The Importance of Undergrad Education

At a time when all of our lives have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, our educator community is facing a unique challenge: to quickly change teaching plans, class schedules and lab work to accommodate remote learning amidst prolonged campus closures.

During my tenure at APS, I have observed how passionate undergraduate and graduate teachers of physiology are in their efforts to educate and inspire the next generation. These scholars are some the Society’s most engaged members as evidenced by the work of the APS Teaching Section and Physiology Educators Committee. This community has created a vibrant network of other important resources to further the discipline, most notably the Physiology Educators Community of Practice.

Undergraduate education is becoming increasingly important for the discipline. With the consolidation of physiology into broader programs and courses in graduate schools and medical programs, physiologists have long been concerned that the discipline is losing its identity. This is in sharp contrast to the reality at the undergraduate level where many physiology programs at major research universities and liberal arts colleges are growing rapidly. Increasingly, undergraduate programs will become the “keeper of the flame”—the primary place where the discipline is defined in the minds of young health professionals and the general public alike.

During a recent visit to the University of Arizona (UA), I met with physiology students and educators (see photo below). Of the nearly 50 students I spoke to, few of them were considering a career in academic physiological research. Instead, they were working toward becoming doctors, nurses, physical therapists and professionals in other health and biomedical careers. This sentiment is not unique to UA, where its physiology undergraduate major is the second most popular on campus with nearly 1,800 students enrolled. It’s representative of a move toward clinical and health careers among physiology students nationwide.

Given all this, undergraduate educators are an increasingly critical part of the APS member community, and we are undertaking some significant changes in how we develop and support them. One example is the renaming and refocusing of our Physiology Educators Committee, whose core mission is now “to ensure that the interests of physiology educators are represented throughout the Society and to provide resources, training and recognition to undergraduate, graduate and medical school educators in physiology and related disciplines.” Along with this realignment of priorities, we are focusing more time and energy on creating valuable professional development, resources and community-building opportunities for educators.

We are also taking major steps to ensure that the voices of physiology educators are included as we make major decisions about the Society’s future. We have created an Educator Advisory Committee and conducted educator focus groups as part of our next strategic planning process. And we have made sure that educators are well-represented in the design process for our new annual meeting. Our goal is to both continue to increase the ways in which we serve physiology educators and expand their role in helping to set the Society’s direction.

Scott Steen, CAE, FASAE, is executive director of the American Physiological Society.

This article was originally published in the May 2020 issue of The Physiologist Magazine.