Dr. Scott Willenbrock

1. What is the name of your school?
UIUC

2. How many faculty members are in your department?
60ish

3. Do you consider your department to be more teaching oriented or research oriented?
Research

4. Are you more interested in teaching classes or conducting research?
Teaching, at the moment (it varies)

5. Does your school have a graduate program in physics?
Yes

6. Does your department focus more on undergraduate students or graduate students?
Both

7. What percentage of your time do you spend:

Teaching? 50
Doing research? 30
Other? (please explain what "other" entails) 20 - committees, replying to surveys like this, etc.

8. Describe your standard week.
Teach. Advise grad students. Talk to undergrads. Committee meetings.

9. Do you have any TAs or graders?
Yes

10. Do you collaborate with any other faculty regarding teaching? If so, in what ways do you collaborate?
Kevin Pitts and I are creating a new course on science and society (for nonscience majors)

11. Do you collaborate with any other faculty regarding research? If so, in what ways do you collaborate?
No.

12. To what extent are you able to teach what you want to teach? (Both in terms of choosing the courses you wish to teach and in structuring the courses you teach.)
I have a lot of freedom, within limits.

13. How are teaching, research and "other" weighted when hiring and promotion decisions are made in your department?
100% research

14. What kind of experience does your department expect when considering hiring new professors? (postdoc, previous professorship, visiting professorship, etc.)
None of the above

15. What do you know now about teaching that you didn't know when you first finished graduate school?
It's way harder than I thought. I'm still learning to do it....

16. What do you know now about life in academia that you didn't know when you first finished graduate school?
There is not enough time in the day to do everything well.

17. Do you have any advice for students currently pursuing PhDs in physics with a strong interest in teaching?
Keep your options open. Many of us who ended up at a "research" university also love teaching.