College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University Alum

College of Saint Benedict Alumnae

Joann Pfeiffer writes:

I defended my thesis (at WI) on July 10th and filed it at the end of the month. My job searching went well last winter. I applied to about 40 permanent teaching positions throughout the US and received invitations for interviews at 6 schools. Of these 6, I was offered the position at 3 of the schools, and I notified 2 that I was accepting the WY position before they had finished interviewing all of the candidates. I also applied to a few industrial companies. After a plant trip to one of them, even though it was a good company and very impressive, I was assured that the industrial chemist life was not for me. I am much more interested in educating (even though industry pays literally twice as much as academics).

All of the schools I applied to except WY were undergraduate-only institutions. The position I accepted at WY is a new kind to the department. My main responsibility is to teach general chemistry and pchem lab. I am expected to do other things, but these things are entirely up to me. Some things I will be undertaking are renovating pchem labs (there are currently no spectroscopy labs being done), restructuring gen chem to incorporate discussion sections of 20-30 students that meet twice a week and are led by grad students in addition to lecture and lab, turn a room close to the classrooms into a demonstration prep room for faculty and organize a database of demonstrations, take over the gen chem coordinator and safety coordinator positions as people in those positions retire over the next couple years, and organize outreach programs to grade schools, high schools, and community colleges. This position gives me a wonderful opportunity to pursue some chem ed type activities that I find interesting and exciting. I think I eventually want to teach at a small LAC, but this position will give me some experience and freedom before I settle down at a small college where I would want to stay for life.

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Michael R. Ross
Chemistry Department, College of St.Benedict/St. John's University
St. Joseph, MN 56374
320-363-5482

Comments to author: mross@csbsju.edu