The first tension point between professional identity and pedagogical change efforts is that scientists are trained in an atmosphere that defines their professional identities primarily as research identities to the exclusion of teaching identities.
If scientists have professional identities that are predominantly research identities, then a Nature report or Science article will always be viewed as higher status than a departmental, university-wide, or even a national teaching award.
Many scientific trainees and current faculty may want careers that involve a balance of both, and the perception that they need to choose one or the other makes it even harder for them to adopt teaching identities without feeling they must sacrifice their research identities, which are likely their primary source of professional status.
Centre identity is an especially valuable resource in the knowledge-to-action process; a high calibre research identity may afford researchers greater capacity to influence relevant stakeholders, and stakeholders may refer to the centre for expert consultation.
At a more ethereal level, sharing in a particular research identity may provide researchers with a sense of belonging [ 9, 10] or a 'ready-made affinity group' [ 9], effectively strengthening the collaborative project.
It is perhaps unsurprising then that the community of science itself does not generally assume that a research identity and a teaching identity can coexist within the same individual.
A meritorious research identity may be favourably leveraged by centre members for tangible returns, including funding or awards, time, space, resources, or access to research participant pools [ 2, 14, 29].
If biology faculty are potentially entrenched in a professional identity grounded in a research identity to the exclusion of a teaching identity, then it would behoove us, as a community, to consider the possibility that professional identity could undercut all our efforts centered on the "big three" change strategies.
As a scientist grounded in a research identity, one may view pedagogical training with skepticism, considering it to be a waste of time and effort, in particular if the training tries to promote teaching methods that depart from the cultural teaching norm in science: lecturing.
She had just returned from Germany, where she was on a Fulbright, researching identity politics and the Holocaust.
"We're all American history folks, but when this French thing came up, we kind of found a new direction," said Ms. Keating, the Cortlandt town historian who is helping research the identities of the bodies that are thought by some to lie in the old church graveyard.
