Karol J. Mysels
University of Southern California LOS Angeles 7
A Survey of Course Offerings in Colloid and Surface Chemistry, 1959'
M o r e than ten years ago a symposium2 reviewed the philosophy and content of courses and textbooks in colloid chemistry. There seems to be no readily available information, however, on the emphasis on colloid and surface chemistry in the standard general courses, on the availability of specialized courses, or on the attitudes of the academic world toward these fields. Yet any evaluation of the professional training in these important areas and any action to assure that this training is adequate requires factual information about these points. The present paper presents some pertinent data obtained by a survey among the ACS-approved departments. The Survey
The survey covered the 262 departments on the ACSapproved list for 1958.3 Four separate questionnaires went to each school addressed to the chariman, and to the professors of freshman chemistry, quantitative analysis, and physical chemistry. The chairmen were asked questions about the offering and description of any specialized conrse. Their opinion about the change which occurred in emphasis on these fields during the ten years and how it should change in the future was also solicited. The professors were asked about the amount of time spent on colloid and surface chemistry in their courses, the texts used, and the principal departures from the text. Comments were also invited. The questionnaires were mailed out in February, 1959, on divisional stationary4 over the signature of Professor Ralph A. Beebe and the author. The questionnaires were not anonymous. Each carried the name of the institution to which it was addressed, and many respondents signed their answers. This permitted a correlation of the answers with the size of the school. A convenient measure of this size was found in the number of graduating bachelors5 certified by the school in 1958. A related quantity was the number of Ph.D.'s granted in the field of chemistr? in the same year. Of the 1048 questionnaires sent out, 702 (67%) were returned. The rate of return was highest for the chair-
' Based on a wmmittee report presented to the Division of Colloid Chemistry at the 136th Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Atlantic City, N. J., September, 1959. The eommittee, consisting of Professor Ralph A. Beebe, Amherst College, and the author. was aooointed in the sorine of 1958 to studv the teaching of colloid eh&istry. Copies of the complete rePo& a m available from the author. J. CHEM.EDUC., 26, 18-31, 60 (1949). a Cham. Eng. News, 36, 14, 99 (Apr. 7, 1958). 'The division authorized the survey and contributed toward its coat at the fall, 1958, meeting. ' Chem. Eng. News, 37,13,109 (March 30, 1959).
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men (78%), and lowest for professors of quantitative analysis (547,). Of the 262 schools, all four answers were received from 84 (317'), while only 14 schools (5%) representing about 2% of the students did not return any information. While most replies were informative, some omitted important data. Frequently, if the professor gave a specialized course in colloid and surface chemistry in addition to one of the basic courses, his response dealt with the former instead of the latter. There is also obviously much difference of opinion about the scope and meaning of the term "colloid and surface chemistry." Some respondents explicitly excluded such topics as heterogeneous catalysis or macromolecules from these fields; others included them just as explicitly. Results
Specialized Courses. Seventy-seven schools have a separate course in surface and/or colloid chemistry open to undergraduates. I n six of these schools, the course is required for chemistry majors. On the other hand, some of these 77 courses are not given regularly, and in a few cases, have not been given for several years. Not included in this total are 7 schools which had such a course in the past but discontinued it, nor 10 schools which are considering adding one. One of the 77 schools has the conrse outside of the chemistry department, and at least 5 have such courses both within and without the department. A graduate conrse not open to undergraduates is offered in 12 other schools. I n the following, the 89 (77 12) schools in which there is an active teaching program in colloids and surfaces are grouped together as schools with (a colloid conrse). The others are denoted as without. In view of the relatively complete replies received, especially from schools with, it is likely that this division is quite accurate as far as the approved schools are concerned. It does not seem probable that there is a significant number of schools with among the non-approved ones. These 89 schools with represent 34y0 of the approved schools and graduate 44.57, of the certified bachelors and 53% of the Ph.D's in chemistry. This suggests strongly that a separate course is much more likely t o be encountered in a large school than in a small one. A closer analysis of the data showed that among schools graduating less than 15 B.S.'s per year, the with are a minority while they are a majority among the larger ones. The median school with graduates 9 bachelors while that without, only 4 of them; the median B.S. with is part of a class of 16 while the one without is in a class of 10. There are some regionalBdifferences, the school with
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being less frequent in the northeast: 25.5% versus 3 9 4 0 % in the other parts. This is due mainly to the larger size (10 B.S.'s/yr.) of the median school with in this region. Smaller schools are more likely to offer a separate course in the rest of the country, especially in the southeast (6.5 B.S.'s/yr.). Inclusion in General Courses. The amount of time spent on colloids and surfaces in the standard undergraduate courses varies enormously from school to school. Part of this variation must be due to the semantics of the term, but much of it is probably real. About 10% of the teachers in each course reported that they spent no time a t all on these subjects. The median t.ime devoted is slightly over 1 hour in the freshman course, almost 2 hours in quantitative analysis, and almost 5 hours in physical chemistry. The distribution then rises gradually to a maximum of about 4, 6, and 12 hours respectively in the three courses. One could speculate that in schools with there would he in general more emphasis on the subject throughout the curriculum or alternately that there would be a tendency to leave the subject to the specialized course. Comments indicate that both trends exist, but an analysis of the reports shows that they must neutralize each other as there is no significant difference between the schools with and without. This comparison may be somewhat biased by the fact that many of the professors teaching a specialized course did not provide data concerning their general course. Hence their courses are missing from the with category. This would cause the biggest error in the physical chemistry course where 14Yo of the with responses are thus removed, and only 40% of the with gave usable answers. The bias is about half as large in quantitative and negligible in freshman chemistry. Attitudes of Chairmen. Almost one-third of the chairmen feel that the emphasis on these fields has decreased in the past ten years and only a negligible minority believe that it shouZd be decreased in the future. I n contrast, more than a third feel that the emphasis has increased and almost half believe that it should increase. A cross-correlation shows that while the largest group of charimen (20%) is favorably disposed to past and future (has should +) there is a very small group (1%) in the (has -, should -) category and a very substant.ial one (10%) in the (has -, should +) comhination.
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The boundaries used included Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana in the southeast; Wisconsin and Illinois in the central; and Mont,:ma, Wyoming, Colaredo, and New nTerico in the west.
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Again there was no significant difference in attitudes between chairmen of departments with and without. This was true only of chairmen who did express their opinion. There seemed to be a significant difference in the attitude of the chairmen toward the survey itself depending on whether they were in the with category or not. Ninety-six per cent of the former returned the questionnaire and 84% expressed an opinion about emphasis. In contrast, only 77.5% of the chairmen without answered and only 57y0 expressed their opinion. Comments of Respmdeuts. Several hundred comments ranging from a few words to a few pages were received but are difficult to summarize because of the great divergence of views expressed on a variety of aspects of the survey. One of the most frequent comments dealt with the low emphasis on the field. Limited time, subject too specialized or less fundamental than others, were the principal reasons given. The discontinuance of the course was often linked with the retirement of a faculty member and its initiation conditioned upon the finding of suitable personnel. This suggests that the subject is frequently unfamiliar to the average faculty member. It may be worth noting that while there were more than 10 comments deploring the poor or inadequate preparation of the undergraduates in these fields, there was only one complaining about too much time and emphasis on colloids and surfaces. Summary
The emphasis and time devoted to colloid and surface chemistry varies greatly from department to department. In basic courses, 1 hour is devoted on the average to this subject in freshman chemistry, 2 hours in quantitative analysis, and 5 hours in physical chemistry. The number of specialized courses offered is substantial, but they are much more likely to be encountered in a school having a large group of chemistry majors. Departmental administration is disposed on the whole favorably or at least neutrally toward the field. There seems to be no correlation between the offering of a specialized course and either the time devoted to the subject in the basic curriculum or the attitudes of the chairmen. Acknowledgment
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help of Professor R. A. Beebe in preparing the survey and this manuscript. Miss J. Hotchkiss was very helpful in the tabulation of the data.
