Planning your Research Program
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HideFlowchart designed by Richard Yuretich to aid in strategic planning of a research program. Courtesy of Richard Yuretich.
As you move from the role of graduate student or post-doc to the role of faculty member at a four-year college or university, your research responsibilities change. Similarly, if you have just taken a job as a faculty member at a two-year college, you'll be expected to engage in scholarly activities that benefit your students, the college, and the community. Meeting the challenge of this transition requires some active planning.
Jump down to
- Planning Worksheets
- Booklets and Articles
- Scholarly Activity at Two-Year Colleges
- Tips from Workshop Alums
Resources
When embarking on a research program, you need to set long-term goals and figure out what needs to be done now to achieve them. If you're ready to start making a 3 to 5 year plan for your research program, here are several methods adapted from the Early Career Workshop activities. Choose whichever format seems to best suit your planning style.
- If you are a visual person, try this flowchart, (PowerPoint 63kB Oct4 05) also shown above (designed by Richard Yuretich for the Early Career Workshop).
- Alternatively, you may prefer to fill in a table of research topics, resources, personnel, proposal writing, field or laboratory procedures, and dissemination strategies (Microsoft Word 36kB Oct4 05) (designed by Richelle Allen-King for the Early Career Workshop).
- Here's that table, reformatted as a list of questions. (Microsoft Word 21kB Oct4 05)
- If you prefer a step-by-step outline format, here's a worksheet for planning your research program (Microsoft Word 40kB Sep28 05) (from the Early Career Workshop) over the next few years.
Booklets and articles
- Choosing a Research Topic, an article by Rick Reis, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, is geared toward graduate students just starting to do research. However, most of this article is equally relevant for new faculty members defining a research program.
- If you work with undergraduate research students (or want to begin doing so), the Council on Undergraduate Research has a booklet for you. Reinvigorating the Undergraduate Experience describes twenty successful models of undergraduate research.
Scholarly activity for two-year college faculty
If you teach at a two-year college, chances are that you are not expected to maintain an active research program, but that you are expected to continue to engage in scholarly activities.- A list of some possible scholarly activities, (Microsoft Word 37kB Oct4 05) including publications, professional service, curriculum enrichment, campus activities, community service, and consulting. (Robert Blodgett, at Austin Community College, compiled this list for the Early Career Workshop.)
- Worksheet for planning your next 2 years of scholarly activity (Microsoft Word 29kB Oct4 05) (from the Early Career Workshop).
Tips from Early Career Workshop Alums
- If you get on local committees or steering groups for, say, groundwater or wetlands or something, you'll meet the major people in the state DNR, EPA, advocacy groups, etc. This will help you learn what some of the big questions are in your area and who you talk to in order to get involved.
- Get involved with local geologic survey/associations, etc.; attend regional meetings [to meet potential collaborators, and to find out about local research questions].
- I found it very helpful to get to know all science faculty in the first semester. By doing this I found faculty members in other departments who have similar research interests…. It helps to check out local colleges and universities to see if there is anyone [you] can hook up with to do research.
- It is important to establish your own research niche. Often the one that you find yourself in after your PhD. is identified with your advisor(s). Think about what natural tangents you could take from that and try to put that in the context of the existing research at the place you are interviewing [or working].
- Maintain relevant prior collaborations: There are usually natural connections left over from graduate or postdoctoral work, upon which some straightforward research threads can be built. Go to talks across your university. Ask questions and introduce yourself. A difficult part of this transition is from 'member of research group' to 'leader of research group'. Your potential for the latter is part of why you were hired. Were there ideas you had which you haven't been able to follow up on? Now is the time to devote a bit of time every day (every week?) to following up those ideas. It's good to balance time spent on brand new ideas with time spent on logical next steps following from current research projects. This can take time, so start early and work gradually.
- My impression is that there are quite a few teaching institutions at which research is done in quite a different setting from where most people get their PhDs. I speak from experience at a small state college that prides itself on giving closely supervised research mentorship to advanced undergraduates. Faculty research here is directed toward providing the most experience for students, and not necessarily toward publication. From my field-based projects I have spun off several related projects on which students work. These projects are suitable for senior thesis projects. I have the satisfaction of seeing students get excited about their research, and in that way stay involved at least in the mechanics of the process. [This is] success of a different form, not often considered in graduate school.
- One word of advice that I always think back to is to try to always have a research publication in the pipeline (in review or press) and to try to keep consistent in having 1 research publication every year. This keeps me thinking ahead to my next research goal.
