for Chemistry Majors: A Stronger Ethical and Behavioral Component By the end of the century, the undergraduate majors in our classes today will have posted the lion's share of whatever record they will leave to posterity. In the process they undoubtedly will set the tone and establish the basis for many of the developments in chemical science during the first third of the twenty-first century. It would be comforting to feel that the education they are receiving now will fit them for their task and commit them to even greater heights of service and creativity. For well over two decades we have been engaged in serious examination, experimentation, and revision involving science courses and curricula from elementary school through the baccalaureate degree and beyond. If we listen to our friends and our more optimistic colleagues we have been highly successful. Science education-even chemical education-is in its golden age. Never before have so many been so well-trained-in breadth, in depth, in understanding, in laboratory skills, in research competency, in ability to produce. If we listen to our critics, never before has science education expended so much energy so unwisely and unproductively. Unless there is a substantive change in the educational philosophy of academic scientists, the universities will continue to produce modernage centaurs-creatures that are half man, half robot. If we patiently examine what we have actually accomplished in all our curriculum revisions, perhaps we can admit that our spectacular successes in improved training of science majors have not been matched by corresponding successes in their education. While all would agree that the education of the science major is a responsibility that must be shared with teachers in nonscience disciplines, especially those in humaniti- and social sciences, still, a t the college level, science faculty members have by far the greatest influence on the overall education of their majors. Value and sensitivity patterns, work habits, character traits, professional posture, attitudes of all kinds-especially those toward learning, intellectual honesty and interpersonal relations-all are copied, usually to a g r e a t extent, by students from the teachers with whom they are most closely associated. While this is well-recognized, college teachers and instructional innovators like to act as if this aspect of the education process, like Caesar's wife, is beyond reproach. It is, of course, the single facet most in need of attention. Perhaps it would he helpful if we, as the scientists who teach science majors, would give much higher priority to the ethical and behavioral components of student development as we plan our presentations and our other instructional activities. To do this, we might well keepin mind the intellectual temperment of most serious science majors, and the kinds of responsibilities and challenges they are likely to encounter in their professional careers. We know that in general, the serious science student is among the highly talented in his college class. (About one-third of the top 1%of the age group going to college elect science as a career.) In general this student has accepted the heavy work-load, the intense intellectual discipline, the heightened competitiveness and the need for
editori speaking continuous self-criticism that are the lot of science majors. He also senses the prospect of a kind of social isolation, because the substance of science does not lend itself readily to social discourse. Hence, he must be encouraged to remain in contact with and interested in the larger society, to realize the importance of mutual empathy and respect among scientists and the public, and to recognize that in pursuing excellence and advancing scientific knowledge he is in fact contributing to the cause of egalitarianism, and is responsible in no trivial way for helping improve the lot of all. Arrogance, especially toward those outside his discipline, must be identified for what it is-the greatest enemy of the gifted individual. While hisday-hy-day duties, responsihilites, and challenges as a working professional may not be substantially different from those of scientists in comparable positions today, his interests and knowledge may have to be broader, his attitudes more flexible, his ahility to work with others and to appreciate and assimilate knowledge from other disciplines greater. There is good reason to believe that basic and applied science is moving more and more toward the design and operation of systems and away from the discovery, development, and production of specific items. It therefore seems important that the contemporary science major he prepa;ed in knowledge and disposition to he versatile and creative under such conditions What is needed to upgrade the education of our majors is more a change of emphasis than a restructuring of content. Much that we are doing now might well remain unchanged, but perhaps the context in which we make many of our presentations could he modified so as to provide stronger ethical and behavioral orientations-orientations that emphasize value judgments and behavioral responses that are broader and more sophisticated than has been customary. One such orientation might involve getting students to appreciate the immense impact of chemical science on human activity and the considerable responsibility of chemists to continue to make this kind of contribution. Another might he directed toward broader applications and more penetrating use of acquired knowledge. Thus oroblem-solvine could he exoanded to include identification and definition of problems, with a premium on imaeinative solutions. Students could be reauired to annlv " .. " successful experimental and theoretical approaches in entirely foreign contexts even to prohlems in other sciences. Still another orientation might focus on the nature of the creative process in chemistry, emphasizing not only individual creative acts, but those canons of conduct and objectivity upon which the integrity and progress of all of science rests. We all know that serious attention must be given to improving the ethical-behavioral component in the education of our majors. We also know that this could improve the quality of the science they produce and lead to even greater benefits. Further delay would appear to he unwise and unnecessary. WTL
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Volume 50, Number 2.
February 1973 / 87
