Chemical Education Today
Cutting Educational Budgets It had to happen. A series of budget cuts to the educational enterprise will eventually have far-reaching consequences, and we are starting to see some of those. Most publicly funded social institutions are likely to have some inefficiency, and the educational sector is no exception. Making proper decisions is what keeps administrators up at night and earning their salaries. But if you keep taking the resources away, you eventually get to fundamental changes, whether they are intentional or not. I start with some examples, including one that should warrant the attention of chemical educators. First of all, I am not trying to single out any state or university within it: there are plenty of horror stories to go around. But I was particularly interested in recent events in a particular western state. The president of a community college was going to retire, an event coinciding with a particularly bad funding cycle. A tenacious advocate for his school (indeed, of an entire system), this person was ending his third decade of dedicated service. Many people retire; in fact, some state or institutional budgets are counting on this. In the present case, I have followed this person's career for many years, and we have shared stories from different academic perspectives. His institution is losing a tremendous asset, even though I will admit to some prejudice in talking about my cousin. And across the same city in this western state, a second example is playing out. Another educational institution has responded to budget cuts by making some curricular changes, ones worth bringing to the attention of the readers of this Journal. This prestigious research university is “dropping laboratory experiments from some of its core science courses” (1). The reporter, a chemistry major in his formative years, was distressed to discover that chemistry was one of the programs forced into this action. And to be clear, the university is not instituting a course redesign or replacing the eliminated experiments with fresh ones. They are substantially reducing the number of laboratory experiments each term. To be certain, my intention here is not to simply report news or to judge a department or school. This is not about tattling or the wisdom of hindsight. Furthermore, I am not hereby announcing a contest in which you submit your even more outrageous examples. To put this into perspective, ask yourself how you would respond to catastrophic budget cuts. As scientists and educators, what are the items we most value? What do we know about teaching and learning that would inform our decisions? Because teaching is often such a personal activity, everyone has and is entitled to his or her opinions. But as researchers and scientists, we must also look objectively at what is published, including data-based information on teaching and learning. There are at least two book chapters (2, 3) that review the primary literature concerning laboratories, and the Journal plays a prominent role in the dissemination of laboratory material. It seems that undergraduate laboratories are deeply engrained in our disciplinary psyches: the American Chemical Society (ACS) Committee on Professional Training requires 400 h for chemistry majors (4), even more if you count independent research. Chemistry should certainly include “doing it”, not just reading about it. But what
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do the data show? In fact, what some might characterize as a historical shortage of compelling evidence attesting to the value of the laboratory in helping students learn chemistry is now being supplemented by more recent publications related to the roles of guided inquiry, writing, electronic data collection, and visualization. I am not saying that the laboratory experience was not useful or educational. I am talking about trying to demonstrate its value with some certainty using unequivocal research data. This is a “call to arms” (or a “call to labs,” if you will allow me an occasional pun). How would you justify what we do with undergraduate laboratories to an administrator who is screaming about economic exigency? What do you know (i.e., data) versus what do you believe (i.e., personal empiricism)? If you are asked to make decisions about cutbacks, what would you and could you tolerate? At this point, I will remind you that the Journal has played a seminal role in the publication of laboratory content; a search of the online archives for “laboratory experiment” yields more than 10,000 citations. Information about pedagogy and best practices has appeared in both lab experiments and in articles involving chemical education research. And speaking of active roles, there is a need for the chemical education community to be prepared to make the decisions that represent the future of our discipline. Stay informed about various aspects of teaching and learning. Publish your results, particularly papers concerning best practices that include compelling outcomes and data. And prepare for the next round of economic news. Well, at least my cousin Rich got to retire and go fishing. Norbert J. Pienta Editor in Chief
Literature Cited 1. Westneat, D. No Emmert? Science Cuts Hurt More. Seattle Times, Apr 27, 2010. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2011718188_danny28.html (accessed Jun 2010). 2. Pienta, N. J.; Amend, J. Electronic Data Collection To Promote Effective Learning during Laboratory Activities. In Chemists' Guide to Effective Teaching, Pienta, N. J.; Greenbowe, T. L.; Cooper, M. M., Eds.; Prentice-Hall: New York, 2005; pp 172-185. 3. Nakhleh, M. B.; Polles, J.; Malina, E. Learning Chemistry in a Laboratory Environment. In Chemical Education: Towards ResearchBased Practice, Gilbert, J. K.; O. De Jong, Justi, R.; Treagust, D. F.; J. H. Van Driel, Eds.; Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht The Netherlands, 2003; pp 69-94. 4. The ACS Guidelines for Bachelor's Degree Programs is available at http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel= PP_TRANSITIONMAIN&node_id=1540&use_sec=false&sec_utl_ var=region1&__uuid=76d1cbeb-04ea-4c83-a1c2-012d12256a0a or by browsing to http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content and clicking Education and then the Committee on Professional Training (both URLs accessed Jun 2010).
Norbert J. Pienta is a professor in the Department of Chemistry, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1294; norbert-pienta@ jce.acs.org.
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r 2010 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc Vol. 87 No. 8 August 2010 10.1021/ed100584k Published on Web 06/15/2010
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Journal of Chemical Education
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