Bringing Life Sciences Teaching to Graduate Education
FUSE program helps graduate students teach biology with confidence
Although teaching is a core part of being a professor, most academics learn how to teach on the job. CBS’s Future Undergraduate Science Educators (FUSE) program is changing that.
FUSE, which launched in 2021, provides biology-specific teacher training to CBS graduate students. The program’s dual goals are to improve the quality of undergraduate science education and to help teaching-focused CBS graduates find tenure-track positions sooner. In a study published June 5 in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education, FUSE’s co-directors Marina Ellefson and Mona Monfared highlight the program’s success and impact in its first three years.
“We wanted to shrink the time between graduating with a Ph.D. and getting that first tenure-track teaching position,” said Monfared. “We’re seeing that gap dissolve completely. It's very exciting.”