Science at a Liberal Arts College

I’ve had a number of conversations the past several weeks about how science departments operate in Selective Liberal Arts Colleges (SLACs) versus Research-Intensive Institutions (R1s). I will limit discussion to institutions in the U.S. since that’s the context I’m most familiar with.

What is a SLAC? The ‘Oberlin Group’ will give you a sense of the institutions that fall into this category. At present, they have an average size of 2000 students, and most range between 1600 and 2400. They are private institutions, expensive to attend, although often generous with financial aid. They typically do not have graduate programs (if present, these are tiny) and the focus is almost exclusively on undergraduate education.

R1 institutions are typically much larger universities with over 5000 students, and some of the flagship public institutions have tens of thousands. They are prestigious in the sense of brand-name recognition. Private R1s tend to be smaller in size and more expensive, but they can be generous with financial aid. Public institutions are more affordable although costs are rising more steeply at the flagships than at the regionals. R1s have a range of graduate programs, and in particular Ph.D. programs in the sciences.

At a SLAC, class sizes are smaller. While you might have a hundred students in general chemistry, some programs split into smaller sections. At my institution, introductory classes are capped at 40, so that’s the typical size of my standard G-Chem class. (Honors classes are capped at 20.) At a large public R1, you might well have 400 students in G-Chem, and there might be several of these large lecture sections being run every year. The size is capped by the limits of available lecture theaters. As a professor, I would much, much rather teach smaller classes where I can learn everyone’s name and even get to know some of my students with their quirks and interests. Pedagogically, I can do different things with a smaller class that would be more challenging with a few hundred students in the same room.

Teaching loads at a SLAC are noticeably higher. Many of the Oberlin Group schools have what is known as a ‘3-2’ load – a faculty member teaches 3 classes one semester, and 2 classes the other semester. I’m limiting the rest of my discussion to tenure-line faculty because there are typically fewer adjunct faculty (with variable loads) at SLACs although those numbers are growing. At an R1, the load might be ‘1-1’ or even ‘1-0’ for tenure-line faculty; and much of the teaching is done by graduate students and adjunct faculty. Graduate students also often do the grading and hold office hours for large introductory level science courses. At a SLAC, the professor does all of this. Hence, a lot of a faculty member’s time goes into teaching at a SLAC.

New faculty members are anxious about trying to get tenure. At an R1, getting tenure is predominantly based on research productivity. This is measured in two main forms: bringing in external grant funding and publishing high profile scientific articles. Giving presentations, serving on discipline-related committees or editorial boards, and other activities that are profile-raising are helpful, but grant funding and getting articles published are the main metrics. Thus, a faculty member’s time and energy is focused on these two activities. To get into the ‘virtuous’ (but vicious) cycle, you need workers to accomplish the research. Thus, one needs to support graduate students and postdoctoral researchers with large, typically million-dollar, grants. Undergraduates (unless very talented and willing to put in lots of time) are typically not as productive, since they have classes and other commitments. As a faculty member, much of your time is spent writing (grant proposals and articles).

In contrast, undergraduate research is a selling point of SLACs with strong science programs. As a faculty member, much of my time is spent directly mentoring the students through the research process. (I get to know my research students well!) Yes, I do spend time writing proposals and getting articles published, but it’s a much smaller slice of my schedule. I’m also directly involved in generating research results; that ‘extra’ bit of work on my part is often needed to turn an undergraduate research project into a publishable article for a ‘good’ or at least ‘decent’ journal. I am able to small chunks of research and writing during the semester, but it mostly gets done during the summer. When classes are in session during the semester, that takes the lion’s share of my time.

At a SLAC, you have to be a good-to-excellent teacher to achieve tenure. You also have to show some research productivity (grants and publications) although not at the quantitative levels of an R1. At a smaller school, service to the department and university is also an important component. (Someone has to serve on committees and help with administrative work!) In recent years, service expectations have been lowered for junior faculty as research expectations have crept higher. At an R1, as long as you’re not a poor teacher or generating lots of student complaints, that’s typically good enough to satisfy the teaching part of the portfolio in the sciences since research has become the all-important criterion. Junior faculty members are typically ‘shielded’ from service so they can spend more time beefing up their research portfolio.

Academic advising is an important part of being a SLAC faculty member. You meet with your advisees regularly, help them navigate their academic lives through college, discuss career and post-college plans, and get to know them as individuals. I very much enjoy this part of my job, although it does take time. At an R1, an undergraduate may get little to no advising from a tenure-line faculty member unless you were working in the lab. Many schools have moved towards having professional career academic advisers who may meet with a few hundred students per semester. Forging connections is so much harder.

In a small department, the faculty and staff all know each other and (hopefully) work well together. Much of the equipment and responsibilities are shared because that’s the only way to function effectively without millions of dollars of grant funding to pay for equipment and personnel in one’s own research lab. Teaching and research are blended, with plenty of overlap at a SLAC, while they are generally considered very separate activities at an R1. Thus, the division of labor and resources differs significantly between the two types of institutions. In an R1 the faculty may not all know each other, or the staff, or the student majors. At a SLAC, all the student majors are known personally by one or more faculty members.

From conversations with colleagues in areas outside the natural sciences, the differences between being a faculty member at a SLAC versus an R1 are not as stark, although there are differences. Although not very common, faculty occasionally move between the two types of institutions in the humanities and the social sciences. Such moves are very rare in the sciences. At the outset, the stark differences for faculty in the natural sciences means that someone applying for a faculty position needs to clearly understand these differences and tailor the application accordingly. Having sat on many hiring committees, I can say that not understanding what it means to be at a liberal arts college in the sciences pretty much disqualifies a candidate given the strong applicant pools. As a postdoctoral research fellow, I made a clear choice to work at a liberal arts college and not at a research institution because I wanted undergraduate education (in its various forms) to be my focus.

A final cautionary note: As interest in a liberal arts education increases outside the U.S., and we see new institutions and partnerships sprouting, I have noticed a lack of understanding as to what a liberal arts college is – even as efforts are being made to replicate some of its aspects. A liberal education or liberal arts curriculum is not the same as a liberal arts college. Yes, liberal arts colleges by definition subscribe to a liberal arts curriculum, but many universities in the U.S. have such curricula but would not be anything like a liberal arts college, from the experience of faculty, staff and students. However, the two have often been conflated, and not recognizing the stark difference between institutional types (irrespective of curricula) has led, in my opinion, to challenges and problems in science departments trying to navigate the morass and confusion of differing ideas and unrealistic expectations.