Biological Collections Ensuring Critical Research and Education for the 21st Century (2020) / Chapter Skim
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6 Cultivating a Highly Skilled Workforce
6 Cultivating a Highly Skilled Workforce
Pages 141-160
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From page 141... ...
This chapter describes the primary challenges and opportunities to understand, build, and support a thriving, diverse workforce ecosystem for biological collections. THE BIOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS WORKFORCE ECOSYSTEM Highly skilled, trained personnel underlie the increasing sophistication in the ways that biological collections carry out their missions and meet the dynamic needs of science, education, and broader society.
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From page 142... ...
Biological collections leaders navigate complex national and international law, meet requirements of biosafety and security, and evaluate, articulate, and enhance scientific impacts of their collections. Leadership and management encompass planning for the space to accommodate expansion through curation and future acquisitions.
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From page 143... ...
A museum studies degree can also lead to a career in natural history collections management. The level of education needed for different collections positions can vary depending on the history and traditions of different institutions.
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From page 144... ...
By contrast, very few living stock collections use volunteers or involve citizen scientists for collections management. This is, in part, because maintaining living stock collections requires advanced disciplinary education and expertise to maintain the genetic integrity of the specimens, and also because of liability issues related to the biosafety of the materials involved.
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From page 145... ...
This 5-year program, which made its final awards in 2020, has provided fellowships for creative research using biological collections to more than 80 early-career scientists. Although the program does not involve formal training in collections management, fellows obtained experience in the use and organization of collections and collections data.
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From page 146... ...
The entomology community, for example, occasionally offers a collections management workshop,4 and in recent years, the Society of Herbarium Curators has offered in-person and online training in strategic planning.5 The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) regularly offers workshops and training in new aspects of permit and collections compliance as well as exposure to advanced topics in curation and conservation.
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From page 147... ...
Cultivating a highly skilled, well-trained, and diverse biological collections workforce also requires attention to several intersecting issues: insufficient number and diversity of trained staff; the limited availability of relevant academic pathways to foster the next generation of the biological collections workforce; and inadequate coordination among existing training and professional development programs to enrich and expand the skillsets and diversity of the current biological collections workforce and leadership. Underlying all of these challenges is the need for consistent and collaborative mechanisms to monitor workforce trends in order to better identify and strategically address needs and gaps among the nation's biological collections ecosystem.
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From page 148... ...
cultivating the nextgeneration biological collections leadership, scientific, technical, and education staff; (2) coordinating professional development opportunities for the existing collections workforce as new skills, technologies, and challenges arise; and (3)
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From page 149... ...
offer a specialized focus on natural history collections.7 These museum programs focus primarily on scientific and technical aspects of natural history collections management and are not designed for teaching about the management or curation of living stock collections. Further complicating the educational landscape, the breadth of expertise required to manage biological collections is changing.
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From page 150... ...
Limited Efforts to Broaden Participation in the Biological Collections Workforce The lack of a formalized workforce pathway to biological collections careers is a limiting factor in efforts to develop a more diverse professional workforce. The 2011 National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine report Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America's Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads raised an alarm that the STEM education and workforce are seriously lacking participation by individuals from historically underrepresented communities (NAS et al., 2011)
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From page 151... ...
universities. Reinforcing this trend is the lack of widespread recognition of how biological collections contribute to science and society generally, and to an individual institution's mission and reputation specifically, which results in hiring priorities and funding initiatives that lack an explicit focus on building a robust infrastructure and workforce (Schmidly, 2005)
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From page 152... ...
. To be effective, the future biological collections workforce will require innovative and comprehensive approaches to identify and address their needs.
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From page 153... ...
This type of analysis would facilitate interactions between the biological collection community and relevant professional communities, and also facilitate a community-wide conversation identifying critical skillsets and strengthening the biological collections workforce pipeline. Starting with recruitment and training of new staff, the discussions about the workforce pipeline will also need to address retention, re-skilling existing staff, succession management, and integrating volunteers.
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From page 154... ...
Promoting a more diverse workforce needs to be an integral aspect of discussions about the biological collections workforce pipeline (Papers that matter, 2020)
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From page 155... ...
As with other responsibilities of biological collections leaders and staff, the challenge for teaching and public engagement will be to remain agile and responsive to current conditions and needs of the respective communities. The current coronavirus disease 2019 crisis has clearly shown that organizations equipped to respond with web-based materials, lessons, and other means of online engagement have facilitated their reach and utility.
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From page 156... ...
Such integration could help build awareness of and support for biological collections, and provide an important path to ensuring that the collections workforce is maintained and enriched over time. For example, the Museum of Vertebrate
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From page 157... ...
One potential opportunity for supporting graduate students in biological collections is the NSF GK–12 Graduate STEM Fellows in K–12 Education, where graduate student researchers are supported to interact with K–12 educators. CONCLUSIONS Cultivating a highly skilled collections workforce, one that serves the dataintensive, globally connected, and often fast-paced needs of science and society, is essential to the long-term sustainability of the nation's biological collections.
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From page 158... ...
There are still many unknowns about the biological collections workforce -- its size, scope, diversity, and impact on the scientific enterprise. Careful assessment on a periodic basis would help fuel comprehensive thinking about current and future workforce needs, particularly the structure and function of a workforce pipeline that enables students to prepare for and connect to biological collection careers and supports training and professional development of existing biological collections experts.
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From page 159... ...
, respectively, to facilitate the design and implementation of biological collections–focused edu cation and training programs in skillset areas not traditionally part of scientific training, and creating an online registry or portal to facilitate centralized access to information sharing about available education and professional development opportunities. • Alternative Staffing Models.
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