Productivity
A distinguishing feature of the Department of Biology is high productivity across all three core areas of
academic work: education, research and service. Here we complement evidence in support of this claim
by referencing our just completed Unit Program Review. The findings of this review are particularly
germane given the expertise of the three reviewers, two of whom are distinguished colleagues from
Biology departments at peer institutions.
Undergraduate Education: Averaging over 800 SCH generated by each faculty member, Biology may be
the most efficient STEM department in educating students, and among the more efficient in the
University. Our majors continue to increase in number and now exceed 500 for 2011-12. Thus Biology is
the largest major in THCAS and one of the largest at ECU. We are also productive in the training of nonBiology majors, generating well over 20,000 SCH of foundation courses each year (only fall data are
included in the spreadsheet) and additional SCH from courses required of intending health professionals.
Graduate Education: The Department is the home of two MS programs and a lead participant in two
interdisciplinary PhD programs. Enrollment averages about 70 MS students and 30 PhD students. Thus
our productivity is also substantial in terms of graduate student training. We emphasize that 100% of our
students undertake research theses and receive intense individual mentoring from our tenured and tenuretrack (T/TT) faculty. With 30 or fewer T/TT faculty members in recent years, each of our T/TT faculty
members on average is supervising one PhD student and two or more MS students. Our faculty also
provides research experiences for some 28% of our 500+ undergraduate majors each year.
Research: The scholarly productivity of our faculty reflects the vigor of our graduate programs. T/TT
faculty members averaged almost three peer-reviewed publications and four presentations per year.
Faculty research is consistently externally funded, at an average annual level of over $50,000. Somewhat
unusually, several fixed term (FT) faculty members are also research-active. Indeed, a program reviewer
remarked that most of Biology’s FT faculty members could be tenured at many institutions.
Service: Biology faculty members are engaged in extensive service to their profession, institution and
community. At the professional level, over half of our faculty members are either editors or members of
editorial boards; the average faculty member serves on at least one disciplinary committee, and most hold
professional or disciplinary offices. Biology’s summary data also document extensive service to the
campus and community. This has led to several appointments to significant campus administrative
positions (e.g. Farwell, Putnam-Evans, Clough, McConnell, and West; a regrettable consequence of this
practice has been the loss of senior female faculty members). The extent of Biology service to both the
campus and community was duly noted by the authors of our recent Unit Program Review: “Overall, the
program should be considered an outstanding departmental citizen … There are many faculty who are
engaged in service/community activities … We were VERY impressed by their efforts …”
Centrality
Meeting the University’s Mission: The Department’s educational and research programs provide
fundamental and distinctive support for the University’s strategic objectives of a) preparing our
students for successful entry into a global, culturally diverse workforce, b) leadership development, c)
enhancing the educational opportunities and quality for those pursuing a career in the health care
professions, and d) economic prosperity.
Global Workforce, Economic Prosperity and Societal Need: There is a documented national need for
biology training; job opportunities in a range of biological careers are projected to increase 15-42% in the
coming decade. The Department offers NC’s only MS graduate degree in molecular biology and
biotechnology, two areas of biology that continue to generate particularly high employability and
economic promise at local to global scales. These programs complement North Carolina’s wellestablished commitment to Biotechnology research, as manifested in the research and economic missions
of the NC Center for Biotechnology (NCBC). A recent NCBC meeting (May 2011) highlighted specific
opportunities and needs in agricultural biotechnology and with three recent hires in this area, our
department is well positioned to contribute. The Department is also poised to conduct the research and
training that will be critical to managing our state’s valuable natural resources in the face of climate
change and population growth with 1) the establishment of the North Carolina Center for Biodiversity,
and 2) participation in the doctoral-level program in Coastal Resources Management.
ECU Biology continues to expand opportunities for students to experience cultural diversity by
participating in Latin American, European and Asian graduate student and faculty-level exchanges and
establishing formal international cooperative agreements. Biology faculty diversity continues to
strengthen as evinced by the successful recent recruitment of Marcelo Ardon and Chris Balakhrishnan.
Leadership Development: We provide an environment that facilitates leadership as we host the largest
contingent of honors students in the University. The Department is also directly involved in leadership
training by providing for teaching at the undergraduate (teaching assistant) and graduate (teaching
assistant and instructor) levels in the form of classes, workshops, and the peer-evaluation process, and
through the explicit training of our graduate students in mentoring and professional ethics.
Support for the Health Professions: The Department provides vital support to education and research in
the health professions as we revise our undergraduate curriculum to enhance educational and training
opportunities for nurses and pre-health professionals. Our leadership of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral
Program in Biological Sciences is distinctive in offering the potential to integrate biology, biomedicine,
and biological chemistry. Furthermore, having several faculty engaged in cancer research and other areas
including evolutionary medicine, embryonic development, and biotechnology, the Department of Biology
contributes significantly to advancing health care.
Connectivity to other Programs, Degrees: Biology’s striking productivity in Foundation SCH, noted
above, is the most intuitive indicator of our educational centrality at ECU, but other quantitative
indicators tell a similar story. Twenty-six different programs require Biology courses, with a total of 31
Biology courses required in 2010-11. These programs include ECU’s award-winning Nursing program to
which Biology contributes three required courses and laboratories. In a similar vein, we are developing a
new introductory course for applied science programs, such as Engineering and Clinical Laboratory
Science, which will be more suitable than current offerings. We have also worked with less conventional
(for a Biology department) partners, including the College of Business on the innovative “4+1” Biology
MBA. Even within our department, one of our undergraduate majors, Biochemistry, is essentially
interdisciplinary and requires close cooperation with Chemistry. Our partnership in the training of
Biology Honors students and must be considered important to the Honors College.
The Department is deeply connected to other units within the University through graduate
training and collaborative research. Our faculty and students take a lead role in two of ECU’s largest
interdisciplinary PhD programs, Coastal Resource Management (CRM) and the Interdisciplinary Doctoral
Program in Biological Sciences (IDPBS). Our faculty contributes to the core coursework of both of these
doctoral programs. Our faculty also participates at a high frequency in multi-department grant
submissions (e.g. with Sociology) partly as a result of sharing faculty positions with the Institute for
Coastal Science and Policy. On a different research axis, in a heavily subscribed grant competition to
foster collaborative projects between East and West campus, Biology faculty members (Zhang, Capehart)
were on both of the proposals selected for funding. Our faculty members regularly participate in graduate
committees at BSOM, as well as contributing to the interdisciplinary Center for Sustainable Tourism and
their MS program. Lastly, our core research facilities, particularly the Central Environmental Lab, and
Imaging and Genomics Cores, are regularly used by other departments from both East and West campus.
Quality
Undergraduate Education: The quality of the Biology undergraduate program is shown by the quality of
our students, whose average combined SAT scores are consistently higher than the means for either ECU
or the UNC system (p. 7, Unit Program Review Self-Study). As noted above, Biology students constitute
the single largest major within the University Honors College, a very strong indicator of both student
quality and dedication. The program Biology students undertake is unquestionably rigorous. For example,
our BS Biochemistry degree is one of the country’s most demanding, requiring 12 sh of calculus, 12 sh of
physics, and at least 26 sh of chemistry, in addition to 22 sh of biology. The performance of Biology
students is formally recognized by ECU: for example, in spring 2011, three of the University’s four
Robert H. Wright Awards, one of our campus’s most prestigious undergraduate awards, went to Biology
majors. The quality of our undergraduate researchers is confirmed by their success in ECU’s
undergraduate research grant competitions; in 2010-11, 46% of the Undergraduate Research and Creative
Activity Awards went to Biology or Biochemistry majors, who carried out research in multiple
departments.
Graduate Education: The main questions one should ask about a science graduate program are what are
the students’ research accomplishments and what do they do upon graduation? In ECU Biology,
approximately 50% of our MS students publish from their theses and nearly all our PhD students author
multiple publications. Partially as a result, 85-95% of our matriculating graduate students go on to secure
positions in their fields. Results for completing PhD students are particularly strong. Noteworthy recent
examples include 2011’s Jon Davenport, who was offered both a TT faculty position and an NSF-funded
post-doctoral position prior to graduating. We continue to strengthen our programs with new courses in
Research Mentoring (McKinnon), Science Pedagogy (Gardner) and Career Preparation (Egan).
The Faculty: The faculty is the heart of any academic department, and Biology’s faculty is an unusually
accomplished group. A case in point, two Biology faculty members were given both Career Research
Awards and (THCAS) College Distinguished Professorships. Younger faculty members were awarded
Five year Research awards in each of the last two award cycles (Summers 2009-10, Bond 2010-11), and
we anticipate the formal award of two additional distinguished professorships to our department shortly.
Internal recognitions, especially of research success, are corroborated by external awards and distinctions,
and it is satisfying that we have been recognized in all three of our focal research areas. For example, in
Molecular/Cell Biology, Assoc. Prof. Yong Zhu recently received an award for having the top cited
article for 2008-10 in an Elsevier journal; Assoc. Prof. Alex Georgakilas was given the Japan Radiation
Research Society’s 2010-11Terashima Award. In Coastal Ecology, Bob Christian and Mark Brinson have
been Presidents of their respective research societies. In Biodiversity, Prof. Jeff McKinnon (Chair) had a
paper recognized by the journal Nature as one of 15 “Evolutionary Gems” honoring Darwin’s 200th
birthday; a 2010 Kyle Summers paper was the subject of pieces in the New York Times, Discovery
Magazine, the BBC, the CBC, Science Now, Nature and Current Biology.
In science, perhaps the most robust measures of success are funding of research grants and
citation. As previously noted, Biology is a better than solid performer in grants. Moreover, every current
Assist. Prof. in the department has received external grant support while at ECU. With regard to citations,
across our entire T/TT faculty, the average citation count for each faculty member’s most cited paper is
over 200! This is a very satisfying statistic.
Our faculty is also recognized internally and externally for quality of teaching and service. Recent
internal awards have included two Scholar-Teacher awards (Stiller, Rulifson), University Alumni Awards
for Outstanding Teaching to Heather Vance-Chalcraft and Lisa Clough and Board of Governor’s
Distinguished Professor for Teaching awards to Carole Goodwillie and John Stiller. Among external
examples, Roger Rulifson and his students have received multiple awards from the American Fisheries
Society for the quality of their service and the vigor of our student chapter. The teaching and service
quality of our faculty is further evidenced in their recruitment by other units for participation in externally
funded teaching and service projects (e.g. Gardner, Goodwillie, Scemama, Jolls, Vance-Chalcraft—the
latter two on an almost $900,00 NSF Noyce grant for teacher education). Finally, our departmental
culture and the quality of our leadership were both recognized by a recent invitation from BSOM for the
Biology Chair to participate in their “Creating Possibility” project, which aims to instill a more forwardlooking “can do” culture there.
Opportunity (SWOT) Analysis
Strengths: The component strengths of our department are reasonably well documented in the Program
Data Summary and the Productivity, Centrality and Quality narratives. More difficult to gather from these
materials are our department’s emergent strengths, which take mainly two forms. First, our faculty has
been strategically assembled from a mixture of FT and TT positions, enabling us to develop a first-rate
research program while still meeting extensive classroom obligations. The authors of our Program Unit
Review Report concurred: “By playing to the strengths of both FT and TT faculty the department is able
to meet its mission of excellence in graduate/undergraduate teaching and nationally recognized research
… The department has been very strategic in their structuring of faculty types/workloads.” Second, we
have consciously developed and nurtured an exceptionally positive and functional departmental culture.
This too was recognized in our Review Report: “The faculty, staff and students are amiable/collegial and
work cooperatively to achieve goals. Most importantly, they serve as a model for other departments
within the College and beyond.”
Weaknesses: As noted in our Review Report, “The Department’s major areas for improvement are
infrastructural. … to make the next step as an elite department, … needs either massive renovation to its
current building or a new building … pressing need for a new greenhouse.” Other major impediments
involve support for the graduate program. Quoting again from the Program Review: “Given the extremely
low stipends for MS students, the fact that decent MS students apply at all is remarkable.” In contrast, our
PhD programs, especially IDPBS, are competitively funded per student but additional student stipends are
needed to support and retain highly research-active recent hires. The review committee and our faculty
recognize the importance of external grant funding for PhD students, but internal stipends are also
essential. Futhermore, “One important component of future growth for the department involves getting
their ‘own’ PhD program in Biology.” A more pernicious problem is rapid loss of senior (especially
female) leadership through retirements (Brinson, Christian), movement into administration (PutnamEvans, Farwell, Clough, McConnell, Newton) and recruitment from other campuses (Bond).
Opportunities and Threats: As indicated under “Societal Need,” opportunity is currently knocking hard
on the door of Biology departments. Our discipline is essential and ascendant: societal need is joining
with technological advances in DNA sequencing, computational biology, remote sensing and other areas
to create something of a golden age in biological research. Moreover, with just two public R1 campuses, a
rapidly growing population (currently ranked 10th among states and rising) and a strategic emphasis on
biotechnology, our state has a growing need for more biology programs with heightened research
ambitions. ECU is an obvious candidate for such growth in light of our campus’ strength in health
professions and a research emphasis on environmental issues. Moreover, the need for regional economic
development and prospects for educating under-represented minorities can be leveraged to strengthen
grant applications and access new sources of funds.
A small number of issues present serious threats, but threats that can readily be converted to
opportunities. First, the continued deterioration of Howell Science and the state’s inability to fund a new
Bio-Sciences building threaten research and hurt retention and recruiting. Consequently, we will argue in
our forthcoming Program Review response for a targeted makeover of Howell’s most heavily used areas,
at an estimated cost of something under $1,000,000--a tremendous bargain relative to a new building.
The second major threat to ECU Biology is in the continued maximal cuts experienced by our
department. The 2009 and 2011 cuts were (unavoidably) made opportunistically within colleges, and
Biology had both open positions and substantial numbers of faculty on finishing FT contracts. Thus our
department was cut severely whereas some other departments were cut minimally, regardless of
productivity, centrality, etc. As noted by our recent reviewers with regard to then looming budget cuts
“this is really a department on a tipping point … All faculty and staff are working at capacity, and many
times more, such that the current productivity cannot be maintained without at least a maintenance of the
current levels of faculty and staff, but would probably benefit from an increase in staff and the filling of
the 4 tenure-track lines that comprise almost 10% of the traditional staffing levels of the department …
could go from a department really on the rise in all aspects of its mission to declining quickly with not
enough human resources … The department is truly a gem for the university and the potentially dire
consequences to a reduction in resources should really be carefully considered.” With the anticipated
resumption of hiring and a more strategic approach, we hope to receive the support necessary to fill our
open positions as well as positions reallocated from minimally cut departments, as they experience
retirements and departures. With the departure of one of our top faculty members (Bond) owing in part to
the recent ECU environment, and other losses in senior personnel, our outstanding culture and strong
performance are at tremendous risk.