The CIRTL Network: 25 Research Universities Preparing a National Faculty to Advance STEM Undergraduate Learning

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The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) began in 2002 with a grant from the National Science Foundation. Its mission is to broaden and enrich graduate education and post-doctoral preparation in order to develop a national STEM faculty with the capability and commitment to implement and improve effective teaching practices for the learning of all students. The first decade of operation of CIRTL has demonstrated that research universities can effectively prepare future faculty to be both productive researchers and excellent, knowledgeable teachers. CIRTL has developed, implemented, and evaluated successful strategies based on three core ideas: Teaching as Research, learning communities, and learning-through-diversity. In 2011, 1500 future faculty across STEM participated in the learning communities of the six research universities that comprise the prototype CIRTL Network. CIRTL evaluations and associated research on efforts to prepare future faculty indicate that future STEM faculty in such learning communities can effectively use and advance high impact teaching and learning practices and continue to do so once they are hired as new members of the faculty. In Fall 2011 the CIRTL Network expanded to include 25 diverse research universities; together these universities produce 26% of the STEM Ph.D.s in the United States. These partners are collaborating to establish interdisciplinary learning communities at all 25 universities that can demonstrably prepare future faculty who use and improve best practices in undergraduate education. Common features of the proposed learning communities include teaching-as-research experiences, mentor training, post-doctoral preparation in teaching and learning, use of CIRTL core ideas as a unifying framework for new and existing programs, conceptual strengthening of teaching assistant programs, and facilitation of participation from underrepresented groups. As part of this scale-up a cross-Network learning community is being developed to engage the diversity and expertise of all 25 universities for teaching, mentoring, shared learning, scholarly exploration, and cross-disciplinary collaboration of future faculty. CIRTL is also engaged in efforts to become a sustainable community. It is engaged in piloting and studying organizational, administrative, and financial structures, examining promising developments in information technology and evaluation methods that support an institutionalized CIRTL Network that is scalable to larger numbers of universities in the future. The CIRTL learning communities in the 25 member universities are expected to educate 7,000 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows each year, of whom 2,200 are estimated to complete their doctoral work annually. This yield is comparable to 25% of the current national production rate of STEM faculty 6 years out of graduate school. Through national CIRTL Forums, web sites, publications, presentations across STEM disciplines, and collaborations with STEM disciplinary societies and national higher education organizations, the CIRTL Network will impact graduate education in universities beyond the Network. The CIRTL Network Is likely to grow in number. A significant number of additional research universities have expressed interest in joining the network.