2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Baseline Data on CHE Teaching Focused Faculty in the U.S.

Presented at Perspectives in Chemical Engineering Education

This paper will report on data collected on teaching focused faculty (TFF) (non-tenure track) in chemical engineering (CHE) departments in the US. There are 280 TFF faculty in CHE departments in the US out of 2700 total faculty. This is approximately 10% of all CHE faculty with an average of two TFF per department. We found that 77.5% of the TFF are serving at R1 institutions. This is consistent with 80% of all CHE faculty being employed at R1 institutions. This data was collected first from a department head survey. Then, to get the data from the ABET accredited departments that did not respond to the survey, the authors went to the departmental websites and counted the total faculty and TFF in each department.

The faculty emails were obtained via the websites and all TFF were sent a survey to better understand the work that they do and the compensation and support that they receive. The survey included questions about teaching (what courses do they teach, how many courses they teach), questions about service (e.g. ABET, advising, leading the undergraduate program), questions about salary, and questions about professional development opportunities. In addition, the survey asked some open-ended questions about what changes they would like to see and what support is needed. We will report on the results of this survey including how the answers depend on years of service, type of institution (size, ranking), and demographic information. To our knowledge, this is the first reporting of this kind for TFF in chemical engineering. The main goal of this paper is to serve as a baseline to be used in CHE departments in the US as we seek to elevate the importance of these faculty. In addition, we hope the results of this survey can be used to help these faculty grow professionally.

Authors

Dr. Stephanie Butler Velegol Penn State University [biography]

Stephanie Butler Velegol is a Teaching Professor in Chemical Engineering at Penn State University. She pioneered the use of Flipped classes to increase active leaning in the classroom and works on water treatment.
Dr. Katie Cadwell Syracuse University [biography]

Katie Cadwell is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at Syracuse University, where she has taught Chemical Engineering core courses since 2011. After receiving Chemical Engineering degrees from the Missouri University of Science and Technology (BS) and University of Wisconsin-Madison (PhD) she pursued an engineering education and outreach post-doc and taught at Madison College for several years.
Dr. Taryn Melkus Bayles University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Taryn Melkus Bayles is a Professor, Teaching Track, in the Chemical & Petroleum Engineering Department at the
University of Pittsburgh, and serves as the Undergraduate Program Director. She has spent part of her career
working in industry with Exxon, Westinghouse, Phillips Petroleum and Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center (now
NETL). Her industrial experience has included process engineering, computer modeling and control, process design and
testing, and engineering management. She has also spent 25 years teaching Chemical Engineering at the University of
Nevada Reno, University of Pittsburgh, University of Maryland College Park and the University of Maryland Baltimore
County. Her current research focuses on Engineering Education and Outreach. The goal of this research is to increase
awareness of and interest in pursuing engineering as a career, as well as to understand what factors help students be
successful once they have chosen engineering as a major.
Dr. Lisa G. Bullard P.E. North Carolina State University [biography]

Dr. Lisa Bullard is an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University. She received her BS in Chemical Engineering from NC St
Dr. Mechteld Veltman Hillsley Penn State University [biography]

Dr. Hillsley is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Virginia Tech in 1988 and an MS and PhD from Penn State in 1990 and 1994, respective

Download paper (1.92 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session