Coming Soon: Teaching Fellows
This is a ‘pre-ad’. In the coming weeks, The Congdon School of Health Sciences at High Point University (in High Point, NC) will be seeking to fill out its 6th cohort of summer Anatomy Teaching Fellows (5 total positions). Since 2018, HPU has recruited and employed PhD candidates in Anthropology, Biology, and other related fields to come work in High Point teaching cadaveric gross anatomy. HPU offers a modest stipend, sufficient to cover all expenses related to finding adequate housing near the university for the summer, as well as some spending money. Former fellows have consistently gone on to secure employment teaching gross anatomy at undergraduate and graduate levels across the country. Some of our most successful former fellows include: Natalie Laudicina, An-Di Yim, and our very own Susan Lad, among the many smart and talented fellows who have been through this program.
The fellows receive significant mentorship from the two course directors and other HPU faculty during this summer of teaching. This includes course-director lead dissections of an ‘instructor cadaver’ which the fellows will dissect head-to-toe on a schedule which keeps one step ahead of the students in the gross anatomy courses. Therefore, fellows will have seen and participated in the dissections they will later help lead the PA and PT students through. Even those fellows with strong anatomy backgrounds will learn something from the many additional exposures to the material, as well as from the unique way we teach these courses.
Here at HPU, we use the Typical Body Segment approach to teaching gross anatomy, popularized by Cartmill et al. with their text ‘Human Structure’. This approach leans into narratives from embryology and evolution to help explain why the human form takes its particular shape, rather than asking students to use rote memorization and puzzle solving associated with clinical examples. Fellows coming from a background in evolutionary anthropology and biology will be able to leverage their prior knowledge and skills to teach this course, giving them an immediate sense of comfort with the material. After teaching anatomy this way, most fellows agree that it is a more effective, more interesting, and an over-all more fun way of teaching gross. At the conclusion of the term, the fellows will leave with ALL of our teaching materials and will be well prepared to start and run their own graduate-level, cadaveric gross course.
Soon, an advertisement will be distributed inviting applicants. It will feature a rolling deadline in which we will accept qualified applicants as they apply. If you are nearing the end of your dissertation and are looking for a way to boost your teaching profile so as to land that permanent academic job you desire, please consider joining us here in High Point for a summer of hot-North Carolina weather, anatomy, and fellowship.