Alumni Spotlight: Rory McFadden
It’s not easy making decisions about the path your life should take. Many struggle trying to balance the pressures of society, financial implications, and true passion and interest. College is a time where people have to answer the question “who am I?” And often the answer is “I’m not sure yet.” As Earth & Environmental Science alum Rory McFadden made his way through undergrad, a masters, and a Ph.D. where he found a love for bettering geoscience education. However, it took exploring several different career paths to find one where he felt he could truly lean into his passions–an experience that many can relate to.
Growing up in western Pennsylvania, Rory and his siblings were exposed from an early age to the great outdoors. “I spent a lot of time outside near lakes, rivers, and what I would have called hills, but were really moraines, and other geologically interesting things. I didn't know that or care at the time. I just wanted to be outside,” he explained. These defining moments would later guide him toward pursuing Earth sciences.
Rory attended undergrad at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. This time in his life was not always easy as he struggled to find his place and make decisions about his future. “I was flailing with the courses I was taking, with the stuff I was learning, and just trying to be a college student. I wasn't doing a great job. So I took a geology course on Earth history, and it just changed my perspective,” explained Rory. “I didn't always know what I was doing… but when I would reflect, I would think, ‘Oh,s**t! I actually really have always been interested in this kind of stuff.’” One class turned into multiple, which led to him making the decision to declare geology as his major. “I began to really enjoy learning about the Earth and Earth processes,” he said.
The next stop for Rory was the University of Wyoming where he entered a Master’s program. His time there opened up a new academic interest. “I spent a lot of time in the Western US and always enjoyed being in the mountains. But that was the first time I started to work on problems related to mountain building processes.” His interest in mountain building would continue throughout his graduate studies. However, another passion was seeded during Rory’s time in the western US. “I spent time as a ski instructor, and learning how to work with kids in that process, and also TAing courses, made me realize how much I liked teaching, and aspects of teaching,” he explained.
Finishing up his Master’s program, Rory finally had a better understanding of the science questions he was most interested in pursuing. “I just found the problems of Earth processes like mountain building, that had these really important spatial relationships and these massive temporal scales really fascinating. And that really stood out… I just like thinking about time spans that weren't really easy to fathom.” After researching Ph.D. programs, he found his way to the University of Minnesota where the Structure, Tectonics, and Metamorphic Petrology research group were working on intriguing projects, including a project in Antarctica that greatly interested Rory.
During his next 5 years at the University of Minnesota, Rory found more than a graduate degree. He also found a community, and a passion for geoscience education that would greatly influence the next steps he was hoping to take with his career. After completing a brief postdoc in Panama, Rory found himself back in the US, job hunting. Knowing he enjoyed teaching, the first position he took was at a primarily undergraduate institution in Massachusetts called Salem State University. There he found himself enamored with teaching students who were engaged learners, but had limited time and minimal practice with learning skills, many of whom were non-traditional students. He was able to flourish as an instructor, supporting students who had the passion for learning, but were still building the foundational skills to succeed in the geosciences.
After spending 5 years in Massachusetts, Rory and his wife eventually decided that they wanted to move back to the cities to be closer to family and friends. As his wife started a new job, Rory continued to search for a position for himself. It was in that first year back in Minnesota that he started working with the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College (SERC). During his time at SERC Rory worked on a Project called “InTegrate” which “sought to improve Earth literacy and build a workforce prepared to tackle urgent environmental and resource issues facing humanity by supporting interdisciplinary teaching about Earth and environmental issues across the undergraduate curriculum.” This important project allowed Rory to forge relationships across disciplines, while giving him a unique top down look at the geoscience education landscape across the country, from a perspective other than that of an instructor.
Rory spent a year with SERC before taking a tenure track faculty position at Gustavus Adolphus College. He found that his time at SERC was very useful as he entered into his new role. “That was a kind of cool transition. I found it really useful because it was almost like a Sabbatical, where I did geoscience education for a year, and then came back to teaching. But also all this stuff I was seeing and learning at SERC I got to put into action…I went to SERC and saw all these other [teaching] strategies that I think worked better than what I was probably doing most of the time, and then got to enact a bunch of those at a great small department that cared deeply about effective teaching,” he explained.
Over the 6 years Rory was faculty at Gustavus he continued his research and teaching, but as time passed, he found himself missing geoscience education work. As the pandemic hit, and teaching loads and expectations went through a sudden and dramatic shift, he started reconsidering his options. Eventually, he decided to leave his position at Gustavus and pursue work related to improving the quality of geoscience education. “I was really looking for a change that was more science education focussed, and less geoscience research. And even though I really liked teaching I was interested in moving away from teaching undergrad courses,” he elaborated. The pandemic also exposed a need for future changes to geoscience education. “Nationally, going forward, I think figuring out how to do Earth education that is equitable to as many people as possible, in whatever way they’re coming to a classroom, whether it’s in person, or remote, or hybrid. Those can all be successful as long as the instructors are getting supported,” said Rory. He knew that creating and implementing that instructor support was a central goal of SERC, and decided to first search with them for a position. An opportunity arose with SERC, and he took it.
Rory started back at SERC in 2023 as a Science Education Associate. He leads and supports projects aimed at the professional development of faculty, and their teaching resources with the goal of improving geoscience teaching at the undergraduate level. “How do you reach students that live in a time of YouTube videos and TikTok?... Thinking about how people take in information these days is going to be important to how we provide education…It’s not changing the level of the work or the course material, but thinking of different ways to deliver it, ways that work with how younger people take in and analyze information,” Rory explained. These are the types of challenges that SERC addresses.
In addition to working on the major challenges facing geoscience education at SERC, Rory is also connected with a national professional organization called the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), a community of educators and education researchers working together to improve teaching and learning about Earth. “A lot of our work at NAGT right now is making sure that people experience welcoming, inspiring, and effective Earth education. We still support a diverse, inclusive, and thriving community of educators, and want to support teaching and learning about the Earth,” he commented. To do this, NAGT offers workshops and webinars to the geoscience education community. Two very popular workshops are the early career workshop and the Preparing for an Academic Career in the Geosciences workshop. Current students and alumni alike have received training, assistance, or funding from NAGT to support them in providing high quality geoscience education.
Rory previously spent 3 years volunteering for NAGT as chairperson of their webinar series. “That committee was a good learning moment to see what happens at NAGT, what the national organization looks like, and what all the volunteers in the organization do,” Rory explained. His committee work put him in line for nomination to be a part of the NAGT presidential line, and he is now serving in his year as NAGT president. As part of the presidential line, you move through a 4 year series of roles starting as second vice president, moving to first vice president, then to president, and lastly past president. This allows for there to be development and sharing of institutional knowledge as you move through the different stages of presidential leadership. This guidance structure has been key to Rory’s success in the role.
As Rory has moved through his academic and later professional career in the geosciences, it has taken him time for him to find the right fit. Through it all, his passion for Earth education, and teaching has stayed, and he has finally found himself in roles that allow him to impact the broader scope of geoscience education in a meaningful way–through support of educators and instructors across the country. His experience is a testament to the importance of figuring out your passions and more importantly, being brave enough to follow them.
