Chemical Education Today
Badge People
I expected to see them at the convention center, but they also showed up in the queue at restaurants and on the trolley cars. I am talking about attending national meetings of the American Chemical Society, most recently the one in San Francisco. The “badge people” are all of the attendees. We all occasionally forget to take off our meeting credentials (the badges) when we do not officially need them, but some people wear them all the time during the convention, no matter where they are. I have been attending these events for more than 30 years, and the remainder of these comments comes from my observations of this time. Just who wears the badges? My research colleagues will be disappointed because I do not include data, but sometimes personal empiricism suffices. (It's good to be the editor!) An evening event, the Sci-Mix poster session, brings many attendees into the same huge space. Not everyone comes to this event, but it provides an opportunity to view the cross-section of attendees. In 30 years, I have seen a significant transformation, one that I am happy to have witnessed. In that distant past, it appeared to be a convention center full of white males. Perhaps I even found this demographic to be unconsciously comforting those many years ago: my census form identifies me as a white male. The diversity of ACS attendees is expanding, and if I continue to attend the next decade of meetings, I hope to see the next large steps. One cover theme in the April issue of this Journal concerned women in chemistry. As one can read in this Journal and elsewhere, there has been some improvement in bringing more women into the ranks but more change is needed on this front. The same can be said about under-represented minorities, whose numbers are also increasing but also at too slow of a pace. So what do the demographics of attendees at ACS meetings have to do with chemical education? Why does diversity matter? Chemistry can and should be taught by a diverse group of scientist-educators. This is not a superficial goal or a matter of achieving statistics from some political perspective. It is a means to add to the excellence in chemical education, not to dilute it or distract from it. You cannot change who you are, but you can support the hiring of colleagues who are different from you. But more importantly, you can change what you do and say. Being able to teach chemistry with a perspective of diversity and inclusion should be everyone's goal. The first step is to realize that one should even consider this. What do I say and do that does or does not fulfill this mission? How are different people portrayed in the material I use and the stories I tell? Are multiple cultures represented in examples, and are such examples relevant to everyone in my class? Do I know how someone with a different background would look at an issue or provide an example? Am I
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willing to read about other people's perspectives on teaching and learning chemistry? A friend and colleague had a group of educators perform an activity using introductory textbooks. Each of us was given a chapter in a book and asked to count the representations of people. Male or female? Person of color or not? Portrayal in an active role or passive one? Is the activity professional or casual? You get the idea. Publishers have been sensitized, so the activity does not produce as much shock as it once did. But the message is clear. We need to portray diversity, but we need to do it carefully. In addition, some attention to other details seems appropriate. What examples do you use? Consider a discussion about the macroscopic properties of frozen water. Can a student in south Florida relate to the properties of ice demonstrated in the recent Olympics and the sport of curling? Just what are the people doing with those little brushes in front of the stone, and how is it related to water's molecular properties? Many other examples are possible. This Journal has published discussions in the area, and examples are cited (1-5). Who we are as a community of educators is constantly changing. That is true both within the United States and abroad, especially as our community becomes more international in scope. Being cognizant of diversity and inclusiveness is the first step, but being active about inclusion is even better. Look for me at the bus stop at the fall ACS meeting in Boston and at future ones. I'll be wearing my badge. Hopefully, I will be surrounded by more and more people who do not check the same boxes that I do on the census form.
Norbert J. Pienta Editor in Chief
Literature Cited 1. Middlecamp, C. H.; Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1994, 71, 288–290. 2. Subramaniam, B.; Middlecamp, C. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 520–525. 3. Davison Fernandez, M. A. D.; Middlecamp, C. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 388–391. 4. Piepgrass, K. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 724. 5. Hanson, D. M.; Wolfskill, T. J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 143–146.
Norbert J. Pienta is a professor in the Department of Chemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1294;
[email protected].
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 87 No. 6 June 2010 10.1021/ed100370q Published on Web 04/22/2010
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Journal of Chemical Education
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