EDUCATION
Analyst need remains high as courses cut Greater action on industry-university interface, more applied chemistry suggested to combat trend Although the need for analytical chemists, both industrial and academic, remains at a high level, analytical chemistry's status in U.S. colleges and universities is at a low ebb. As shown by figures (see table) from employment clearing houses at American Chemical Society national meetings and Eastern Analytical Symposiums, the number of openings for analytical chemists far exceeds the number of qualified applicants available. Yet paradoxically, many universities throughout the country are reducing the number of analytical courses in their chemistry programs and are attempting more and more to incorporate material formerly taught in analytical courses into organic or physical chemistry courses. To many chemists, therefore, there is a real danger that analytical chemistry may vanish as a distinct academic area. This threat to a«alytical chemistry as a discipline stems partly from advances in analytical chemical instrumentation, according to Dr. Stanley Bruckenstein of the University of Minnesota. "Many of my colleagues are convinced that in a few years all chemical analysis will be performed by a number of highly specialized instrumental techniques and that any chemist well versed in the theoretical principles of chemistry will be able to solve his own analytical problems using one of these instruments," he says. Chemistry department chairmen give two reasons for wanting to reduce their analytical course offerings, according to Dr. Bruckenstein. One is that Ph.D. analytical chemists are now in short supply, and hiring an analytical chemist would not be necessary if the curriculum did not have a course identified as analytical chemistry. Another reason is that the time saved by decreasing the amount of analytical chemistry in the curriculum could be spent on other material which presently cannot be fitted into an already overcrowded curriculum. However, Dr. Bruckenstein warns, if analytical chemistry courses are removed from the curriculum, it will soon be impossible to convince graduating chemists to devote their lives to an area of chemistry which lacks any formal recognition at the academic level. Analytical chemistry teachers have
INTERDEPARTMENTAL. William Zeronsa (left), a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, relays analytical findings to Dr. Sidney Siggia of the chemistry department and Dr. William G. Colby (right) of the plant and soil science department. While enrolled in Dr. Siggia's graduate-level course in applied analytical chemistry, Mr. Zeronsa used emission and atomic absorption spectroscopy and wet chemical methods to aid Dr. Colby's studies of fly ash as a potential plant nutrient
been far too slow to incorporate the advances of the past two decades into their undergraduate courses, the Minnesota professor says. This inertia sometimes occurs because the department chairman assigns the teaching of analytical chemistry courses to chemists with other specialties, Dr. Bruckenstein explains. These teachers frequently lack the background to offer a modern, stimulating course in analytical chemistry. And they are unable to depend upon a standard textbook because there is no agreement among academic analytical chemists as to what should be taught in undergraduate analytical chemistry, he adds. How can the academic analytical chemist keep the discipline alive in colleges and universities? What can be done to stimulate the interest of both undergraduate and graduate students in a career in analytical chemistry? These were among the questions discussed at a conference on the education of chemists for careers in analytical chemistry held a month ago
at the Eastern Analytical Symposium, in New York City. The fact that industry would like to have more analytical chemists makes no impact on the university, Dr. W. D. Cooke of Cornell said at the conference. Most university faculty members care little about the needs of industry, he maintains. The major problem is that the types of things that analytical chemists do in their research efforts fall outside the "mainstream" of chemical research, Dr. Cooke believes. In general, the mainstream today is concerned with molecules, reactivity, interactions, energy transfer, and structure, he says. These are not generally the concern of analytical chemists. Analytical chemists focus more on the tools themselves than on the particular chemical with which they happen to be working, he explains. Recalling the comment made by Dean Harvey Brooks of Harvard that abstract thought dominates presentday science, Dr. Cooke notes that toDEC. 4, 1967 C&EN 49
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Analytical openings outnumber applicants All analytical openings Applicants Analytical applicants 1 1
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50 C&EN DEC. 4, 1967
1963 1280 134 921 88
1964 1222 122 980 85
1965 1210 117 819 62
1966 1467 164 936 68
| 1967 1103 107 875 73
Source: American Chemical Society Employment Clearing House figures for national meetings. Winter meetings were held in 1963, 1964, and 1966, making three national meetings in those years. Figures for other years are for two national meetings
day's graduate student is indeed more interested in abstractions than lab experiments. The theoretical chemist, in the graduate student's eyes, has a higher status than the laboratory research chemist. Certain areas of analytical research are never used by the academic nonanalytical chemist, Dr. Cooke maintains. These research areas include titrimetry, absorption spectroscopy, flame spectroscopy, trace analysis, organic reagents, and polarography. Many advanced analytical chemistry courses frequently reflect the professor's research effort, Dr. Cooke says, and often the course has no interest for the rest of the chemistry department faculty and their graduate students. Organic oriented. Academic analytical chemists have a long tradition of being oriented toward inorganic chemistry. But over half of the analytical problems encountered in industry are organic-oriented. There seems to be a shortage of analytical chemists well trained in organic chemistry and organic analysis. Evidence for this shortage of organic analytical chemists is shown by figures from the employment clearing house held at this year's Eastern Analytical Symposium. By far, the largest number of job openings were in pharmaceutical companies, where the analytical problems are mostly organic in nature. For example, there were 37 analytical positions posted by pharmaceutical companies, compared to 20 posted by instrument and electronics companies and 17 by chemical companies. One way to interest more students in analytical chemistry comes from Dr. Sidney Siggia of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "You will never have any trouble selling analytical chemistry to students if you present analytical chemistry as it is," he maintains. A former industrial analytical chemist, Dr. Siggia attempts to inject what he calls a third dimension—analytical thinking—into teaching at Massachusetts. Analytical thinking enables the student to attack problems efficiently and conclusively using theory and techniques. In analytical thinking, the thought processes
1 1 1
must work toward one goal: solution of the problem at hand. At the undergraduate level, Dr. Siggia injects aspects of applied analytical chemistry into the laboratory by giving students unknowns that are actual commercial products. For example, when studying acid-base titrations, the students are given samples of Turns, Gelusil, and Rolaids, and are asked to compare the three as to stomach acid neutralizing power per gram. When studying iodimetry, the students analyze the commercial cleansers Ajax, Bab-O, and Comet for oxidizing power per gram and per penny of cost. The live situation excites and challenges the students, and they respond with enthusiasm, Dr. Siggia says. In a new Massachusetts graduate course called applied analytical chemistry, Dr. Siggia assigns each student a real analytical problem supplied by a university department such as chemistry, chemical engineering, food technology, agriculture, or polymer science and engineering. The student makes all the personal contact with the department involved, originates and carries out the work plan, and hopefully arrives at a solution. In tackling this type of problem the student finds out what analytical chemistry is like "on the outside." Dr. Siggia encourages his analytical graduate students to take industrial jobs in the summer. By doing this, the student learns more about what problems will face him when he goes into industry. Moreover, he can tell his professor what is happening in industry. It's just possible, Dr. Siggia says, that the leadership in analytical chemistry is shifting from the academic to the industrial analytical chemist. Regardless of where the leadership lies, more communication between academic and industrial analytical chemists is needed, according to Dr. J. Funkhouser, an industrial analytical chemist at Arthur D. Little. Industry needs a strong academic community of analytical chemists as a source of research ideas and from whom they can draw more students. And academic people have to find a way to learn
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what industrial analytical chemistry is all about, he says. One way to promote more communication between academic and industrial analytical chemists is to establish consulting trips supported by a foundation or industry, Dr. Funkhouser suggests. For example, 10 to 20 young academic analytical chemists could visit and consult with two or three companies of their choice during the year. The companies would benefit by making contact with a young man who can supply a fresh approach to an industrial analytical problem and who can supply future analytical chemists to the company. The academic man can return to his laboratory with more research ideas and an insight into industrial analytical problems which he can impart to his students. Dr. L. B. Rogers, head of the analytical division of Purdue's chemistry department and winner of the 1968 ACS Fisher Award in Analytical Chemistry, also favors hiring more young academic chemists as analytical consultants to industry. In the past, he contends, industry has tended to turn to the older, well-established analytical chemists as consultants. But it's the younger man who is going to turn out the industrial analytical chemists of the future, he points out.
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Grant proposals for using computers in the educational process are sought by the National Science Foundation. NSF seeks projects in all disciplines in computer-oriented curriculums, computer-assisted instruction, specialized laboratories, conferences, and training for students and teachers in using computers. Projects with the best chance of support should be imaginative and original, and not simply extend current computer applications, NSF says. Further information may be obtained from Education, Research, and Training Section, Office of Computing Activities, National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C. 20550. A radiobiology research and training agreement has been signed by The Catholic University of America, Washington, D . C , and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI), Bethesda, Md. The agreement will permit scientists from the two institutions to begin joint projects in basic research in nuclear science, biology, particle physics, and medicine. More rapid exchange of scientific information is also expected under the agreement. Catholic University scientists will use AFRRI's nuclear reactor and electron linear accelerator.
