Recommendations for Action

A national effort to improve undergraduate biology education is already making great progress, due to the imagination and diligence of many individuals and organizations. As this monograph has shown, professional societies are already supporting many successful models for improving undergraduate education. The contribution of CELS in nurturing these endeavors is manifested by the enormous increase in these activities by professional societies since CELS was created in 1991. The activities carried out by professional societies build upon hundreds of initiatives hosted by academic institutions and ancillary programs across the nation. Benefactors that have provided financial support for widespread innovations in undergraduate biology include the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Exxon Education Foundation, and the Annenberg/CPB Project, to name just a few.

The sifting and winnowing of myriad experiments in undergraduate science education have yielded coherent recommendations for further actions, as articulated in many publications. Notable among these is a report by Project Kaleidoscope, What Works: Building Natural Science Communities, A Plan for Strengthening Undergraduate Science and Mathematics [15], which documents effective strategies employed by successful undergraduate programs in science and mathematics across the nation. An insightful look at the national issues is provided by the National Research Council in its report, From Analysis to Action: Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology [16], which recommends strategies toward achieving scientific literacy for all students. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has published a series of reports to guide the national reform effort. In particular, NSF's Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology [5] echoes the need for all students to obtain competence in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. While not specific to science and mathematics, the report of the Boyer Commission, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities [17], challenges research universities to redirect their efforts in providing a distinctive education for their students. Like these other reports, this CELS monograph lays down specific recommendations for improving undergraduate education in the biological sciences.

The unique perspective provided in this CELS report, Professional Societies and the Faculty Scholar: Promoting Scholarship and Learning in the Life Sciences, is two-fold: (1) the breadth and diversity of the biological sciences naturally shape a broad-based movement with multiple sites of origin, and (2) the role of the faculty within the context of professional societies is given priority. This reflects the prominence of professional societies in shaping faculty roles and the academic culture. Clearly, professional societies provide the infrastructure for change, and the infrastructure is people C people with the knowledge and wisdom to be successful.

Each of the recommendations listed below is germane to individual faculty members and the professional societies they represent. The first four recommendations focus on the scholarly and professional development of faculty. The next three recommendations are geared toward curricular development and enhanced student learning, both of which complement the critical role of faculty. All must advance in concert to sustain achievements in undergraduate biology education.

Recommendations

The CELS vision challenges faculty and their professional societies to fulfill the following recommendations:

1. Enable the individual to flourish as a scholar.

Enrich the natural affinity between the academic institution and the professional society. Become leaders in the evolving culture that nurtures the new "faculty scholar." Re-evaluate incentives, rewards, and values for various aspects of scholarship.

2. Build communities of scholars.

Encourage intellectual discourse about teaching and learning on campuses and within professional societies. Make opportunities for mentoring, formal communications, peer review, and peer collaboration.

• Professional societies, which already take an active responsibility for research scholarship, need to assume leadership roles in the peer review of scholarship, more broadly defined to include scholarship of pedagogy and service.
• Professional societies need to be leaders in the peer review of teaching activities, curricular materials, and instructional materials.

3. Prepare the next generation of faculty-scholars.

Promote extensive, high-quality oppor-tunities for acquiring pedagogical expertise, such as peer-reviewed teaching activities for graduate students, innovative post-doctoral fellowships, and visiting scholars programs. Model effective teaching practices. Recognize that flexibility in preparing for a variety of career pathways is essential for tomorrow's biologist; research and teaching are only two of many career opportunities.

4. Take an active responsibility for valuing teaching scholarship in academia.

Provide constructive advice to faculty, departments, and colleges for rewarding excellence in teaching and science education. Contribute to the evolution of academic institutions that require rigor in teaching scholarship as well as research scholarship.

5. Promote undergraduate student research, investigative laboratory and field studies, and engagement in the doing of biology.

Incorporate a learning-centered, research-rich environment. Attend especially to the introductory courses (which are generally the terminal courses for non-science majors, particularly elementary education pre-service teachers).

6. Balance the diversity and coherence in life sciences education.

• Celebrate the diversity of the life sciences in the curriculum. Value the modular and "horizontal" nature of the life sciences and their instruction. Apply the rich resources of the life sciences to a broad-based curriculum. Embrace the various "ways of knowing" in biology, including approaches grounded in experimental science, field and museum activities, qualitative research, and theoretical modeling.
• Identify the critical components of introductory biology courses. Articulate the issues, concepts, and approaches in biology to which all students should be introduced. Bring greater coherence and integration to undergraduate biology education.

7. Promote science literacy among all Americans.

Join together the life sciences academic community to serve undergraduate students who are in the general life sciences courses. Bring an active responsibility for these courses which serve a majority of our students. Appreciate that biology is a part of a core of knowledge for all Americans so that they can participate as educated citizens in our society.