Robin Pals Rylaarsdam, PhD
Professor and Chair of Biological Sciences
Benedictine University, Lisle, IL

Long years of training, fairly long work hours during the semester, grading, plenty of students who don't take learning seriously, grading, less time for the fun of research, inefficient committee and department meetings, grading, a recent drop in the public's esteem for the profession, grading, modest middle-class pay, grading . . . why would anyone want to teach undergraduate students as their primary work?

"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." (Nelson Mandela)

Teaching changes people. An 18-year-old walks into my class on her first day of college, and over the next four years she can be transformed from someone who can learn what she's assigned to memorize into someone who can analyze an argument, a data set, the likelihood of a hypothesis working out once the experiment is done. A nontraditional-aged student begins his journey sitting quietly in the back of the class, unsure about his ability to compete with the teeagers, and develops into the classmate everyone turns to for the hard questions. Even the student who fails can be changed for the better, in finding that failure is not an end, but a nudge toward the vocation that first his unique traits. And the unmotivated student who "figures it out" and becomes the senior student who's eager to learn will always keep me hopeful when facing the student who hasn't yet made that discovery.

My current job is at an institution with a long history of serving immigrants and first-generation Americans. The college degree opens socioeconomic opportunities for my students and their families. Graduation days are absolutely as good as Christmas for me. The families are so proud. Grandmothers are so happy, even if they haven't understood a word of the Commencement speaker. When a student graduates from Benedictine, there is often a whole community of people who benefit.

And honestly, the hours in the classroom are absolutely enjoyable. If I lecture, it's telling a page or two of the grand story of God's world and its workings - which never ceases to delight and amaze me. If I flipped the class and the students have listened to an online lecture before we meet, then I get to come alongside them as they work through how we know the textbook facts, or what the data suggests we could explore next. It is like C.S. Lewis's "Aslan's Country" - ever more wonderful "further up and further in", and far more fun to make the journey with my students.

There are practical things, too. It's not at all true that college professors take the summers off, but it would be accurate to say that there are few days I've been required to go to campus during the all-too-short Chicago summers. For being on a 9-month contract, the pay is reasonable. Tight, if you're the only wage-earner, but doable in most locations. The academic schedule has a lot of flexibility built in. While attending my classes is a non-negotiable requirement, I'm the manager of my time for much of the work week. This flexibility has allowed me to show up quite early and leave in time for elementary school dismissal. I'll return to work at my home desk after my son is in bed, so I get significant time with him every day, and the staggered schedule gives my husband significant time with our son in the mornings. This luxury wouldn't have been possible if I had gone into industry or research-intensive academic positions.

Downsides to college teaching other than grading? It's hard to carve out time and find resources to continue to be active in bench work in cell biology research. I don't have a technician or postdoc, so I wear many hats in the lab, from ordering labeling tape and pipet tips to maintaining our cell lines to writing the papers and grant proposals. Conflicts with colleagues and administrators happen on all jobs, but the unique nature of tenure and the stability of the faculty mean that conflicts can fester for a long time. It's also easy too get in a rut. Science changes "rapidly", but foundational introductory biology concepts are pretty much the same now as they were years ago when I started teaching. Finding creative outlets in my teaching has been essential for avoiding boredom for me - and a bored professor makes for a boring course!

In the end though, teaching changes people. It changed me when I was a student, in many important ways. It's been an honor to walk alongside all my students for nearly two decades as they took their journeys of college science education.

And there are ways to make grading less painful. Lots of them! But that's a topic for another essay.