Neuroscience Institute Academic Program Review

APR Visiting Committee Members (visit of February 15-16, 2016):

Elizabeth Adkins-Regan, Cornell University

Tony Nunez, Michigan State University

Harold Zakon, University of Texas-Austin

1. Executive Summary

The review team was impressed by the quality of the Neuroscience Institute (NI) and by how much it has accomplished in establishing a strong research reputation and in both graduate and undergraduate education since its beginning in 2008. The faculty are successfully carrying out the dual mission of having an internally coherent and well-functioning core department while also engaging broadly with faculty around the campus in genuinely meaningful ways. The NI is a model for neuroscience programs nationally and a credit to the University. It is successfully building on its strengths now and in its delineated future goals. The University’s strong support has been essential and should be continued, with an increase in faculty lines (including assistant professor searches), PhD student and postdoctoral support, and adequate space and other support for the undergraduate major. There are some challenges that need attention, and we are concerned about the lack of racial/ethnic diversity among the current faculty, but overall the NI is very successful and its prospects for the future are bright.

2. Contributions to the Discipline

2a. To which subfields of the discipline does the department make the most significant scholarly, creative, or clinical contributions?

A long-standing area of excellence at GSU is behavioral neuroendocrinology specifically and behavioral biology more generally. This historically strong group was instrumental in establishing an NSF-funded Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) that comprises six institutions in Atlanta. The spirit of collaboration fostered by the CBN paved the way for the founding of the NI in 2008. The NI was based on top-tier, highly visible research programs from GSU faculty and rapidly augmented by excellent hires. As well as its core strength in behavioral neuroendocrinology, NI faculty participate in other top-notch programs such as the Centers for Neuromics, Neurogenomics, Primate Cognition and Social behavior, and Obesity Reversal.

One of the most impressive attributes of the NI is that it spans multiple departments and research units and these interact and collaborate well. The NI is forward looking and plans to continue developing strength in timely areas such as Neurogenomics that will cut across and enhance many laboratories and serve as glue to bind together both core and associate faculty, as well as faculty in different departments.

2b. To what extent are the faculty number and composition sufficient to support the research and educational missions of the department?

The NI has made excellent hires through GSU’s recent initiatives such as the 2CI in neurogenomics. These have given it strong leadership and positioned it to be attractive for future faculty recruitment and its teaching mission. However, some problems were identified in a few areas that can easily be remedied with aggressive hiring at the assistant frofessor level. First, the demographic structure of the NI is skewed toward senior faculty, many of whom are close to retirement age and, on the other end, there are no assistant professors. Assistant professors bring energy and new ideas and are a resource for the long-term intellectual and funding health of a unit. Second, the absence of hiring at the assistant professor level impacts the ethnic diversity of NI faculty. National efforts to enhance diversity over the years have resulted in an increasingly diverse post-doctoral/sssistant professor pool. Thus, hiring from that pool will also drive the effort to diversify. Third, the growth of the undergraduate major in Neuroscience and the graduate program depends on having adequate numbers of faculty for the teaching mission. The Visiting Committee’s interviews with current graduate students suggested that the addition of specialized graduate courses would strengthen the graduate teaching mission. Additionally, some of the faculty serve in administration and, while important to the University, this reduces the number of faculty in research and teaching roles. All of these problems could be easily solved by focused hiring at the assistant professor level, perhaps with the addition of a few new lines.

2c. Based on your knowledge of similar departments in the discipline, evaluate the overall strength of the department.

The NI at GSU is a strong and thriving group. They are funded at comparable rates as their peer programs (1.c.1.2a of the self-study) and with comparable rates of success on grants submitted. In the last two years they are ranked within the top ~15% of neuroscience programs nationally. Their productivity vis a vis citations of publications (as judged by h index) are comparable to peer institutions (1.c.1.4a). NI faculty are respected, sought out, and fully engaged in academic and professional activities as evidenced by awards, seats on editorial boards and grant review panels, and other honors (Appendices 45-47). They continue forward with unabated strength in their historically strong area of behavioral neuroendocrinology and behavioral neuroscience, and have chosen wisely in developing new areas such as neurogenomics. Their core facilities and support are, again, strong and at the level of peer institutions.

One strength that cannot be overemphasized is the NI’s collegiality and culture of collaboration (Appendix 44). The leadership encourages collaboration within the NI core and associates, and across departments and centers, even into areas that, at first, might seem far from neuroscience. The recent interaction between GSU scientists studying inflammation and members of the NI is a wonderful example of this cross-disciplinary collaboration that brings new opportunities for research and funding.

NI faculty make superlative contributions to outreach and summer education programs (Appendices 49-53). This befits a state university, especially one with such a unique blend of minority-serving and R1 missions.

3. Quality of the Department’s Undergraduate and Graduate Programs

3a. For each of the department’s programs, evaluate the quality and currency of the curriculum in terms of disciplinary standards and trends.

3b. Evaluate the quality of both incoming and graduated students in the department’s programs, relative to discipline-specific norms.

3c. Based on your professional experience, are the enrollment, retention, and graduation rates appropriate? If not, what changes might the department make to improve them?

3d. Are there appropriate resources and support structures for the department’s educational programs?

3e. Evaluate the potential for growth of the department’s graduate programs.

Undergraduate Program:

3a. The NI offers a BS in Neuroscience, with or without a pre-medical concentration, as well as a 4+1 BS/MS Program in Neuroscience. The undergraduate curriculum provides a solid foundation in Neuroscience, while fostering skills, such as hypothesis testing, scientific writing, critical thinking and oral communication, that would transfer to any post-bachelor’s career path. The program is making effective use of current principles of student assessment and curriculum design by identifying learning objectives explicitly and by applying effective tools to assess the achievement of such objectives. One unique component of the undergraduate curriculum is the laboratory course (NEUR 3010). Different from traditional laboratory courses that focus primarily on learning particular techniques, this class combines the teaching of technical skills with the design and implementation of actual experiments based on student-generated hypotheses. From first-hand reports of undergraduates, this class, although initially intimidating, it is transformational with respect to how students approach scientific questions as a result of this experience. The NI should be encouraged and supported to keep this unique educational opportunity available to all NI undergraduates, as the popularity of the major increases the demand for this class. Considering the current expansion of neuroscience to other disciplines, such as economics, ethics and the law, the NI should be encouraged to offer the introductory class (NEUR 2000) to all GSU students. This class aims to introduce students to the “threshold concepts” of the field and is likely to have a positive educational impact for both NI majors and non-majors (Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2005) Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge (2): epistemological considerations and a conceptual framework for teaching and learning, Higher Education, 49 (3), 373-388). The 4+1 option has attracted relatively few students and the career trajectory predicted for those students is not well defined. The NI should be encouraged to review the rationale for this program, and to consider the consequences of specializing in neuroscience too early in the students’ undergraduate tenure.

3b. The NI undergraduate major has grown steadily over the last four years. The quality of the recruits to the major is good and the composition of the current cohort reflects the gender, ethnic and racial diversity of GSU. Although the program is too new to fully evaluate the placement of graduates, the available data (Appendix 5 of the self-study) support the claim that the students are receiving the appropriate education to compete for admission in graduate and professional programs.

3c. The enrollment, retention and graduation rates for NI majors are above average. The NI needs to manage the growth of the major to protect the viability of the current laboratory course and the optimal class sizes for the CTW courses.

3d. One area that needs attention in order to maintain the retention and graduation rates of the NI majors is academic advising. The program has benefitted until very recently from the excellent contribution of a local academic advisor who understood the demands and structure of the program and who kept her advisees on track for timely successful completion of the major; that person is no longer available to NI students, who reported less than satisfactory academic advising available from central sources. Another challenge is securing quality laboratory space for the continuation of the laboratory class after Kell Hall demolition in the very near future.

Graduate Program:

3a. In Summer/Fall of 2014, the NI graduate program underwent a comprehensive self-assessment in reference to other more mature graduate Neuroscience programs in the United States. That exercise produced significant changes in the structure of the program that are likely to increase the attractiveness of the NI to potential applicants. The new structure will reduce the time to degree by streamlining the course work and having the students ready to propose the dissertation plan early in year three. This development has added some uncertainty to second and third year students, but the faculty, graduate program director and the director of the NI have been very effective at buffering how the students experience the “growing pains” of this developing program. The leadership of the NI has made the key expectations clear and explicit via a comprehensive graduate program handbook, orientation meetings and retreats. The program is now stable, with an appropriate core curriculum and opportunities for the graduate students to interact with several laboratories and research programs; a reduction of the average time to degree to 5 years now appears attainable. The collegial and collaborative culture of the NI extends to the graduate program. Current graduate students, from different laboratories and at different levels of training, consistently acknowledge the approachability of the NI faculty and the willingness of the faculty to help in all aspects of the students’ training and professional development. One very attractive aspect of the graduate program is the opportunity to add areas of concentration, such as Neuroethics and Neurogenomics, as well as to engage in formal preparation for college teaching. Of particular value for the development of pedagogical credentials is the Certification in College Teaching program, an accomplishment that is noted on the students’ transcript, and that includes the generation of a comprehensive teaching portfolio. The NI should be supported as it plans to enhance the scope of the professional preparation of the doctoral students, to get them ready for expanded career trajectories outside the academic domain.

3b. By traditional metrics, the quality of the applicants to the graduate program and the current doctoral students are above national averages. The program is too new to evaluate the professional success of the graduates. Consistent with current national trends the large majority of the graduates move to postdoctoral positions in research-intensive institutions.

3c. The collegial climate of the NI and the intellectual activities supported by the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and the Brains and Behavior Program are clear positive influences for the retention of students. Of note is the financial support from several sources for students to attend national and international conferences to network and present their data. One concern identified by the NI self-assessment of 2014 is the relatively low stipends received by the graduate students regardless of seniority in the program. The current $25,000/ year is clearly below the national average and dramatically low to live in a city like Atlanta; the fact that health insurance is not covered by GSU adds to the financial burden of the students and undermines retention and completion goals.

3d. Success of any graduate program depends largely on the quality and vitality of the faculty. Given the demographic facts of the current NI faculty, the future of the graduate program depends in major ways upon the recruitment of new assistant professors with active research programs. The hiring of new assistant professors is also an opportunity to increase the racial and ethnic diversity of the faculty; national initiatives to enhance diversity in Neuroscience (e.g. the BRAINS program, http://depts.washington.edu/brains/program.html) could help achieve that goal at GSU. Postdocs are also an important component of the infrastructure of graduate education; the NI should be supported in efforts to develop a postdoctoral office.

3e. There are several initiatives that will impact the growth of the graduate program. The interdisciplinary concentrations in Neuroethics and Neurogenomics are examples of program features that are likely to attract graduate students. Similarly, plans to increase interactions between the NI and other biomedical fields should expand the focus of the current research themes and include training in translational neuroscience. Growth of the graduate program should be guided by the research capacity of the faculty and the placement opportunities available to the graduates. Thus, expansion of the graduate program needs to go hand in hand with initiatives to enhance the scope of doctoral training/education in the NI to prepare graduates for a broad career scope. Opportunities for extramural funding for such expansions of the training scope should be explored as well as competing for traditional training grants such as T32s from NIH.

4. Quality of the Department’s Research Culture

4a. Based on your knowledge of the discipline, what is your assessment of the quality of the department’s faculty?

The NI’s core faculty members are strong and highly regarded. All are active researchers publishing in peer-reviewed journals with high standards. Approximately two-thirds have external funding, and some have very substantial external funding. Even those who currently lack external funding are continuing to publish primary research in excellent journals, and stand a good chance of succeeding in obtaining funding in the future. The faculty members are very active nationally and internationally with respect to conference attendance and presentation and service on journal editorial boards and to scientific societies. The associate members are similarly strong, and the core plus associate structure is working very well. The overall culture is interactive and collaborative, both within the core and with the associate members and other campus researchers. Faculty are collegial, mutually respectful, and supportive of one another. Faculty members having difficulty obtaining external funding (a common problem now even for excellent scientists) are being encouraged to enter into collaborations with well-funded colleagues. It is important that faculty perceive this to be voluntary rather than imposed. Also, as assistant professors are hired, thought will need to be given to how to allocate research credit for their promotion dossiers in such a collaborative environment.

4b. From a disciplinary perspective, what is your assessment of the research areas in which the department is already strong, and areas with the potential for further growth?

The NI’s strongest suit is behavioral neuroscience, and its behavioral neuroendocrinologists and neuroethologists have excellent and well-deserved reputations in those communities, both nationally and internationally. There is a good balance between research with what are currently viewed as “model” organisms and comparative research with a more diverse set of animal species. The faculty intend to continue this balance, and to develop some of the genetic/genomic tools currently limited to model organisms for use in those additional species, which will be an important and valuable contribution to the field neuroscience. The associate members include strengths, among many others, in quantitative approaches, enabling training and collaboration in computational neuroscience. The faculty have identified three areas for future growth: neurogenomics, neuroinflammation, and translational neuroscience. The first of these is already being pursued by several of the faculty and is unquestionably of major importance to a very broad biological and biomedical community. The second is broader than the name might imply (it includes, for example, the new and exciting area of gut microbial-nervous system interaction), is currently being explored by some recently hired NI faculty, and has great potential given that a cluster of inflammation researchers is already in the same building as the NI. The third, translational neuroscience, is not yet well developed or articulated, but fits well with the University’s recent developments (new centers and institutes) in biomedical science. Translational neuroscience has great potential for substantial federal funding and for diversity hiring. The committee is convinced that these three future directions are excellent choices.