skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

Title: Characterizing the landscape of plant science careers in the United States II: Academic perspectives
Societal Impact Statement

Botanical careers are more important than ever, given that environmental challenges such as climate change and deforestation threaten plants daily and because plants contribute to solutions to these problems. Plants act as our sources of food, medicine, textiles, and oxygen, which means finding ways to mitigate these environmental challenges is crucial. Despite this, little is known about what career opportunities exist for botanists outside of academia and how well academia is training graduate students for these careers. This study centers on the current state of academic botanical careers and how well students completing post‐baccalaureate degrees (herein referred to as graduate students) are being prepared to fill careers within the botanical workforce.

 Summary

Plant science plays a crucial role in our society and in ongoing efforts to address many global challenges, including food insecurity and climate change. Despite a predicted increase in botanical career opportunities, little is known about how well academia is training graduate students for careers outside of academia.

To further our understanding of the current state of academic training for botanical careers, we surveyed 85 faculty and 40 graduate students working in academia in the plant sciences in the United States.

We found that the top challenges to university professors in academia are lack of support staff and funding, whereas students completing their post‐baccalaureate degrees cited finances and lack of supportive mentoring as their top challenges. Despite the fact that most graduate students surveyed wanted a career at a research‐intensive university, many botanists in academia are retiring without being replaced by more botanists. Faculty expertise is also misaligned with needs from industry and government employers, causing challenges to training graduate students for these careers outside of academia. Although our data point to a lack of career opportunities within academia, we also note that current graduate student education still emphasizes such careers and is not properly preparing graduate students for the careers they are more likely to obtain within the private and government sectors.

We discuss the implications of these findings and present several recommendations for preparing future generations of plant scientists for more realistic career trajectories.

  more » « less
NSF-PAR ID:
10411062
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Date Published:
Journal Name:
PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET
ISSN:
2572-2611
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET)
    Societal Impact Statement

    Humans are dependent upon plants for oxygen, food, textiles, and medicines. Climate change and deforestation represent serious threats to our planet, causing significant disruptions to our ability to access and utilize these plant resources; this makes a botanically literate workforce and plant science careers more important than ever. Unfortunately, the current state of botanical career opportunities and training programs in the United States remains unclear. This study focuses on the current employment trends of government and private sector botanists and what skills future plant scientists will need to be successful in these careers.

     Summary

    Plant science plays a crucial role in our society and in ongoing efforts to address many global challenges, including food insecurity and climate change. Yet, despite a predicted increase in plant science career opportunities in the United States, the botanical career landscape outside of academia is not well understood.

    To further our understanding of the training required for non‐academic botanical careers, the botanical sub‐disciplines used on the job, and career challenges faced by plant scientists, we surveyed 61 scientists working in government and 59 scientists working in the private sector in the United States.

    In both career sectors, > 80% of survey participants reported recent hires at the bachelor's degree level. New personnel with master's degrees were more commonly reported in the government sector (95%) than in the private sector (69%). Most plant scientists working in government reported a focus on plant ecology and resource management. By contrast, most industry/non‐profit work involved horticulture and biotechnology, with some specific skills spanning both sectors. Notably, one prediction made nearly a decade ago appears to be manifesting: plant scientists seem to be retiring more quickly than they are being replaced. Survey respondents reported that attempts to hire full‐time staff are met with obstacles, including insufficient funding. Plant science professionals in both career sectors emphasized their routine use of botanical skills developed as students, highlighting the need for effective training at the undergraduate level.

    We discuss the implications of these findings and present several recommendations for preparing future generations of plant scientists and increasing the scientific community's botanical capacity.

     
    more » « less
  2. ; ( , Journal of Engineering Education)
    Abstract Background

    Graduate education literature tends to focus on faculty careers with little attention to industry careers. However, more than one‐third of U.S. engineering doctorates enter industry.

     Purpose

    Our purpose is to understand engineering graduate students' interest in industry, academia, and government careers as it relates to their graduate engineering identities.

     Design/Method

    A total of 249 engineering thesis master's and doctoral students completed a survey about their graduate engineering identities and career preferences. We created regression models to predict students' likelihood of pursuing careers in industry, academia, and government. Then, we used cluster analysis to understand the extent to which students are considering multiple options and used chi‐squared and ANOVA tests to compare the clusters.

     Results

    In the regression model predicting an academic career, research recognition and research performance/competence were positive predictors and engineering performance/competence was a negative predictor. Regression models of industry and government described less than 10% of the variance. Four clusters emerged, which collectively demonstrate that engineering graduate students are considering careers in multiple sectors. Students with internships during graduate study were more likely to pursue industry careers. Master's students were underrepresented in the cluster with highest likelihood of an academic career. International students were keeping more options open than some domestic students. There were also differences by engineering discipline.

     Conclusions

    Engineering graduate students are considering multiple career sectors. Advisors and education researchers should focus not only on academic career preparation but also on industry and government career preparation, particularly on preparing for multiple options simultaneously.

     
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ( , PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET)
    Societal Impact Statement

    The practice of writing science blogs benefits both the scientist and society alike by providing professional development opportunities and delivering information in a format that is accessible to large and diverse audiences. By designing a project that introduced upper‐level undergraduate students to science blog writing with a focus on plant biology, we piqued students' interest in science writing and the content of a popular plant science blog website. If adopted more widely, this work could broaden the scope of science education and promote the development of effective science communication skills for the next generation of scientists.

     Summary

    Successful scientists must communicate their research to broad audiences, including distilling key scientific concepts for the general public. Students pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields benefit from developing public communication skills early in their careers, but opportunities are limited in traditional biology curricula.

    We created the “Plant Science Blogging Project” for a Plant Biology undergraduate course at the University of Pittsburgh in Fall 2018 and 2019. Students wrote blog posts merging personal connections with plants with plant biology concepts for the popular science blogsPlant Love StoriesandEvoBites. By weaving biology into their narratives, students learned how to share botanical knowledge with the general public.

    The project had positive impacts on student learning and public engagement. In post‐assignment surveys, the majority of students reported that they enjoyed the assignment, felt it improved their understanding of plant biology, and piqued their interest in reading and writing science blogs in the future. Approximately one‐third of the student‐authored blogs were published, including two that rose to the top 10 most‐read posts on Plant Love Stories. Some dominant themes in student blogs, including medicine and culture, differed from common story themes published on the web, indicating the potential for students to diversify science blog content.

    Overall, the Plant Science Blogging Project allows undergraduate students to engage with plant biology topics in a new way, sharpen their scientific communication skills in accordance with today's world of mass information sharing, and contribute to the spread of scientific knowledge for public benefit.

     
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Frontiers in Education)
    Understanding the experiences of successful diverse science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faculty can facilitate the development of programming that counteracts barriers and weaknesses from multiple angles. The challenges that students and professionals report can be broadly identified as either identity-based or institutional. The lack of diversity in STEM fields in academia can result in narrow viewpoints, limited student diversity, and missed opportunities to address today’s societal challenges. It is clear that we must consider programming that has positively impacted successful STEM faculty in academia in order to create effective programming to recruit and retain future diverse STEM faculty. Our phenomenological study sought to add to the literature related to the role that socialization plays in preparing individuals for success in faculty roles by conducting in-depth interviews with early-career STEM faculty members in under-represented groups. The phenomena under investigation were experiences leading to early-career STEM faculty members’ successful career pathways. Seven early-career STEM faculty from multiple institutions described unique paths to their current faculty position with some commonalities, including participation in undergraduate or postdoc research and having some industry experience. The suggestions, advice, and guidance offered by the participants fell into categories that, while mirrored in the literature, serve as useful markers for administrators developing programming. We organized our findings using the conceptual framework of socialization and the associated competencies for our context. As we strive to encourage and build diverse representation in populations of STEM academicians, these collective findings are invaluable. Findings confirm that programming directly impacts the success of early-career STEM faculty, and it is the success of these individuals that will enable diversity and inclusion to expand in STEM. Programs, interventions, and additional efforts for graduate students can also benefit from close examination of these experiences. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ( , Frontiers in Psychology)
    At Michigan State University (MSU), the AGEP learning community features the participation of over 70% of the African-American, Latinx, and Native-American under-represented minorities (URM), also referred to as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) doctoral students in fields sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Monthly learning community (LC) meetings allow AGEP participants to create dialogues across disciplines through informal oral presentations about current research. The learning communities also offer opportunities to share key information regarding graduate school success and experience; thus providing a social network that extends beyond the academic setting. At MSU, AGEP also provides an interdisciplinary and multigenerational environment that includes graduate students, faculty members, post-docs and prospective graduate students. Using monthly surveys over a 4-year period, we evaluated the impact of this AGEP initiative focusing on the utility of the program, perceptions of departmental climate, career plans and institutional support. Findings indicate that AGEP participants consider their experiences in the program as vital elements in the development of their professional identity, psychological safety, and career readiness. Experiences that were identified included networking across departments, focus on career placement, involvement in minority recruitment and professional development opportunities. Additionally, AGEP community participants resonated with the “sense of community” that is at the core of the MSU AGEP program legacy. In this article, we proposed a variation of Tomlinson’s Graduate Student Capital model to describe the AGEP participants’ perceptions and experiences in MSU AGEP. Within this 4-year period, we report over 70% graduation rate (completing with advanced degrees). More than half of Ph.D. students and almost 30% of master’s degree students decided to pursue academia as their careers. In addition, we found a high satisfaction rate of AGEP among the participants. Our analysis on graduate student capital helped us identify motivating capital development by years spent at MSU and as an AGEP member. These findings may provide some insight into which capitals may be deemed important for students relative to their experiences at MSU and in AGEP and how their priorities change as they transition toward graduation. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email