Grant Dollars, Publication and the Academic Scientist’s “bottom line”
By DNA DAVE
It is important to understand what motivates academic scientists to understand how science works. This essay can be considered a hurriedly prepared opinion piece, intended to stimulate discussion; these are observations I have made after nearly 45 years as a practicing scientist, grant writer, author and journal editor. I am a molecular, stem cell, cancer biologist so the space is biological/biomedical science. If you are thinking about being a scientist, I hope that this stimulates you to think about what type of scientist you are. If you are not a budding scientist but curious about how the culture of science works and how scientific ideas evolve, I hope you will find this of some interest.
What motivates a scientist:
First, let’s exclude industry from this discussion. Scientists in industry are motivated by the same bottom line as any commercial enterprise. They work for a company, a profit margin must be maintained or the company shrinks and/or dies. Making products people need or want is the goal, identifying the market and selling to it are the means. Between marketing and sales are the scientists whose work is mandated by the current mission of the company, dictated by management. Here I discuss the academic scientist or basic researcher. Basic research provides the incubator for novel discoveries that cannot be made via a business model. It fills an important gap, that is, breakthrough knowledge, without which clinical research and biotech would be limited to solving problems with existing knowledge. A major cultural difference is that, in basic or academic research, the profit motivation is removed and salaries are not a measure of success. Success in basic research is measured somewhat differently from different vantage points. To the scientific community it is a “body of work”, generally measured by the quantity and quality of publications. To a University administrator, it is the number of grant dollars garnered. To the grant awarding agencies it is the impact of a scientists discoveries to their mission. Here we will focus on how the basic/academic scientist views success. I will argue that there are different motivations and definitions of success for different personalities, which I place into 3 basic categories: the artist, the ladder climber and the tinkerer.
The artist is one who is truly motivated by finding the true answer to an important question, rather than by any other measure of success. They may want to be at the top of their field, but the amount of grant dollars, size of laboratory, number of publications and in what journal those publications appear do not trump getting to the true bottom of a scientific problem that drives them. The artist is often found at a teaching University, where they can be more free to pursue riskier problems because: a) the goals of a University do not put as much weight on quantitative measures of success such as grant dollars; b) a University provides part of the scientists salary; c) a University allows access to PhD students whose salaries can be offset when they serve as teaching assistants. Altogether, the University scientist can stretch their grant dollars to get more research done on a smaller budget, in exchange for teaching and service to the University, allowing them to pursue types of questions that would not be possible to address in other environments. The main distraction from their quest for success (finding the truth) is wanting so badly to answer a question that they become blind to their own data and that of others, seduced by an idea to the point that their intuitions become self-evident truths. Their quest for success transforms into a quest for the appearance of success in the eyes of others. Thus, the truly successful artist is continually seeking out criticism and rigorously challenging their own hypotheses. Depending upon their dose of human altruism, the artist can either be a mentor extraordinaire, taking great joy in nurturing the creativity of their trainees and helping them find their most rewarding career path, or they can be overly judgmental of trainees who do not adhere to their vision of success. Regardless, what motivates the artist is a quest for objective truth through deep Socratic self-questioning and rigorously executed science. When you interact with the scientist/artist, do not confuse rigorous thinking with judgmentalism or condescension.
The ladder climber on the other hand, cares little about the specific question being addressed, but is more concerned with identifying a question that will garner the most grant dollars, high impact publications, invitations to speak at meetings and the general delusion of power, glory and being “famous”. I say delusion because I challenge you to find a single person in a crowd who knows or cares who won the last Nobel Prize, as opposed to the name of the sidekick’s pet dog on a popular Netflix series. But the ladder climber spends their time with people who worship them, and in this relatively small circle, being viewed by others as successful is more important to the ladder climber than solving any particular problem or even being correct, so long as they are perceived as being correct. The ladder climber is more often found in Medical Schools or Institutions where there are no distractions from the goal: building the largest and most well-funded empire possible and attracting great trainees that require little mentoring so that the ladder climber can attend every meeting and schmooze every journal editor and grants program officer. The ladder climber will follow every new trend, and as their empire grows they can catch new trends early enough to apply a substantial force and quickly claim to have been a pioneer in the new trend, while in fact they rarely initiate any innovation because their concern is not with the innovation itself. Their view of success has little to do with actual innovation. The main pitfall of the ladder climber is that success and truth often clash, and the ladder climber will be tempted to overlook the truth in favor of success. By the time the magnanimous claims that hooked the magazine editors have been de-bunked, the ladder climber is on to the next trend. This is not to say that the ladder climber’s contributions to science have no merit. Quite the contrary. Their laboratories can be fertile incubators for talented scientists of all types, particularly those who build off of the trend and expand it into new areas of research. They start Centers and Institutes and raise funds for cutting edge fields that trickle down to the artists and tinkerers, they raise public awareness of science and sometimes champion important causes. However, breakthrough knowledge rarely comes from the ladder climber because their vision of success is not compatible with creativity, risk taking and artistry needed for breakthroughs and rarely are these attributed nurtured in this environment. Moreover, the ladder climber is rarely a strong mentor, because their vision of success requires that they spend all their time on the ladder with the other ladder climbers.
Finally, there is the tinkerer. The tinkerer is interested in developing technologies to make things happen that were not possible before. Like the ladder climber, the tinkerer is not so interested in the specific question. But, the tinkerer’s vision of success can be either more like an artist or more like a ladder climber. The tinkerer may be genuinely motivated by the impact of a potential technology and, like the artist, the amount of grant dollars, size of laboratory, and number of publications may not trump the goal of developing some really innovative new way of doing things. Alternatively, the tinkerer may see technology development as a stepping stone to things that constitute success for the ladder climber. The tinkerer is a ladder climber when their perception of success is to be viewed by others as successful.
Note that what distinguishes these three types of scientists is their own perception of success. All three can collaborate very successfully and symbiotically, using each other’s vision of success to bolster their own. They clash when the ladder climber chooses to publish less than rigorous science that confuses the pursuit of truth, or when the artist or tinkerer upends the ladder climber’s next big hit for having overlooked a key caveat in pursuit of a magazine article. Also note that all three MUST garner grant dollars and publications to continue to be viable in any pursuit of success, which we discuss below. Finally, note that there is no relationship between salary and these three visions of success. A less successful scientist by these three visions can achieve a higher salary by pursuing administration or an M.D. degree or working in industry, starting a company and patenting inventions. This is not to say that you can’t make a very comfortable living doing science of all three types. And in some niches one can even do quite well. But salary cannot be the primary motivation because it is a distraction that is not compatible with the academic scientists vision of success. With these motivations in mind, let’s briefly review the process of generating revenue and work product in academic science: grant dollars and publications.
Obtaining Grant Dollars
Grants are obtained by identifying funding sources, funding missions and funding deadlines. Grant dollars are very hard to come by, so if the mission matches your question and the deadline provides sufficient time, a grant should be written. Thereafter, the goal is to convince a small panel of reviewers (usually 2-3 experts in the field) that you have an idea that shifts conceptual or technological paradigms (innovative), has a high probability of success (feasible), will drive the field beyond current roadblocks (significant) and will exert a sustained influence on the field (impact). Every aspect of the process of scientific inquiry must be thoroughly developed, including consideration of all reasonably possible outcomes of each experiment and how you will interpret and extend each possible outcome. The latter process is not unlike a game of chess, thinking 2-3 moves ahead what your opponent might do in response to each of your moves and how you will respond to each of their possible counter moves. The approach must have clear advantages over other obvious approaches, and it must be clear that all reasonably possible outcomes will provide important new knowledge that was never achievable before. If you cannot satisfy all of these criteria, then your grant is not ready. After an application is submitted, it is usually many months before you will hear about funding, and many more months before you can re-submit a revision of a rejected application, so planning well in advance and not prematurely submitting a grant that might score poorly and have a bigger uphill battle upon re-submission is very important. Most granting agencies fund from 2-10% of the grants they receive, so identifying the right agency and crafting an impeccable proposal is an essential part of a scientists job. With large funding agencies, there is often a second level of review by administrators, where grants that are on the cusp or just below the expected payline are discussed. If a grant is highly relevant to the mission, it can be funded over a grant with a higher scientific score. For these reasons, it is important for scientists to establish good working relationships with grant agency officials, sometimes called Program Officers. The artist will restrict this relationship to discussions about the mission of the program, making sure the proposal matches the mission and emphasizes those components of the application that are to be evaluated. The ladder climber will actively seek a more friendly “collegial” relationship with the Program Officers, known as “schmoozing”. Good Program Officers see through schmoozing but, still, when it comes time to put together committees for deciding new directions for funding, the ladder climbers will always be the on the committees, pushing their agendas so that more dollars move into the new trend that they have caught wind of and tooled up for. The Program Officers will be hearing from the ladder climbers and as a result will be obliged to appoint them. The artist will not push to be on these committees, because committees and top down programs that attempt to dictate what questions people should be asking are not interesting to the artist. But, if such a committee happens to fall right into their question of passion and they are asked to serve, they will do so and the Program Officer will be thankful for those committee members. The artist is motivated to focus on rigorously testing their hypothesis and will seek funding for their work when their current funding enters its final year. The ladder climber will seek out science that is likely to become a big direction for funding, reproduce some of the key findings in their laboratory, and then try to move the money in their direction. Again, both systems work, and successful scientists achieve their vision of success.
Publishing
After the data are in, and if the results are interpretable and provide novel insight, it is time to publish the data. Publication is the culmination of years of hard work, and is the tangible product of academic research. The writing itself can take months as holes in the logical flow of the work are identified and more experiments are performed. The data are pored over and the first and last authors will repeatedly discuss something call “spin”. Rarely is a manuscript written in the chronological order in which the experiments were performed. In order to communicate science, it must be abundantly clear to readers “why” each experiment was performed, what was concluded from each experiment, and how that led to the next question. This story must flow and must converge on one or a few highly related and well-supported conclusions. The spin, therefore, is the most seamless and significant story that can be woven from the set of data. As the spin emerges, it becomes clear what data to include and what data is not informative and what data are missing and must be collected. To the artist, the “spin” is the most substantiated and significant conclusion of the body of work. To the ladder climber, the “spin” is the most popular conclusion that will interest a magazine editor. The ladder climber and the editors attend a lot of the same scientific meetings, where it becomes clear what the other ladder climbers think is the most popular interpretation of emerging data. There then ensues a race to find data that support those interpretations because they will be most well-received, well read and well cited. As discussed, human beings are driven by their intuitions more than their rational thinking, and scientists, when all is said and done, are human beings. Thus, the artist, whose vision of success is unveiling truths not intuitions, will struggle to evade the temptation of intuition while the ladder climber will thrive on it. This works for the ladder climber quite well because popular interpretations take a long time to die even if the data show that they are, well, wrong. The ladder climber will publish conclusions that are not supported by their data because they measure success by how others perceive them and so they prioritize the conclusion over the truth. However, the artist is not immune to the temptation to overlook data that do not support their hypothesis or, when clashing with the popular view, of slipping into a burning desire to disprove a popular interpretation, in either situation compromising the objectivity of how they present their work to the public. Fortunately, science itself is disinterested and impervious to human intuition, so the truth shall eventually prevail, however delayed by these frailties of human nature.
An important question early on in publishing is authorship: who should be an author and in what order should those authors’ names be listed. Many believe that to deserve authorship at all, a person should have made a contribution that goes beyond what could be contributed by anyone with general expertise. In this view, technicians, staff in University facilities and those who were paid for a service should not receive authorship, nor should those who simply provided reagents or materials that were already published elsewhere. Those who make intellectual contributions (even facility staff), help with innovations, or provide essential reagents that have not been published should have authorship. By convention, the intellectual driver of the work and/or the person who put the most work into a project and usually the principle writer of the manuscript takes first author, while the head of the lab (known as the Principle Investigator or PI) in which the majority of the work takes place takes last author. It is customary for the PI to be tagged along solely as the person who paid for the work, whether or not the PI made any intellectual or written contribution. Usually, however, the PI is promoting the work in their oral presentations at meetings and seminar invitations and provides at least some serious critical evaluation of the manuscript describing the work prior to its submission for publication. Usually, but not always. Beyond the standard conventions, there are much greyer areas in publication authorship. Some believe it is best to be generous with authorship because it helps everyone’s career to be acknowledged for contributions however small, while others believe that authorship for minor contributions diminishes the value of authorship. For example, individuals are often unwilling to provide reagents (even published reagents) unless they are promised authorship, and one is then faced with the decision of including them as author for shipping a reagent or having a much more difficult road. Of course if this reagent is something that requires expertise to produce and must be produced from scratch every time, then collaboration and co-authorship is appropriate. But often reagents are made in a virtually limitless fashion and require very little effort to share. It is a huge, wasteful, and often prohibitive duplication of effort to produce a reagent that is already been produced and, while journals stipulate that authors must agree to distribute reagents freely after publication, journals have little motivation or power to uphold these stipulations. The simplest thing is to take the reagent and add the provider as author. From the perception of success then, the ladder climber is tempted to pad their publication list simply by providing reagents while the artist by contrast is motivated to share new reagents with other people to enlist their help in getting to the truth. Both enjoy a low cost/benefit collaboration. Another grey area principle of authorship that is less often discussed is whether every author should be responsible for every conclusion in the manuscript. Science is becoming increasingly collaborative, making it impossible for every author to understand every experiment. However, the bar is raised significantly when an author does not even read the paper and/or was simply included as author for stature to increase the chances of publication. Many journals now require each author’s contribution to the article to be stated clearly on the first or last page of the paper. But, of course this is all done on an honor system.
Authorship discussions are common, because it is often difficult to discern who made the most important contribution to the manuscript. It is generally perceived that the first author made the largest contribution, the second author the second largest, and so on. The last author is the principle investigator of the laboratory that made the largest contribution, and the second to last author the head of the lab that made the second most important contribution, etc. In the majority of cases, reasonable people can agree on such things beforehand, and the first author with their PI/mentor assumes responsibility for writing and submitting the manuscript. In some cases, authorship order may be completely clear before a body of work begins, for example if the work will constitute a PhD student’s doctoral thesis or part of a post-doctoral scientists developing direction of research. Other times, particularly if the parties have a collegial or collaborative history, the parties agree to work thinks out as they unfold. This requires strong leadership to identify critical junctions when the authorship discussion should be re-visited. Disputes happen, but if communication lines remain open and PIs stay on top of it, authors generally find a way to agree. For example, a student may concede a close call by saying: “I’m OK with being second author if first author does the lion’s share of the writing.” Moreover, it is increasingly common to see 2 or 3 or even more authors be listed as “equal contributors” to a manuscript, allowing them to claim the manuscript as a “first author” contribution in their CV. What is most important in these matters is that the young scientists, working hard to get their careers started, remain the priority. This is a top responsibility of the PI as a mentor. Unfortunately, there are PIs who do not take this responsibility seriously and ignore the warning signs until it is too late, leading to a very difficult and painful dispute where peoples’ expectations are unnecessarily thwarted, and even those who actively refuse to accept their responsibility, and either dictate first authorship without discussion or tell the disputing parties to work it out amongst themselves. Given the focus of the artist on the integrity and quality of the science, it is natural that they would be more likely to take a strong role in these matters, while the ladder climber has no success-driven motivation to do so. However, this is an area where individual personalities may dominate PI behavior. Young scientists considering a laboratory for their PhD or post-doc work should make a point of discussing with current and former members of the lab how issues of authorship are handled, or this most important mark of their productivity could become compromised.
During the publication process the authors must also make decisions about what data to withold. This is a slippery slope that requires careful mentoring to navigate. There are often a few loose ends here and there that do not support the overall spin of the manuscript. It is legitimate to withhold (ignore) an experiment if the controls failed or if certain important controls are currently impossible to obtain, because one cannot properly interpret the experiment. It will be up to the student or post-doc and their mentor to decide whether an outlier result is ignorable or must be repeated until it is interpretable. By contrast, it is not appropriate to ignore an experiment with a clear interpretable result that contradicts the spin of the manuscript. This can happen innocently, when the artist and tinkerer are so caught up with the excitement of the spin and simply can’t believe the contradictory result, or egregiously, when the ladder-climber wishes to have the work withheld because it could compromise publication in a high impact factor journal. Such results might also be withheld from the mentor by the graduate student or post-doc without the mentor’s knowledge, so responsibility is not always easy to assign, and public knowledge of the contradictory results may never emerge. However, the true to form artist would never ignore such a result; a well-designed experiment never lies and there is nothing worse than someone else reporting results that contradict your work, when you had those results in your hand. To the artist who is on their game, interpretable results are screaming at you to come up with a better hypothesis. For the ladder-climber, the risk is small because by the time someone discovers that the interpretation was wrong, they are two or three rungs higher on the ladder and will have dozens of other trendy reports to dilute any past mistakes. For the tinkerer, it may be the method or technology that is more important than the conclusion, but the concept is the same: if the tinkerer is an artist, then the spin is in how truly powerful the technology is, and any well executed experiments that point to fatal flaws in the technology should not be ignored.
Once the spin is clear and the manuscript is nearly finished, it is time to choose which journal to submit the work to. Impact factor (IF) is often discussed. The question arises as to whether particular journals are “a reach” or “a slam dunk”. Do the authors want to invest the time it takes to convince a high IF journal that the work is worth publishing in their journal, or do they need to publish the work rapidly to avoid a “scoop” (someone else publishing the findings first). As with grants, this involves a discussion of the mission of each journal and the “fit” of the manuscript to that mission. This may involve phone calls or other correspondences with the editors of specific journals, which introduces another opportunity for inter-personal lobbying, or “schmoozing”: the specialty of the ladder climber. The high IF journals Science, Cell and Nature, as well as their various “spin-off” journals they have created to corner every possible scientific market, hire full-time “professional editors” to handle the manuscripts. These are individuals who often have a PhD, but have left research for a career in scientific journalism. Their job is to increase the IF of their journal. Their motivation is to find material that can be easily sensationalized to maintain the visibility of their journal, and will garner as many citations as possible. These individuals hold a tremendous amount of power to the ladder-climber, as they will ultimately make the decision as to whether a paper is accepted for publication in their prestigious journal, and that is more important to the ladder climber than the science itself. The ladder-climber feels obliged to befriend or “schmooze” journal editors, and their discussions generally revolve around how to “spin” the novelty and impact of the findings to broaden the readership. The artist and tinkerer are also hopeful that their work will merit publication in such journals and be broadly interesting, but are not willing to compromise the science by over-extending the conclusions or compromising their scientific principles to sensationalize the work. Their discussions with the editors will focus on the science, while the editors will try to convince them to focus on ways to emphasize novelty and impact. The ladder climber will continuously resubmit their work to the same editor for well over a year from the time of submission until acceptance. The artist and tinkerer are more likely to send to another journal in order to move on to the next important question in their field. The ladder climber is much more likely to grovel to the editor and fear rejection, while the artist will move on to other journals.
The next IF tier of journals are the society journals and a handful of independent journals that have some budget for staff, but for which the decisions to publish submitted articles are made mainly by scientists working as editors pro-bono. The motivation of scientist/editors in working so hard for these journals can be varied: they may truly want to give back and in academia some degree of service to the community is expected both as a rule and as a criteria for academic performance in their University, or they may enjoy the prestige of being associated with a strong journal or in some cases may enjoy the power to decide whether papers get published. These journals still have strong reputations, but place a much stronger emphasis on the quality of the science than the novelty and impact, so long as the manuscript has something significant to present that will be of interest to the readers of their journal. These journals move more quickly, particularly since editors are scientists working pro bono who do not have the patience to entertain any particular manuscript for longer than necessary. The process in the best of cases already takes 5 months from submission to acceptance, allowing a month for assignment of reviewers, reviews to be completed and an editorial decision made, followed by a 3 month period to respond to the reviews if invited, and another month for the second review and final decision. With the high IF magazines there can be myriad layers of review, from 3-4 weeks of pre-review to determine if a paper is worthy of sending out for review, to 3-5 rounds of review followed in some cases by cross-reviews where reviewers check each other’s reviews. In the majority of cases, these full-time professional editors are incapable of making their own decisions. They will continually go back to reviewers unrealistically expecting 3 scientists with different expertise to agree that a paper is ready for publication in their journal. The high IF magazine editor’s letters to authors will be generic and vague, frequently placing all the responsibility on one or more reviewers, even though the decision is their responsibility alone. With the second tier IF journals for which scientists make the editorial decisions, there are typically two rounds of review (in some cases only one) and if reviewers are not in agreement, the scientific editor makes a call. It rarely pays to argue with a scientific editor who is not motivated by more than an obligation to serve the scientific community. Moreover, the scientific editor, despite their many other professional obligations, will typically write a decision letter that states precise reasons for their decision and if the authors are invited to re-submit a revised manuscript, the scientific editor will explain which specific aspects of the reviews the authors must address. The scientific editor knows that reviewers ask for experiments that are really just discussion points or follow up questions of interest to the reviewer, recognizes the salient points raised by reviewers, does not waste time trying to please everyone, and is not afraid to make a decision. Thus, for the artist, moving to a second tier journal is not a terrible compromise because scientific rigor will be upheld, the truth will be revealed, good science in good journals gets read, and, importantly, whether a professional magazine editor sees their work as exciting is truly irrelevant to its scientific merit. For the artist, if a magazine editor happens to appreciate their work, and if a set of reviewers make it easy for the magazine editor to be satisfied, then great, champagne will be had. But, if the process gets bogged down in indecision, the artist moves on because their vision of success is solving the next scientific problem, while the ladder climber keeps re-submitting because their vision of success prioritizes authorship in high IF magazines.
Well, I hope you have enjoyed this little piece of prose as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Over the years I have had many animated discussions over the meaning of success in science, usually measured in some way by grant dollars and publications. I have tried to cover those various arguments without advocating for one vision over another, but rather taking a strong stance against actions taken under the auspices of any of our three visions of success that impinge upon, deprive, or belittle the right of another to pursue their vision of success. Certainly I feel strongly that there is no single correct way to judge professional success in science. Unless, of course, it is the universal vision of success that supersedes all others, that true success in life must be measured in inner happiness, as a life of joy is without question, a life of success!
Tips for Submitting Research Grants
Successfully conducting a research project depends on the availability of support infrastructure and funding. Research involves paying high salaries, along with many expenses and materials, which makes funding essential. Preparing a grant proposal and securing funding is, therefore, an important component of conducting research. That being said, the grant review process is time-consuming, rigorous, and highly competitive.
The first step is to match your research idea with a suitable funder. All funding agencies have a mission statement and some will give examples on their website of projects that are within their mission and those that are outside of their mission. In addition, you should be able to find examples of grants that have been funded by the agency. Looking at similar research projects may help you understand what type of grants they secured. This is important, because different agencies have varying interests and funding criteria.
You can also ask for recommendations on potential funding sources from experienced researchers with a track record of receiving research grants. Some may also be willing to share examples of funded grant proposals that have succeeded. If you work with an institution such as a university, the grant office can advise you on the grant application process or point you toward potential grant opportunities.
Funding agencies may have more confidence in your ability to conduct high-quality research when you include strong collaborators on your team. Collaborators enrich your grant proposal and give it more credibility. For example, if you know someone who can perform specific tasks better than you when preparing your grant proposal or during the preliminary research work, enlist their support. If your idea requires expertise that you do not have, then a collaborator is essential. Remember to include the cost of their assistance and provide evidence of their history of success in your grant proposal.
When submitting your proposal, it is a good idea to distribute it to a number of potential funders. You might be surprised by the variety and number of funders interested in your research project. Look for those organizations and agencies that match your area of research interest, expertise, and capabilities to help you identify the best fit.
Depending on your research area, there are several federal funding agencies that support research. Key examples include the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense. In addition, hundreds of foundations support scholarly work. Make sure to explore opportunities at the state government level, philanthropic organizations, and private companies.
When writing a grant proposal, obtain as much information as possible about the funding agencies’ programs, research interests, and grant review processes. This information will help you write a proposal that meets a particular organization’s requirements.
Depending on the organization, the grant review process may take 6 to 8 months or longer. Always submit your grant to several funding sources at once, since this is more time efficient. If you submit to only one funding source and then wait 6 or more months, only to find out you have been denied, you will have missed out on time you could have spent submitting your proposal to other prospective funders. However, be careful to check each funding agencies policies on submitting to more than one organization simultaneously, which can sometimes disqualify you, as is often the case with applying to more than one federal funding agency.
If your grant is not funded, do not despair as usually only a small percentage of grants are funded. Be sure to carefully consider any feedback or comments you receive, since they may help you strengthen your next grant proposal. The biggest mistake is to view rejection as an indication that your research idea is bad, or to abandon your proposal after its first failed submission. View the experience as an opportunity to improve future grant proposals by incorporating feedback.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Classroom
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are concepts that describe values embodied by many organizations as they strive to meet the needs of people from every walk of life. In the classroom, diversity, equity, and inclusion improve cohesion and encourage different perspectives and critical thinking skills, along with building understanding and empathy for others who might be different culturally.
Classrooms are becoming more diverse, and demographics indicate this trend will continue. DEI in the classroom can improve learning. Students learn while enriching their critical and creative thinking abilities as they engage in activities and conversations across differences, particularly when the school and teachers embrace all of the learners’ attributes and abilities. Most importantly, students need to feel safe in the classroom to voice their point of view freely, or the benefits of DEI cannot be gleaned.
Teaching for diversity means acknowledging a broad range of differences and abilities in the classroom, while teaching for inclusion refers to embracing differences within the classroom. Teaching for equity, meanwhile, allows these differences to change approaches to teaching to accommodate all experiences while promoting fairness and justice. The values of DEI not only complement each other, but enhance educational and learning opportunities for all students.
Teaching that promotes DEI for all is essential for preparing adults who are civically engaged and a society that recognizes everyone as important. By exposing learners to a broad range of thoughts, opinions, and cultural backgrounds, they are encouraged to be more open-minded later as adults. This also makes them more receptive to new ideas and new ways that ideas can be integrated to solve problems.
Diversity allows students to reflect on opinions and perspectives beyond how they have already been shaped by early life experiences. Different viewpoints allow students to examine the world with fresh eyes.
In addition, when they leave school or college and enter the professional world, students inevitably join a diverse workforce. Without prior exposure, interacting with people with different mindsets or from diverse backgrounds can present a challenge.
In an increasingly multicultural and diverse society, teachers and schools will need to incorporate culturally responsive instruction. DEI in the classroom is not limited to race and ethnicity, but includes different economic statuses, physical and mental handicaps, cultural upbringing, gender identities, religions, and language backgrounds.
When learning institutions take positive approaches to DEI, students are likely to see more of their identity represented in learning materials or activities. When diversity is neglected, students feel excluded and are more likely to feel inferior to peers or not actively participate in learning activities.
Inclusive teaching strategies ensure that all students feel appreciated, respected, and supported, enabling them to freely explore new ideas. Incorporating inclusive teaching strategies intentionally helps students feel like they are a part of their learning community. A useful tool to promote a safe classroom environment is to institute an anonymous reporting system whereby students can tell their teacher whether something they said or did, something a classmate said or did or some material in the classroom was offensive and why. The teacher can then choose to publicly acknowledge that comment, apologize, lead a discussion, propose a solution, or otherwise reassure the anonymous person that their voice was heard.
To achieve this, students can be taught that people who don’t come from their socioeconomic backgrounds or look like them, follow a different religion, or speak a different language, are just like them on the inside. A school’s policies, including anti-bullying and other behavior policies, as well as the staff code of conduct, should explicitly state the expectation that all students are to be treated equitably and fairly.
In recent years many schools have instituted zero-tolerance policies to curb harassment, intimidation, and bullying. The use of culturally insensitive moments is promoted as an opportunity for understanding and learning under zero-tolerance policies.
However, the tide has increasingly shifted toward zero-indifference policies. Zero-indifference is an alternative approach that promotes safety by firmly and consistently addressing disrespectful behavior, whether by students or staff. With zero-tolerance, a first offense often results in harsh punishments such as suspension or expulsion. With zero-tolerance, achieving fairness requires a very thorough training program that anticipates all major situations. With zero-indifference, complex and varied circumstances can be addressed flexibly.
What Is Chromosome Replication?
Chromosome replication is the process by which the genetic material within a cell’s nucleus is duplicated before cell division. This is an essential process for the transmission of genetic information from one generation of cells to the next, such that if an error occurs during this process, it may lead to genetic mutations. Genetic mutations can have serious consequences for an organism’s health and development, like changes in the amino acid sequence of proteins, which can affect the structure and function of the protein. They can also disrupt the normal regulation of gene expression, leading to abnormal growth and development.
In the human body, each cell contains 46 chromosomes, which are made up of long strands of DNA molecules wrapped around proteins called histones. These chromosomes are organized into pairs, with each pair containing one chromosome inherited from each parent. These chromosomes carry the genetic instructions for all of the body’s functions, including growth, development, and reproduction.
Chromosome replication causes the DNA within each chromosome to be duplicated, to the end that each new cell created during cell division has its own complete set of chromosomes. There are several stages in which this replication process occurs, each of which is tightly regulated to ensure its accuracy.
First, there is an unwinding of the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. A group of enzymes called helicases are responsible for this. Helicases break the hydrogen bonds that hold the two strands of the DNA molecule together. Once the helix has been unwound, the DNA strands are held apart by proteins called single-stranded binding proteins, which prevent the strands from re-forming a double helix.
Next, an enzyme called DNA polymerase begins to synthesize new strands of DNA by adding nucleotides to the existing strands. The building blocks of DNA, each nucleotide consists of a nitrogenous base, a sugar molecule, and a phosphate group. The DNA polymerase matches each new nucleotide with its complementary base on the existing strand of DNA, so that each new strand of DNA is a complementary copy of the original.
Because the two strands of the DNA molecule run in opposite directions, DNA replication occurs discontinuously, in short sections. The new strand of DNA that is synthesized in the 5′ to 3′ direction is known as the leading strand, while the new strand that is synthesized in the 3′ to 5′ direction is known as the lagging strand. The lagging strand is synthesized in short fragments called Okazaki fragments, which are then joined together by another enzyme called DNA ligase.
Throughout the replication process, the cell must ensure that the DNA strands are correctly matched and that no errors occur. To this end, there are several quality control mechanisms in place in the cell, including proofreading by DNA polymerase and a group of repair enzymes that can correct any mistakes that are made.
At the completion of the replication process, the two strands of DNA re-form a double helix structure, and the replicated chromosome is ready to be distributed to the new cells that will be formed during cell division. This process of chromosome replication ensures that each new cell will have a complete set of chromosomes and that the genetic information carried by each chromosome will be faithfully transmitted from one generation of cells to the next.
The Gilbert Laboratory 