Another benefit: our graduate students and postdocs are going to need jobs. The number of available tenure-track positions in academia are shrinking (US Department of Education, 2010), and many universities are attempting to address this with panels about job opportunities outside of academia, often organized by our offices of research or graduate studies. However, many, if not most, of us who are currently in senior positions in academia have spent much (or all) of our careers in academia; accordingly, we are not in the best positions to advise our students on careers outside of the academy. But when our students get out of the university and engage with the community, they open up new networks, new connections, and new job possibilities. Research is useful in countless segments of society; engaging with the public can open new doors for our science and for our students.
