Academic Involvement edited by: GeoffreyDavies and Alan L. McClelland This month's column is concerned with the academic side of providing cooperative educational opportunities for students in chemistry. We have gatheied information on three well-established undereraduate oroerams (Drexel. Rochester Institute of . ~ e c h n o l and o ~ ~ niversit~~ o ef n k e s s e ea t Knoxville), and a new endeavor a t the Masters level (Indiana UniversitvPurdue University at indianapuli?;~. Although all the propams have a common coal, they diifer sienificantlv in detail. All three undergraduate owpemrivr programs are found at schools operating on a quarter (i.e., 11-weekterm) schedule. All are formal, 5-year progrdms; Drexcl requires I8 months of outside work experience ior graduation, hut co-op at the other svhwls is optional.'l'wu oithe programs (which have a high dcgreeof student involvement) are managed bga special Uni\.er*ity Coqwrdtive Education Division, but smaller student groups can he well managed by a committed chemistry deoiutment. as at Tennessee. I)r. Shirlev feels that roooerative programs are feasible on a semester schedule, and that the burden of dunlicatine courses can he relieved bv " uuoerclass .. pooling the resources of several schools in a district. The MS Industrial Chemistry Co-op Program a t Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis will be one of very few cooperative programs in chemistry at the graduate level, and may do something to improve the image of the MS in chemistrv.l I t seems appropriate to administer such programs within a chemistr$department itself, rather than-in a separate university unit (e.g., a Co-op Division). Frequent contact with student participants a t IUPUI should be beneficial to all concerned. The comments which follow are those of faculty who are committed to career education through cooperative education and show what can he done to helo students oreoare for their future careers. We applaud theseefforts an2 look forward to hearine of new academic initiatives in coouerative education in chemistry.
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Drexel University
J a c k G. Kay Department of Chemistry The program of cooperative education was initiated a t Drexel in 1919 for students in engineering. After 60 years of continuous operation, this program has been extended to include over 95% of all students in Drexel's five undergraduate colleges. During the past year, more than 3,000 Drexel students were placed in study-related jobs with more than 1,000 cooperating employers located in 28 states and foreign countries. A kev comoonent of the Drexel Plan for Coouerative Education in chenlisrry is mandatory participation. A second distinrmishine.feature is theG months ttwoacademicauartt.rri) emplo~mentberiodalternating with 6 months on campus. 1; order to qualify for graduation, each student must complete 18 months in industry during the five-year B.S. degree program. The first co-op period begins during the sophomore year and the last is completed prior to the senior year. Thus, during the middle years (sophomore, pre-junior, and junior) half of each class is on campus during the winter and spring and the other half is on campus during the summer and fall. This arrangement is good for employers because they can budget for one co-op position for a full year and accommodate
two students workine 6 months at a time. For the student. a fi month rmplugment period provides time to uvercome an initial adiusrmrnt neriod and reallvsettle intothe ioh. On the other hand, after imonths away flom the books, I;lot of students may need to review previous classroom work before resuming their studies on campus. Ordinarily, students are expected to concentrate on their jobs and not take courses while in industry. Students on co-op are paid competitive salaries. Each student negotiates his salary directly with the employer. The Cooperative Education Coordinator matches the student to the job, but the student is free to turn a job down or, even, to find a different job subject to approval by the Coordinator. The Coordinator must he familiar with the various employers and types of positions and must know and understand kach student'sabilitiks and interests. After a co-op period, the Coordinator reviews the student's report of the work experience and the employer's evaluation bf the student's performance. A student often will return to the same employer during subsequent periods; but only if this is mutually agreeable. Some students like the idea of trying different employers in order to broaden their experiences. Many studeints are offered permanent positions with their co-op employers after graduations Our experience shows that chemistry students in the Drexel program twicallv are more mature. more confident about their goa1s;ind more serious about their profession as they approach maduation. Thev have had a chance to find out what employm&t as a chemistis like, and they would not have remained as chemistry majors if they had not been satisfied. They have a mature basis on which to decide between employment and a graduate or professional school after graduation. Whether they go into industry or whether they enter a strong graduate program in chemistry, these students are able to enter a laboratory and become productive without requiring several months for adjustment to the new situation. The value of cooperative education as an integral part of a straong academic program in chemistry is undeniable as far as Drexel University is concerned. The faculty and administration are fully committed to continuing the co-op plan in the sciences, engineering, and other technical areas, where it has been shown to be effective in improvine the aualitv . . of education.
Rochester Institute of Technology Y. Stephen Yamamoto College of Science Co-op a t RIT is almost as old as the concept itself, having been initiated in 1912 while the school was still called Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute. It has now evolved into an integral part of the career decision making process. Co-op is viewed as more than just a vehicle to bring the cost of an education a t a private college in line with one at a state school. for it also offers the uniaue . on~ortunitvof viewine an actual work environment from the inside while one is still in a formative staee of career develoument. This nrocess occurs at a critical juncture in the student's life and often serves to reinforce or even cause a re-evaluation of career goals. .A
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Worthy, W., Chem. and Eng. News, Nov. 12,1979, p. 33. Volume 57, Number 6, June 1980 1 439
1'0further tmphnsize the symbiosis of working, teaching and learning. the Di\.ision of Carper Education was creat,ed in 1977 with a [)pan nmointrd toadminister the onerations. Career education a t RIT is viewed as, ". . .a set of educational nrocesses desiened to assure a develonmental interaction l ~ r t w r nthe individud and the opportunities and limitations ,>i the norld of *murk thna~ehiormnl and inhrmal trachine" and learning." Career Education is responsible for the implementation and integration of career and academic advisement, career education research and development, career placement, information dissemination and processing, and most relevantly, experiential learning. The latter component includes cooperative education which is but one of six forms of gaining actual work experience offered at RIT. Without going into detail as to the differentiation, the others are apprenticeship, field experience, internship, simulation/practicum, and part-time employment. The directors and coordinators of exneriential learning" are all professionals in one of the disciplines they serve, with faculty rank in that department. For example, as the Coordinator for the College of Science, I have a doctoral degree in organic chemistrv with seven vears industrial research exoerience and nuw hold the rank of assoriaic professor otchemistry, althouch . my . nlainr responsihilits is the administration of the co-op program. The advantages of such an arrangement are obvious in terms of interaction not onlv with the students, faculty and administration of the colleg~,hut also with employers. RIT clearly has a high degree of commitment to cooperative education. The Chemistry Department a t RIT offers program leading to the A.S. in Chemistry, A.A.S. in Chemical Technology, and B.S. and M S . degrees in Chemistry. Co-op is optional and carries no credit. The B.S. program requires five years with approximately 8045% of the more than 100 students participating in up to seven alternating co-op work quarters in the last four years. Chemical technicians are eligible for co-op after one quarter of classes and nearly all of the 50 students work five quarters during their three years. Chemistry students are currently employed on a regular or seasonal basis by over 20 industrial, governmental, publicowned utilities, and health care agencies, ranging from concerns with less than a dozen employees to one with over 50,MN). A few co-op as far away as San Jose or Atlanta, but most are in the Northeast with the greatest percentage of these in Rochester itself. Institute wide, approximately 2,100 students in 19 different degree programs work for more than 500 employers. Although a student must spend an extra year in obtaining a degree, the career growth, experience and financial considerations are decisive factors. In fact, the primary, easily visible distinguishing feature of RIT in comparison to the surrounding colleges is the quality of and emphasis on its cooperative and career education programs.
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University of Tennessee at Knoxville David A. Shirley Department of Chemisti-3 My theme is that a chemistry department having an ACS approved curriculum can profit from a cooperative education nl& involvine its students with exnerience in a naid. nrohuctive job asan adjunct to school work. Starting k c h s a n s involves a mixture of nroblems and o~oortunitiesand a few notes about the matuie and continuoiky active program a t the University of Tennessee, Knoxville should be appropriate. Our program was started in 1955 and was modeled after our long-standing engineering college co-op plan of alternating quarters of work in industrial or govenunent laboratories with work in school. After the students complete the Freshman 440 1 Journal of Chemical Education
vear.. one half of the participants begin working the fourth .
(summer) quarter and the other halfihe fifth (fall) quarter. The alternation continues through to the senior vear with a normal tvul oiseven qunrtrrs on the joh. Student participwts are nearly ahvavs pared and soscheduled that a single lob is occupiedcontinuously. Students cannot enter the program later than the end of the sophomore year, giving a minimum of four or five work auarters. Less exnerience than this offers the student insufficfent opportunit;for growth of responsihilitv on the iob. which we believe to he an imnortant educational feature. k p l e vacation periods are scheduled for each student. The total period required for the B.S. degree is five years for the co-op student. The majvrity of our students haw worked in government laboratories, nnmrly DOE in1 Oak Ridge National Lahorntory and TVA at Muscle Shoals. Alahama, but industrial lahs ha\,e been in\folwd as well. In our exprritmce thr gwernmmt lahs offer exrellrnr wntinuity in jut~ifor student6 while industrial organizatims tend tu show a more vnriahle need and interest in chemistry co-ops. \Ve monitur the jobs fur their ed~~cational component and &tually all of our students have worked as assistants to experienced chemists in research and development laboratories. The Engineering program at Tennessee has found over several decades that about 20-25% of the students are interested in pursuing the co-op route and the chemistry program has observed a similar level of interest. We normallv have 8 i 2 students in the chemistry program with the outsiie limits since 1955 of four and twelve. One might question the value of a program with this rather low level of student participation. We would answer that it is not difficult to set up the program as only a small fraction of the time of one professor plus a little secretarial and telephone expense is involved. At the same time the program is of great value to the student participants for reasons of financial reward and solid chemiial lahiratory experience. We have never considered using any of the alternative "co-op" experiences involving only summer work, part-time work, work in the university chemistry department, and no-pay jobs. Our program operates, as does the university, on the quarter system, and this probably gives the best scheduling opportunity, although schools on the semester plan can work out satisfactory alternating work-school terms. What are the maior nroblems in startine a co-op roara am? Of primary cuncem isihe si7e of the srhc;ul and ihe numher of chemistrv maiors. Small schools have diff:cult\ ri\inr the two offerings of key courses needed for the alterna&gwork/ school schedules of the students. It is necessary to have trailins sections of such courses as organic, physical-and elementary analytical as well as those in math, physics, computer science and the like. Since students can spend nearly all of their senior years in school, single offerings of the advanced, more specialized courses will suffice. Neiehborine smaller schools can work together to atngger offerings of key sophomore and junior rourses to offset the scheduline-. nrd)lems. hut isolated small schools may find it too expensive to provide the necessary duplicate courses. A second problem is keeping the student/joh supply-demand eauation in balance. The student sumlv tends to remain relatively constant but the job supply i k f l u c t u a t e hetween wide limits, tendina to follow the overall iob market for baccalaureate level chen&ts. It is worthwhili to keep a joh base in the government laboratory area, because the demand here is steadier, and then work with those industrial concerns who seem to have prospects for a record of steady utilization of co-ops. A third problem area is the level of faculty interest. In our exnerience a facultv of ten members contains one or two who heiieve in the benekts of co-op education and will work a t it, one or two who are hostile to the idea and the rest who have a rather passive attitude toward the whole matter. This distribution of facultv interest will allow new . orograms to start and old programs to continue.
