explore a variety of topics, questions, and opinions. It also prevents schools from replacing more expensive seasoned teachers with less expensive novice teachers to save money. However, some believe that the tenure system doesn’t provide an incentive for faculty to remain productive after they are tenured.

 

Tenure Track vs Non-Tenure Track

 

The tenure process is rigorous and it can be brutal. New “tenure-track” faculty members typically have a limited amount of time to produce an adequate record in teaching, research (grants & publications), and service (committees, advising, program administration, etc.). At BGSU Assistant-Professors (1st rank) have 5 years. At that time, they must either be tenured and promoted to Associate-Professor (2nd rank) or dismissed from the university. In other words, they must “publish or perish”. The 3rd and final rank for tenure-track faculty is Professor or Full-Professor.

 

At BGSU we also have full-time “non-tenure track” faculty, who are ineligible for tenure. We call these faculty members Qualified Rank Faculty (QRF). Their ranks parallel the tenure-track ranks progressing from Assistant Teaching-Professor, to Associate Teaching-Professor, and finally Teaching-Professor. Typically, non-tenure track faculty do not have a research commitment, but they have higher teaching loads along with a service commitment. Colleges and universities also hire part-time teachers called Adjunct-Faculty. Adjuncts are typically paid on a “per-course” basis and they do not work enough hours to be eligible for health insurance, retirement plans, or other employee benefits.

 

Graduate Faculty

 

There are varying levels of Graduate Faculty Statuses along with increasing amounts of privileges. At BGSU the highest level (Level 1) may allow a faculty member to chair a doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis committee, participate as a member of a thesis or dissertation committee and all other graduate responsibilities associated with both the master’s and doctoral level of graduate study and teach graduate courses of any level. They may also participate as a Graduate Faculty Representative (GFR) on dissertation committees and represent a graduate program at The Graduate Council. In the Department of Biological Sciences at BGSU, maintaining graduate faculty status is extremely important to many tenure-track faculty since we have masters and doctoral programs, and tenure-track faculty run their own lab full of graduate students. The professors train the graduate students, help them define their projects, and ideally help them publish their research. The professors also write grants to fund their labs and often times to pay graduate student stipends. Grants may also pay for Post-Doctoral researchers to work in their labs.

 

Undergraduate Research

 

Undergraduate students are encouraged to work along-side graduate students, post-doctoral scholars, and professors in the various biology labs at BGSU. Undergraduates must volunteer their time and sometimes the work is tedious, however, the rewards are invaluable. Ideally, the undergraduate will find a mentor in the lab who will teach them how to become a productive scientist, illuminate the cultural nuances of academia, and explain theory, philosophy, and concepts. Participating in a graduate lab as an undergraduate will also allow for socialization to occur where the undergraduate has opportunities to meet other students, scientists, and researchers working in the field. If the undergraduate feels accepted into the lab, they may gain a very powerful sense of community.

 

Sense of Community

 

McMillan & Chavis (1986) define sense of community as "a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together." According to Distinguished Syracuse University Sociology Professor Vincent Tinto (1975) for students to persist in college, they must become socially and academically integrated into the university and the associated communities found within.

 

In fact, according to professor and chair of the doctoral programs in higher education at Azusa Pacific University, Laurie Schreiner (2013) developing a sense of community among college students has been shown to be a strong predictor of a student’s success and it is the absolute best way to help all students thrive on campus. She defines thriving as being “fully engaged intellectually, socially, and emotionally in the college experience” (Schreiner, 2010, p. 4). Success is typically measured as academic performance or graduation. However, Schreiner looks far beyond that and states that students who are thriving “are engaged in the learning process, invest effort to reach important educational goals, manage their time and commitments effectively, connect in healthy ways to other people, are optimistic about their future and positive about their present choices, and are committed to making a meaningful difference in the world around them” (Schreiner, 2010, p. 41).

 

Guest Introduction

McCluney Lab's four key research areas include:

1. Terrestrial Water Webs: Studying the direct effects of animal water balance (sources and losses) on trophic interactions and food webs (which they have named "water webs"). For instance, previous work has shown that spiders and crickets will "drink" their food under dry conditions, consuming large amounts in order to meet water requirements rather than energy or nutrients.
2. Water Quantity and Quality Effects on Aquatic-Terrestrial Linkages: Studying how changes in water quantity and quality influence the reciprocal feedbacks between adjacent aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. For instance, they have shown strong effects of river drying on streamside animals. They are also investigating the influence of variation in macronutrients, like phosphate, or trace chemicals, like caffeine, on rates of emergence of aquatic insects and how changes to fluxes influence streamside spiders and birds.
3. Urbanization and Climate Change: People are increasingly moving to cities and altering those environments. Cities in mesic regions are becoming warmer and drier in ways that can mimic the projected effects of climate change. Cities in xeric areas become wetter and may become cooler, at least at some times, in some areas. They are studying how alteration of environmental factors in cities influences animal ecology in ways that may indicate the potential effects of climate change. Moreover, their research will inform management decisions in cities that could maximize ecosystem services and minimize disservices in the key places where most people live.
4. Riverine Macrosystems: Rivers are dynamic, connected systems, both in space and in time. Because of this, examining the ecology of a single stream reach, at a single time point, may provide little information about plant and animal population fluctuations. Taking a broader view, it becomes apparent that animal populations in unaltered river systems demonstrate great resistance and resilience to year-to-year environmental fluctuations, due to the summed effects of asynchronous population dynamics in variable habitats. But human alterations to these river systems can reduce the resistance and resilience. They study how the spatial arrangement of these human alterations can influence broad-scale, long-term population dynamics, thus connecting management decisions to riverine ecosystem services and disservices.

Today’s guest has been working very long hours to get his lab up and running over the past five years and he has recently been tenured in the Biological Sciences at BGSU. He is a friend and collogue. Please welcome Dr. Kevin McCluney.

References

 

Mcmillan, D. W., & Chavis, D. M. (1986). Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, 14(1), 6–23. doi: 10.1002/1520-6629(198601)14:1<6::aid-jcop2290140103>3.0.co;2-i

 

Schreiner, L. “The ‘Thriving Quotient’: A New Vision for Student Success.” About Campus, 2010, 15(2), 2–10.

 

Schreiner, L. A. (2013). Thriving in College. New Directions for Student Services, 2013(143), 41–52. doi: 10.1002/ss.20059

 

The Status of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty. (n.d.). Retrieved December 3, 2019, from https://www.aaup.org/report/status-non-tenure-track-faculty.

 

Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89. doi: 10.2307/1170024

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