Alumni scholars encourage the next generation to pursue life in academia
Nearly two dozen professors from across the country returned to their alma mater for Distinguished Alumni Scholars Day to talk to undergraduate and graduate students about life in academia and, perhaps, inspire them to follow in their footsteps.
Graduate student Alicia Shields, left, spent some extra time after the breakfast talking with Harvard's Karine Gibbs, Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Pilar Ossorio, University of Wisconson associate professor of law and bioethics.
BY KATHLEEN J. SULLIVAN
As the sound of animated conversations filled the Oak Lounge in Tresidder Union, the eight Stanford graduate students sitting at a table with Karine Gibbs leaned forward, intent on listening to their guest and shutting out the noise around them.
Gibbs, who earned a doctorate in microbiology and immunology at Stanford in 2005, had returned to her alma mater to take part in Distinguished Alumni Scholars Day.
At her table – like the rest, covered in a Cardinal red tablecloth – much of the discussion focused on job hunting.
Gibbs urged the students – most were doctoral candidates at the School of Medicine – to cultivate relationships with a variety of faculty members, not just their direct advisers, well before their actual job searches begin. She offered one surefire way to get a conversation rolling with scientists.
"Knock on their doors and say, 'Hey, can I talk to you about your research,'" she said. "Scientists love to talk about their research. If you're just doing that when you're applying for jobs, it's too late."
Gibbs, who recently joined the faculty at Harvard University as an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology, quickly added with a smile: "If any of you guys are interested in postdocs, I'm hiring."
She was one of 19 professors from around the country who took part in the May 3 event, which is now held every other year on campus.
Some of the distinguished alumni scholars were seasoned academics, such as Evelyn Hu-DeHart, BA '68 (political science), a professor of history and ethnic studies at Brown University. After taking the microphone to introduce herself, Hu-DeHart joked that she had earned her bachelor's degree before most of the graduate students in the room were born.
Alumna Jean Fox Tree, professor of psychology at UC-Santa Cruz, shared her enthusiasm about research with students at the undergraduate event.
Others, like Gibbs and several other assistant professors, are just beginning their academic careers as junior faculty members.
Inspiring the next generation of university professors
"Distinguished Alumni Scholars Day was established in 2006 as an institutional response to the scarce presence of diverse racial and ethnic group members, and women in science and engineering within the faculty ranks in colleges and universities in the United States," Anika Green, director of educational programs in the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, told the morning audience.
"The purpose of this program is to bring Stanford students from groups underrepresented in the academy into contact and discussion with alumni scholars from a broad range of backgrounds, disciplines and institutional types to inspire you, our next generation of scholars, to consider academia as a career."
Addressing the graduate students in the room, Green said: "The scholars here have much wisdom and experience about entering the professoriate, which they're happy and eager to share with you."
The alumni scholars spoke with about 70 graduate students in small groups – each student chose a scholar's table beforehand – on Monday morning. The alumni returned to the Oak Lounge for a lunchtime gathering with 45 undergraduates. The day ended with a reception and dinner for all the participants at the Faculty Club, hosted by Provost John Etchemendy.
"If American colleges and universities are to remain world leaders, we must do a better job at reflecting the breadth and depth of our society," Etchemendy told the audience. "There is a missed opportunity that affects us all when minorities and women are underrepresented in faculty positions."
New knowledge and new discoveries require the transformational thinking created by a diverse community, he said.
"Diversity prompts us to question assumptions and to be open to possibilities – both of which are essential to scholarly innovation and creativity," Etchemendy said. "Thus, diversity makes it possible for us to push the forefront of knowledge further and faster. Diversity on our campuses also offers students a preview of the world in which they will live, where collaborating with people of vastly different backgrounds and experiences will be essential to solving the problems we face."
Distinguished alumni scholars from many disciplines
The alumni represented a variety of fields, including law, music, engineering, cultural anthropology, social psychology and high-energy particle physics.
One of the visiting professors is investigating new ways to detect ovarian cancer. Another is examining the social and psychological development of immigrant and Latino students. One specializes in psycholinguistics; another studies the brain during sleep.
They came from private liberal arts universities, including Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, and public institutions, including the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Undergraduates had lunch while talking with alumnus Joel Dawson, associate professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT.
Some are deans, such as José Bowen, PhD '94 (musicology and humanities), the dean, chair and professor of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, and Alfred Osborne Jr., PhD '74 (business economics), the senior associate dean and professor of global economics and management at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Joining Harvard as a junior faculty member
At the request of one of the students at her table, Gibbs began the discussion with a speed-dating version of the story of how she became a professor at Harvard.
Gibbs told her rapt audience that she was born in Jamaica; her family moved to Maryland when she was young. During high school, she spent two summers studying viruses at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
She earned a bachelor's degree at Harvard, where she did research on biofilms. She earned a doctorate at Stanford, where she studied proteins on the surface wall and membranes of bacteria in the lab of Julie Theriot, associate professor of biochemistry and of microbiology and immunology. Gibbs moved to Seattle for postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington, where she continued studying bacteria..
Last December, Gibbs and her husband, a software developer, moved to a town near Boston, after she accepted the position at Harvard – one of three offers she received.
At Harvard, she is investigating how bacteria segregate themselves into different populations.
Gibbs, who taught science in elementary and middle schools as a Harvard undergraduate, and worked one-on-one with undergraduates as a Stanford graduate student, urged her audience to take time out from research to teach.
"Get teaching experience," she said, adding that one way to accomplish that goal is to fill in for someone who is taking a sabbatical. "It will make you a better candidate for a job."
She said it was OK to take some time off after finishing graduate school, adding one caveat: "But get your postdoc lined up first while you have all the Stanford resources available to you."
The event was sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the Vice Provost for Student Affairs and the Stanford Alumni Association.
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