Demands on early-career faculty

In his article “Early-career faculty face many challenges ” (Physics Today, October 2024, page 40), Alex Lopatka effectively points out some of the barriers to building a research program. But his discussion of teaching and teaching-related duties is brief, and when he does discuss them, he states, “Teaching pressures are common and add to faculty members’ already busy schedules.” The phrasing seems to imply that teaching is in competition with and of lower value than research. And notably, of the six questions Physics Today asked early-career faculty members for this article, none mention teaching.

The article’s treatment of teaching is surprising to me. Fellow early-career faculty, at both large research universities and primarily undergraduate institutions, have told me that teaching and engaging students is a major challenge of theirs. The popularity of resources such as the Faculty Teaching Institute, which at least 2 of the 10 questionnaire respondents said they attended, speaks to this challenge.

Many academic institutions place a disproportionately low weight on teaching in their tenure evaluations, ¹ and the article’s heavy bias toward research perpetuates that disproportion. But the undervaluation of teaching by some does not change the fact that it’s inherently a high-value activity and worth doing well.

Finally, despite having a section titled “Finding students,” the article misses an opportunity to point out that teaching can be a great way to scout for research talent and recruit students. I personally try to approach my tenure requirements by looking for synergies—for example, between teaching and research, between grant writing and service, and between outreach and parenting my kids. That not only makes being an early-career faculty member more manageable—it makes it more fun.