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In Tribute to My Mentors

I have been thinking a lot these days about my career as a biology professor. Why I spend endless hours caring about pedagogical methods, frontiers in assessment, delivering cutting-edge scientific information, and pushing students to critically think about the world around them. It takes a lot of energy to do this job right; but, when I evaluate the endless reasons why I actually do it, I never look back. My glass is always half full. I went into science because I, like 90% of college science freshmen out there today, wanted to be a medical doctor. Simply put, I had no idea that so many "ologies" existed--like physiology, cell biology, molecular biology, developmental biology, immunology, virology, and parasitology, etc., and that a person could actually specialize in one of these areas by doing research and getting an M.S. and/or a Ph.D. Wow, I didn't even know what it actually meant, Ph.D. Anyway, I remember to this day the moment that my career choice changed. It was when I sat in my first cell biology class as a freshman at New College, Sarasota, Florida. Believe me, I was always a naturalist at heart, and always felt connected to every living creature around me. (I grew up in a rural area in New York dubbed "upstate," like anywhere in New York that wasn't New York City because cows were more populace than humans at that time.) But, never had I seen such excitement about the living world before! I recall vividly when my first college professor, Dr. John B. Morrill (aka JBM) stomped into our classroom to eagerly deliver cutting-edge information on cellular organelle ultra-structure via a display of "his" transmission electron micrographs. He didn't take a breath. He was exuberant. He was amazing. And, when he was done, he torpedoed out of class to get right back to his research bench where he was studying the early cleavage patterns of sea urchins. I just remember saying to myself, "He's so cool." "He's brilliant." "I want to be just like him." And "Oh my gosh, I love cells!" So devoted was I to learning everything related to cell biology and to be just like JBM, that I even minored in chemistry to be well-rounded, studied electron microscopy at Duke one summer to be a better researcher, carried out a thesis project on molluscan mantle development--all while acting as my mentor's teaching assistant and taking every biology class offered to me so as to be as sagacious as he. I can see today that I still try to emulate my first professor, or should I say my first mentor and real role model, in my classroom. The bottom line is that I believe in mentorship. It's a powerful word and should never be used lightly. It means that someone has helped shape your career and in doing so, helped shape your life. I am grateful to those who took the time to help carve my career and life. After JBM, it was Dr. Jerry Schatten at Florida State University who allowed me to research and be-dazzle over "how" pro-nuclei migrate via microtubules toward each other following fertilization to yield syngamy; Winfield Sale at Emory University who gave me the opportunity to ponder sperm tail motility via dynein-ATPase; and Dr. David Birk at Rutger's University/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School who opened my eyes to the world of the extracellular matrix molecules and their role in corneal development. These men instilled in me the importance of creativity in, and dedication to, biological research. They pushed me to my limits, and most of all, challenged me to think like a scientist, not just in lab, but in their classrooms. Until this day, I find myself bringing to my teaching the critical thinking, rigor, creativity, and spirit of experimentation that defines research itself because of the world I explored through their eyes, and how I now view the world. Scholars in teaching and learning call this teaching approach--when entwined with proven instructional methods that have been tested and shown to reach diverse students such as setting learning goals and outcomes, and using embedded assessments to measure and provide feedback--"scientific teaching" (Handelsman et al. …