school. In the management interview after a disastrous lab session, however, she began to view management as a broad concept, and her attitude changed. Walters has also noted other changes in behavior. For example, students are better prepared for laboratory sessions and some even call staff meetings be fore the actual session. Those cast as Manager regard their responsibilities seriously and have become distressed when their group members did not take them seriously. He also finds that record keeping im proves and that reports are more time ly. Some are turned in before the end of the lab, and most before the next lab period begins. Clever solutions to soft ware and hardware problems abound, and innovation is not restricted to these roles. For example, Managers have offered food as a tool to motivate other role-players to appear on time. The quality of analytical results has not suffered, and at the same time pro ductivity is dramatically enhanced. Good results are obtained with pre-lab planning, often in half or two-thirds of the time that would be required in tra ditional classes.
Lectures in both the junior and se nior courses have changed as a result of the role-playing laboratory in an effort to reflect the decision making and group interactions introduced in the lab. It is essential, however, that lec ture time provide the theoretical basis for the chemistry encountered in the lab. To this end, three factors guide the setup, book selection, and problem as signment in the lecture class. First is to communicate the professionally ac cepted "conventional wisdom" in mod ern analytical chemistry. Second, the material must support and be applica ble to the role-playing laboratory. The last factor is the challenging nature of the material, one that reflects the level students will need to be successful in the role-playing laboratory. Industrial support of this approach has been enthusiastic and essential. Funds from companies such as John son's Wax Foundation, The Amoco Foundation, the Apple Foundation, The 3M Foundation, and the Dow Chemical Company Foundation have provided equipment for the St. Olaf role-playing lab. Walters believes that the ready availability of a complete in strumentation set for each company
greatly enhances the learning process. Students can plan their experiments in advance and perform them in accor dance with their own schedules, with out the need to sign up for time on a single piece of equipment. To those interested in encouraging students to consider analytical chemis try careers, Walters' approach offers great promise. Many of his senior ana lytical students go on to graduate school; this year, approximately half of his 11-member class has such plans. Perhaps the most heartening anec dote and testimony to the success of role-playing, however, is Walters' rec ollection of a particular Friday after noon. He found two Managers in the lab at the computer after the lecture final exam, three days after the lab had been checked out, hard at work on a problem. He had to insist that they stop by telling them that he was shut ting down the computer—the class really was over. What followed was an afternoon-long discussion of their en joyable experiences that ended with one student lamenting about how sad it was "that a person couldn't make their living having this much fun!" Louise Voress
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