Educational and Outreach Projects from the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative Undergraduate and Graduate Education Volume 2 ACS Symposium Series

The Cottrell Scholar program was created to champion the very best early career teacher-scholars in chemistry, physics and astronomy. Within that program, the TREE award (Transformational Research and Excellence in Education) from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement recognizes the exceptional work in the integration of research and education of the pool of Cottrell Scholars. Many Cottrell Scholars continue to push boundaries in their education and outreach work in addition to their research. That community has organized into the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative (CSC). This self-organized collection of Cottrell Scholars work together to identify and tackle high-priority educational projects of national importance, often in collaboration with partner organizations. As new faculty seek to cultivate impactful projects for future CAREER grant submissions and their local institution, it seemed useful to provide a broader audience with the scope and scale of work from Cottrell Scholars and the Collaborative. This second volume shifts focus to professional development in the broadest sense. About half of these contributions examine various ways in which faculty can be supported at all stages of their careers. The latter chapters outline several interventions with high schools to promote STEM education and literacy in support of national workforce needs as well as a strong interest in fostering a science literate public. Like the first volume, there are examples that are both large in scale as well as those that can be implemented immediately. Members of the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative have been leveraging their experiences to aid in new and maturing faculty members as they embark on various stages and aspects of their careers. The idea of undertaking a professional development project may seem out of reach for a pre-tenure faculty member, but the need of many faculty for peer mentorship demonstrates how a little help goes a long way.

Rory Waterman, Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, at the University of Vermont, is an organometallic chemist with interests in synthesis, catalysis, small molecule activation, and energy applications. Prof. Waterman engages in professional development for teachers through NSF Robert Noyce Scholarship and Math Science Partnership grants and is co-founder of the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative New Faculty Workshop. He is a 2009 Cottrell Scholar and has earned fellowships from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2013) and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2009), and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015. Andrew Feig, Professor of Chemistry and Associate Dean, Graduate School, at Wayne State University, is a biochemist studying bacterial gene regulation by small non-coding RNAs and Clostridium difficile toxins A & B. Prof. He is a 2002 Cottrell Scholar, recipient of the CLAS Teaching Award (2012), WSU President's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2013), PCSUM Michigan Professor of the Year (2015) and RNA Society's Lifetime Service Award (2017).