Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews Academic Excellence edited by Michael P. Doyle Research Corporation: Tucson, AZ, 2000. 199 pp. ISBN 0-9633504-5-5. $5.00. reviewed by Jerry R. Mohrig
Academic Excellence is a call to action for liberal arts colleges to support scientific research as a crucial component of high-quality undergraduate science education. The 13 chapters in the book are a good read, filled with thoughtful questions and valuable insights. In my opinion, every scientist and administrator at a primarily undergraduate college will benefit from reading it. The book covers three areas: achieving excellence, model programs, and supporting excellence. Each chapter has references and suggestions for further reading. Though its subtitle is The role of research in the physical sciences at undergraduate institutions, the book is relevant to all of the natural sciences. I remember well the earliest days of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), then a small group of chemists who came together at the invitation of Brian Andreen of the Research Corporation when undergraduate research funding was in deep trouble. We were filled with a missionary zeal to promote the values of undergraduate research to the academic world and beyond. I took most of a month of a sabbatical leave in 1982 to write, at the invitation of one of its members, a proposal to the National Science Board, which led directly to the Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) Program at NSF. Academic Excellence reflects this zeal. In the last decade Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) has been the major player speaking nationally for effective undergraduate science education. Although PKAL publications always mention the importance of undergraduate research, it has not been a central part of PKAL efforts. In some ways, CUR seems to have moved away from its earlier agenda. Academic Excellence attempts to bring the arguments for undergraduate research back to center stage. It was written to refute the often-cited notion that an emphasis on research necessarily detracts from the quality of science teaching and learning at primarily undergraduate institutions. Before I take up the central ideas of Academic Excellence in more detail, I must state my bias. In my 37 years of teaching, my work with almost 150 undergraduate research students is arguably the best teaching I have done. In my opinion, there is nothing nearly so powerful in teaching organic chemistry as the conversations that can occur between teachers and students when neither know the answers to the question being addressed, but both care deeply about seeking them out. I am an advocate for the importance of research in effective undergraduate science education. As one of the book’s essays points out, “Students learn science today by doing it, and obviously doing science means doing research or engaging in research-like activities.” Another
chapter states that a liberal arts college “must be concerned to preserve and enhance its central values: to endow students with capacities for learning, not simply to inculcate facts, and to encourage dispositions of curiosity and inquiry, rather than to teach rote knowledge.” It goes on to say “this aim is more complex and more interesting than simply passing on facts. It involves developing in students the habits of mind that enable them to see situations and conceive problems as chemists and physicists see and conceive them.” A third essay points out that we have known for a long time what works in the education of scientists: research-based education. In the 1980s the report from a conference held at Oberlin College stated that the primary hallmark of undergraduate science education at the almost 50 participating liberal arts institutions was the faculty–student interaction that afforded the opportunity for students to do research alongside a distinguished faculty member. Even though general recognition of the value of undergraduate research may be the most important development in undergraduate science education in the past generation, some recent data suggest that younger faculty may not be buying into its educational rationale. Its future seems cloudy at some institutions. In a few chapters there is a hint of stridency about the current situation, which does the book’s good rationale a disservice. Perhaps it is an inevitable occurrence, since we are reminded regularly in the book that a “fire in the belly” is a hallmark of those faculty who maintain strong undergraduate research programs. NSF systemic change initiatives of the 1990s brought reform of the undergraduate chemistry curriculum to the forefront. The teaching of lower-division classes and laboratories was in great need of reform, and this process, although still young, is well underway. Some talented, energetic young faculty members have spent time on these reform efforts rather than involving students in their scholarship. They may have lost sight of the fact that it is necessary that we all be practicing scientists as well as teachers. Again quoting from Academic Excellence, “good science instruction emerges from broadgauge programs, usually though not necessarily, departmental programs, offering a rich and diverse fare that significantly supplements and extends the curriculum.” Attention to the development of new ways of teaching our courses is important but not sufficient for excellent undergraduate science education. A strong, positive research environment is also necessary, although it is not valid to say that it is the only necessary component of an excellent undergraduate science program. In this regard the title, Academic Excellence, is somewhat misleading, even though the authors of a number of the chapters make it clear that a carefully crafted, creative curriculum is as important as a research environment. One chapter points out the synergy between the two, suggesting that while investigative, hands-on learning in class and laboratory is not research, it builds a research-like thought process that helps students learn science in a more intensive manner. It is the obligation of individual institutions to consider and debate the priorities they wish to make and the choices that may flow from those priorities. Useful advice on this
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 79 No. 2 February 2002 • Journal of Chemical Education
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Chemical Education Today
Book & Media Reviews process can be found sprinkled throughout Academic Excellence. The last section in the book and an appendix cover suggestions for paying the costs of undergraduate research and sources of funding it. Every major educational innovation in the past 50 years has had some hard going after a period of initial success. Many of them have passed from the scene with little lasting influence. I certainly hope that this will not be the case with
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undergraduate research. Academic Excellence makes a convincing case that if strong undergraduate research programs were to pass from the liberal-arts college scene, undergraduate science education, liberal arts colleges, and indeed the nation, would all be poorer for it. Jerry R. Mohrig is in the Department of Chemistry, Carleton College, Northfield, MN 55057;
[email protected].
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 79 No. 2 February 2002 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
