The Lab as a Classroom: Advancing Faculty Research Through Undergraduate Experiential Education

Both undergraduate students and faculty members face a challenging job market that requires innovative approaches to skill development and research products. Moreover, entrenched approaches to research and education reinforce traditional hierarchies, exclusionary norms, and exploitative practices. This article describes a lab-based pedagogical framework designed to support faculty research goals and student learning and, simultaneously, to attenuate patterns of historical exclusion. This approach leverages evidence-based best practices from experiential education, team-based workflows, an understanding of servant leadership, and whole-person-style mentorship models. We find that these tools advance faculty research goals (in terms of both quality and productivity), support student learning in ways beyond traditional undergraduate coursework, and disrupt patterns of historical exclusion. We provide qualitative evidence to support our model and discuss the hurdles and challenges still to be overcome.

Automated summary

This article describes a lab-based pedagogical framework designed to support faculty research goals and student learning, as well as to attenuate patterns of historical exclusion. By leveraging evidence-based best practices from experiential education, team-based workflows, servant leadership, and whole-person-style mentorship models, this approach advances faculty research goals, supports student learning beyond traditional coursework, and disrupts patterns of historical exclusion. Qualitative evidence is provided to support the model, and the hurdles and challenges to be overcome are discussed.