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.
A series of three-month periods of full-time work for pay commensurate with the value of the job performance has much to offer in the training of chemistry majors for graduate school or for industrial/government positions.
Indiana-Purdue University at Indianapolis Peter Rubideau Department of Chemistry IC1PIII is a State-suppwted University in Indiana's largest city. It has more than 20,000 students and an established record of working with the surrounding community. The name Ilni\erCit\r" IS alxm~uriate .. . in view of its clwe relationshin with local business, industry and government. Students who seek entry into the M.S. Industrial Co-op Program in Chemistry are first admitted as graduate students in the usual fashion. The first semester consists only of coursework, and during this period students visit local industry and make formal application to the co-op option. At the end of the first semester, a "parallel" co-op experience heeins which consists of 20 hours ner week at a local industrial " laboratory with the remaining time (e.g. afternoons and evenings) devoted to coursework and thesis research. This pattern then continues for the duration of the program (24 months). Stipends are awarded a t the rate of $400 per month for the first semester and near $700 per month after the work experience begins. In the event a student is not accepted into (or does not choose) the co-op option hut is neverthkless in good standing, he or she may continue to receive support as a teaching or research assistant in the department until the decree is completed. he program is managed by myself and a committee consisting of the departmental rrsearch and graduate studies committee (4). adjunct farulty members (4) and official rep-
resentatives from each of the industries currently involved (3). The program is new and will admit eight students for the first time in the fall of 1980. We envision reaching a level of 10 to 15 first- and second-year student particip&ts in the program. Substantial commitments have been made by all parties concerned. Local industry and the University will share in sunnortina students for the first semester. which consists onlv ofcoursework. The University will also drovide complete remission of tuition and fees. After the work exnerience heeins students will receive a "salary" directly from the i n d u s k a l laboratory. Since the program is new, we have few experiences to share. We have, however, found I d industrv to he enthusiastic and cooperative, and the planning and fo&ulation of the program has been a joint effort. The following points should be noted: 1)we are an urhan university and as such interaction with the Indianapoli~community is part uf tmr 'missmi". 2, them ~ h t ~ be l da lceit!mnte plarr in the job market for welltrained -arndu~teehemrsti w h stAd itidustrial experience. 3) By this means the M.S. degree in chemistry should once more he established as a worthwhile academic accomplishment. 4) industriallacademicinteraction is enhanced by such programs, particularly in a "parallel" arrangement where both industrial and academic chemists serve together in monitoring the progress of students.
We are very optimistic about the value of this new program to our students, our department, and.our industrial community.
Volume 57, Number 6, June 1980 / 441
