Pre- and Post-Tenure: Perceptions of Requirements and Impediments for Faculty in Civil Engineering, Architectural Engineering, and Construction Disciplines
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
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Around the Water Cooler: Ideas and Issues in Civil Engineering Education
- Tagged Division
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Civil Engineering
- Page Count
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16
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--35069
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/35069
- Download Count
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401
Paper Authors
Nicholas Tymvios Bucknell University
Nicholas Tymvios received a B.S. and M.S. degree in Civil Engineering from Purdue University in 1999, and 2002 respectively. After working for four years in Cyprus in the construction industry, he was accepted into the Ph.D. program at Oregon State University, where he graduated in 2013 with a degree in Civil Engineering with emphasis in Construction Engineering and Management. His area of concentration is construction safety, and in particular Prevention through Design.
Upon graduation, he worked for four years as an Assistant Professor at UNC-Charlotte. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA, USA).
Elif Miskioglu Bucknell University
Dr. Elif Miskioğlu is an early-career engineering education scholar and educator. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (with Genetics minor) from Iowa State University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Ohio State University. Her early Ph.D. work focused on the development of bacterial biosensors capable of screening pesticides for specifically targeting the malaria vector mosquito, Anopheles gambiae. As a result, her diverse background also includes experience in infectious disease and epidemiology, providing crucial exposure to the broader context of engineering problems and their subsequent solutions. These diverse experiences and a growing passion for improving engineering education prompted Dr. Miskioğlu to change her career path and become a scholar of engineering education. As an educator, she is committed to challenging her students to uncover new perspectives and dig deeper into the context of the societal problems engineering is intended to solve. As a scholar, she seeks to not only contribute original theoretical research to the field, but work to bridge the theory-to-practice gap in engineering education by serving as an ambassador for empirically driven, and often novel, educational practices.
Eliana Christou University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Benjamin B. Wheatley Bucknell University
Benjamin Wheatley was awarded a B.Sc. degree in Engineering from Trinity College (Hartford, CT, USA) in 2011 and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO, USA) in 2017. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA, USA). His pedagogical areas of interest include active learning approaches, ethics, and best practices as they relate to computational modeling. He runs the Mechanics and Modeling of Orthopaedic Tissues Laboratory at Bucknell, where they use computational and experimental techniques to better understand the mechanics of musculoskeletal soft tissues and human movement.
Abstract
The tenure process is a way of life in the majority of US higher education institutions, and faculty in engineering disciplines are no exceptions to this practice. A tenured position is coveted and sought by many aspiring assistant professors. Since the tenure process began in the US in 1915, it has faced both criticism and praise. This paper aims to highlight the variability in perceptions of tenure requirements among assistant professors in civil engineering, architectural engineering, and construction programs, between universities of different research activity intensities and assess their perceptions of impediments towards obtaining tenure. Associate professors in the same programs were also surveyed in order to reflect and report their perceptions of their requirements, and assess the impediments they faced towards their tenure process. The motivation for this research is to surface some of the concerns assistant professors have regarding the tenure process, and to identify if these concerns are also true to tenured faculty. Faculty from ACCE and ABET accredited programs in tenure-track positions were identified through an online search, and were provided with an online survey to complete. Faculty responses were categorized according to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher education that classifies institutions according to their research activity. The authors hope that this paper will spark conversations regarding clarity of requirements and concerns about work-life balance for faculty in the tenure-track.
Tymvios, N., & Miskioglu, E., & Christou, E., & Wheatley, B. B. (2020, June), Pre- and Post-Tenure: Perceptions of Requirements and Impediments for Faculty in Civil Engineering, Architectural Engineering, and Construction Disciplines Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35069
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