Academics

Educational Undertakings (2000-2010)

In the latter part of the 20^th century, after 30+ years as a ‘bench’ neuroscientist, the last 10 or so being not very fruitful, I decided to take on an administrative role in the graduate school (assistant then associate dean; essentially in charge of the Newark campus of the graduate school). I took this position because I wanted to achieve several major goals, in the areas of science-education, and in social justice.

Science Education. The PhD training programs at our university were antiquated, serving the needs of the faculty but frequently using students as cheap labor, not as acolytes. This problem had been around for all of my time as a faculty member. But, the administrative leaders had not addressed it because the system served the needs of the research faculty. Traditionally, admission to a PhD program in a medical school was solely through established medical school departments. So that a student interested in physiology entered the physiology department training program; a student interested in biochemistry entered hat department and so on. The problem arose when a student entered a program in one department, he/she was forced to choose a research advisor only from that department. On the surface that doesn’t seem to be a problem since department had anywhere from 10-15 members and if a student were to look over the research descriptions of those faculty, there seemed to be a variety of advisors to choose from. But those descriptions were misleading. First, not everyone had funding. Then, of those who had funds, they might not be in a position to take a student (a faculty member might already have a student or two in the lab or they might be near the end of a grant and unsure if they wanted to commit to a new student) so that by the time a student got through the first two years of primarily course work, they would likely to be forced into entering a lab where they had marginal or no enthusiasm. To illustrate this problem, let me describe what happened with one of our early students. Larry Sellin entered the physiology department and did a research rotation in my lab in the early ‘70s. Later on he became interested in work going on in the lab of Joe McArdle, a member of the department of pharmacology. As Larry got to the point of deciding where he wanted to do his thesis, he became more interested in Joe’s work than in mine. But since Joe was in a different department, both chairs (pharmacology and physiology) and the dean of the grad school would not allow Larry to become Joe’s student. Larry could change departments but then he would have to take all the requirements of the pharmacology department, delaying his progress by at least a year. The way we solved the problem was to be deceptive and probably unethical. Officially, Larry would be my student and work towards the PhD in physiology. But he would work in Joe’s lab on a dual project put together by Joe and me and on which, Joe would be co-mentor. In actuality, Larry went into Joe’s lab and did his thesis there. I vouched for the work - which I knew to be of high quality - and Larry received his PhD from the physiology department, while doing research in the lab of a member of pharmacology. In all of my years on the faculty, we realized this was a problem, but no one was willing to change it. I decided this would be a goal for my years as an associate dean in the graduate school.

 

With opposition from virtually everyone in the graduate school (especially chairs, including my own; I remember one of the deans saying ‘that the way to treat graduate students was to throw them in a lab and put them to work – what they are interested in is not important!), I began to sow the seeds for an interdisciplinary PhD program in which students would enter an ‘umbrella program’, and then after taking basic coursework in biomedical sciences, would be able to select their thesis advisors from anyone in the graduate school. This would expand the choices for all incoming students and allow them as wide a berth as possible to discover research for which they had a passion. This was not an original idea with me; it was what was being done in progressive graduate programs in medical schools around the country.

While our graduate school lagged behind in adopting this model, and had only a fledging version of it when I left in 2009, it appears that they have now adopted a kind of ‘umbrella’ program. Still, I urge all students, before entering PhD programs in any of the medical schools in the US, to question carefully who you will be able to work with in your thesis research once you have completed your coursework and qualifying examinations. Far too often I have seen students enter our PhD program with enthusiasm and passion for science, but then leave with a PhD but without that passion and what’s even more common, a loss of excitement at the prospect of becoming a scientist. Education in biomedical science should be viewed as a selfless responsibility of all working scientists and an obligation to seek out the best young minds and nurture them towards discovery and success as mature researchers. This is best done by allowing students as much choice as possible to find the kind of research about which they are most passionate and then for faculty to facilitate their transition to becoming a research scientist.

A second educational issue that I had been considering was to begin a program for training students toward a masters rather than a PhD degree - the idea for this came straight from a fellow faculty member, Ted Flynn. Ted and several other faculty had been teaching evening courses at nearby Seton Hall University and Rutgers-Newark in their masters programs. “We should be teaching these courses,” he said to me one day. “We have the personnel, the expertise and faculty who have the time. And, we could get the tuition income for ourselves rather than go through Rutgers or Seton Hall…” I kept thinking about this and decided it was a good idea and that as an administrator, I might be able to make it happen. This was my second reason for taking on the job of associate dean. Initially, this program was opposed by everyone, again especially the department chairs. Despite this vigorous opposition, the outcome exceeded our greatest expectations and is summarized in an article published in the journal, Academic Medicine (link; Ingoglia, 2009). To my knowledge, the program is still in effect.

Social Justice Issues (2000-2010) These initiatives had to do with improving the lives of employees on campus and in the neighboring community. The first of these projects had actually been in effect since the mid-1970s. Several employees and I formed what we later called – The University Basketball League. Like the master’s program, the UBL grew beyond all expectations. At its height, it included close to 300 students, faculty and workers. The players in the league came from all corners of our racial, economic and ethnically diverse campus and unified our campus in ways none of us had envisaged when we first started the league. I have attempted to summarize those years and capture the emotional connections of the participants in an unpublished essay/short story (“Family”).

 

Next, was an attempt to better the lives of our lowest paid employees. In this area I was greatly influenced by the ideas of “The Living Wage” (that workers should be paid a wage commensurate with what it costs to live in a specific region of the country) and later by the concept that no one who works full time should live in poverty, and what I came to think of as ‘The Ben and Jerry” philosophy that no one in an organization should make more than 20 or 30 times the lowest wage earner. (Living Wage)

Another reason that I took on the administrative role issue was to try to introduce minority students to the possibility of following a career in biomedical research. One of the ways we sought to do this was to establish an Alfred P Sloan – Minority to the PhD program in the graduate school. We were granted entrance into the program and for several years, a number of minority students earned their PhD degrees with the help of funds from the Sloan Foundation.

We also attempted to introduce high school students to the world of research. I discovered quickly that few high school (disadvantaged or majority) students, or their teachers, had any idea of the possibilities of forging a life in scientific investigation. To try to remedy this situation, I established The Dorothy Dillahunt Memorial Scholarships for economically disadvantaged high school students.

Unfortunately, both the Sloan and Dillahunt programs are no longer available at the graduate school – the good news is that I am still in touch with many of those former students, most of whom have gone on to successful lives and careers. One of these students, Binta Jalloh, is in the final years of a PhD program at Emory University and is working on axon guidance in Drosophila embryos. We have recently coauthored a review on the molecular biology of growing axons (LINK).

(rev. 02.2018)