Making Connections to the Liberal Arts College Mission: Exploring

Chapter 11

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Making Connections to the Liberal Arts College Mission: Exploring Identity and Purpose in a Chemistry Course Amanda S. Harper-Leatherman* Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, Connecticut 06824, United States *E-mail: [email protected].

A forensic science course for non-majors was recently redesigned to be taught to a group of sophomores taking part in a living and learning dormitory community known as the Sophomore Residential College Program at Fairfield University. This program gives students the opportunity to explore identity, community, and purpose through mentoring, retreats, activities and focused courses. The redesigned forensics course focused on what is individualizing about physical evidence at crime scenes to give students a physical, chemical, and biological approach to considering self-identity. Topics included fingerprinting, blood typing, hair analysis, DNA analysis, and drug analysis. Students worked through many laboratory experiments to solve a mock crime but also were given opportunities to explore concepts and topics through response papers, presentations, and discussions. An optional interdisciplinary forum related to a classical hair exhibit also complemented the exploration of identity in the course.

Introduction to Forensic Science as a ‘Core Science’ Course All undergraduate students at Fairfield University, a Jesuit school with a broad liberal arts based curriculum, are required to take two science courses to graduate out of about twenty-two required general education core curriculum courses. Each of the science departments offer stand-alone courses that are usually topical in nature and that do not lead to other courses that are known as ‘core science © 2017 American Chemical Society Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


courses’. In the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department, some examples are a Chemistry of Nutrition course and a Chemistry, Energy & Environment course, in addition to the Introduction to Forensic Science course discussed in this chapter. In general, core science courses should teach students about the scientific method and experimental design used to solve problems, should give students some experience collecting and/or analyzing data, and should help students understand how to use scientific reasoning to assess the validity of claims or theories (1). The Introduction to Forensic Science course was developed based on knowledge gained at a National Science Foundation Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops and Community of Scholars (cCWCS) workshop on Forensic Science (2, 3). The course has been taught four times by the author, including one time as a Sophomore Residential College course. In the course, the students learn about the scientific techniques used for the analysis of common types of physical evidence encountered at crime scenes by doing laboratory investigations to solve a mock crime set up at the start of the semester. The students, therefore, get hands-on experience with the scientific method, with collecting data, and with drawing conclusions from data to fulfill the objectives of a core science course. The learning objectives for the course are: • • •

•

• • •

• • • • • •

Define forensic science, the roles of a forensic scientist, and describe the services of a typical comprehensive crime laboratory. Characterize physical evidence and distinguish different physical and chemical forms of evidence. Recognize many scientific and identification techniques utilized in the analysis of crime scenes, for example, fingerprinting, blood typing analysis, and DNA analysis. Describe the basic principles underlying the scientific and identification techniques used at crime scenes, and use these principles in the analysis of physical evidence. Explain the theories involved with determining the value of evidence or the value of the analysis of evidence. Understand and conduct steps to properly examine a mock crime scene and collect evidence. Use the scientific method to solve a mock crime, including forming a hypothesis, collecting data, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions from the data. Analyze the value and reliability of scientific results. Evaluate the power and the limitations of science with regards to forensic study. Communicate laboratory findings and conclusions in written reports and in oral presentations. Explain and analyze the results of case studies and express arguments for and against a case study result. Express the legal considerations at a crime scene, with regards to drugs/ DNA, and in regards to admissibility of evidence in court. Work effectively with other people to learn concepts in class and to solve a mock crime. 186 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


The course meets twice per week (75 minutes each meeting) in a 14 week semester except for some weeks with only one meeting due to holidays. Class time is used for lecture and laboratory experiments. Out of twenty-five class days, about fifteen are used for laboratory work. Based on the amount of labwork performed, the course is capped as if it were a lab course at 16 students. This schedule is greatly facilitated by a classroom that accommodates a variety of activities such as lecture presentations, discussions, and labwork. At Fairfield University, a laboratory room was renovated into such a space in 2008 with stationary benchtop tables with sinks arranged around a presentation area on one side of the room and movable benchtop tables available on the other side of the room. The room arrangement allows for great flexibility in use for labwork, presentations, activities, or discussions (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Flexible classroom with spaces that can be used for laboratory, presentations, discussions, and other activities. After spending time learning background material about forensics, physical evidence, and crime scene analysis in the first three to four weeks of the semester using the Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Science textbook by Richard Saferstein as a guide (4), the majority of the semester is spent learning about and getting experience with specific types of physical evidence and their associated analytical techniques in order to solve the mock crimes. The teaching involves lecturing and discussions to explore the background and underlying scientific principles behind the forensic techniques supplemented by homework assignments in which students are asked to write short response papers about the content or related cases often to help students think about the material in a 187 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


broader context. Discussion and analysis of real life case studies gives the course material important relevance. As mentioned earlier, about fifteen class days are used for students to learn about evidence and techniques through laboratory experiments as they work to solve their mock crimes. About five types of physical evidence analysis techniques can be taught and performed by students per semester. Techniques have included fingerprint analysis, blood spatter analysis, ink chromatography, drug analysis, glass analysis, blood typing, microscopic hair analysis, and DNA fingerprinting. Active learning is a key part of the course as the students take analyzing mock crime evidence into their own hands throughout the semester during scheduled laboratory experiments. Evidence shows that active learning strategies in the classroom help students perform better on exams and on other assessments (5). To organize the mock crime analysis for the semester, the class is split into three groups of five to six students per group. A different mock crime is planned for each group to take place around the fifth week of the semester after much of the introductory material has been taught. A day of the class schedule is designated for mock crime analysis. Prior to this day, the students are given some time to get together with their groups to assign mock crime scene investigation roles including photographer, sketch artist, evidence collector(s), notetaker, and fingerprint duster. A discussion is facilitated to make sure all groups understand the types of evidence to look for and how to fulfill the various roles. Ahead of the designated mock crime analysis class day, mock evidence is planted for each group in three locations adjacent to the lecture/laboratory room including two storerooms and an adjacent laboratory. One or two colleagues or volunteer students are recruited to act out some portion of the mock crime for the students in each group. Then towards the start of the designated mock crime analysis day, the class is notified of the ‘incidents’ taking place in the nearby spaces as each mock crime scene’s actor calls out for help or comes to class to announce that something needs to be investigated. The three groups then split up to investigate each of the three mock crimes and begin their work to document their mock crime scenes and to collect evidence. An example of one of the mock crime scenarios that has been used in the course is a student found unconscious on the floor of a storeroom near a rolling ladder with broken glass, blood spatter, unknown white powder, a crumpled note, and hair and fingerprint evidence around the fallen student. After the student actor comes to, she explains how she was working in the storeroom as part of her workstudy as a chemistry stockroom worker and was attacked from behind. When asked who might have done this, she explains a fight she had with her boyfriend about a cheating incident with another female student. A few days later, further information is given to the students assigned to this mock crime indicating that the two students mentioned were questioned and said that the fallen student is dishonest and probably fell from the ladder on her own and wanted to make up a story to blame them for the incident. Therefore, the students assigned to this mock crime have the job to use the evidence collected to try to determine whether someone (and who) attacked the fallen student or if the fall was an accident. Over the course of the semester, as each new evidence analysis technique is taught, time to practice with the technique is built into the schedule prior to analyzing collected mock crime evidence with the newly learned technique. 188 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

After each analysis, the students write reports describing their results and the conclusions that can be drawn from the results concerning the mock crimes. By the end of the semester, each group has analyzed the range of evidence collected from the mock crimes. Each group then puts all the analyses together to draw some final conclusions about what occurred at each mock crime. The groups present a summary of all of their results and conclusions as oral presentations for the class in the last week of the semester. The grading breakdown for the course is 10% class participation, 10% homework, 25% laboratory reports, 5% group presentations, 20% midterm exam, and 30% final comprehensive exam.


Residential College Program at Fairfield University An important aspect of Fairfield University is its identification as a Jesuit university. One of the main goals of a Jesuit education is not only to educate students but to educate them with a goal to serve others and to act for the greater good (6). The Jesuit education is known for being based on Ignatian pedagogy in which experience, reflection, and action are a continual part of the learning process. In addition, as a Jesuit school, Fairfield also works to care for the whole student, as described in the idea, ‘cura personalis’. Faculty and staff work to help students develop as whole people and not simply as students with certain academic inclinations (7). The Sophomore Residential College Program at Fairfield University naturally grew out of the Jesuit values of the school. However, although the program resonates with Fairfield’s Jesuit mission, this type of program is not unique to Jesuit schools and is a ‘living and learning’ program similar to other such programs across the country at a wide variety of schools (8–13). The Fairfield program offers a way for sophomore students to deeply engage with developing as whole people and to integrate all they are learning in their broad-based liberal arts education by being part of a community of students who are interested in exploring questions of identity, community, and purpose (14). Oftentimes, ‘living and learning’ programs have been developed across the country for first-year students. The Residential College program at Fairfield focuses on sophomores to cater to the specific academic and social needs students have after the first ‘orientation’ year of college including more serious consideration of majors, careers, social relationships, and identity (15). Students live in proximity to each other within the dorms, they take one class each semester of the sophomore year designated as a Residential College course with other students in the program, and they participate in monthly meetings led by adult mentors as well as occasional retreats, dinners, and service projects. The opportunities for reflection and learning about identity, community, and vocation help students develop as individuals and as a group and give students the confidence and sense of responsibility needed to become leaders and change agents in the world. There are currently three different residential colleges each with a theme: Ignatian, Creative Life, and Service for Justice. Three overarching questions guide the year-long reflection for each community. All three colleges explore, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Whose am I?’ and then each college has its own vocation related question, 189 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


‘Who am I called to be?’ (Ignation), ‘How am I called to serve justice?’ (Service for Justice), and ‘How do I live a creative and examined life?’ (Creative Life). The outcomes that students can expect by being a part of each community vary based on the community theme, but some common outcomes for students taking part in the program are to develop personal awareness, identify passions and begin to pursue them, develop meaningful relationships, become reflective, community-oriented individuals, and consider self-reflection and learning as a life-long process. Residential College courses are a significant part of the program helping students make connections between their academic learning and the mentored self-reflection happening in their monthly residence hall meetings. The opportunity exists for students to share what they are learning in class with other students and mentors within the residence hall and for faculty to use the residence hall to connect with students in a different way to enhance learning. In general, the courses designated as Residential College courses should be designed or modified in some way to address the goals and one or more of the overarching questions of the Residential Colleges. Residential College faculty are encouraged to use Ignatian pedagogy such as opportunities for student reflection and experiential learning whenever appropriate to tie in with the reflective learning they are doing in the residence halls. Faculty can also try to tie in awareness of residence hall events into their courses when appropriate and are encouraged to enhance the student living and learning experience by organizing activities within the residence halls when possible. Research has shown that the integration of living and learning is greatly enhanced when faculty engage with students within the residence halls (12). Some examples of activities that Residential College faculty have organized within the residence halls for their courses are conducting class sessions, office hours, or review sessions, informally advising students, showing movies related to a course, and hosting social or informal gatherings with students. As a faculty member, there are opportunities and advantages to teaching a Residential College course that do not exist with other teaching situations. For instance, it is an advantage to teach students who have engaged in this program, as it has been a personal decision for each student to take part in this intentional community demonstrating a level of motivation and academic commitment that the average student may not possess. Faculty have the unique opportunity to promote intentional learning beyond the classroom in this program, to share resources and ideas with other Residential College faculty, and to make use of programmatic funding to enhance courses with field trips, guest speakers, or other out-of-classroom activities.

Teaching Introduction to Forensic Science in the Residential College Program As mentioned above, teaching a course in the Residential College program involves designing or modifying the course in some way to address the program goals and one or more of the overarching questions of the Residential Colleges. All the other goals of a course stay the same and each course still fulfills whatever curricular requirement it was originally designed to fulfill. The Introduction to 190 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Forensic Science course was taught in the Residential College program in Fall 2015, and it remained a core science course with all course goals intact. New goals were simply added and certain aspects of the course were emphasized over others. All the Residential College fall courses are typically designed to make sure at least some aspect of the course addresses the guiding question, ‘Who am I?’ Spring courses then focus on the other two guiding questions to help students work through the guided reflection on the questions in a systematic way throughout the year. Many Residential College courses may come at the question of, ‘Who am I?’ from a philosophical, religious or humanist approach as students consider their backgrounds, upbringings, relationships, passions and futures and how these intertwine with examples from philosophy, religion, or history, for example that they may learn about in class. However, it is also possible to come at the ‘Who am I?’ question from a basic scientific, physical, chemical and/or biological perspective and the Introduction to Forensic Science Residential College course helps students do just that. A scientifically focused ‘Who am I?’ question naturally aligns with the Introduction to Forensics course as much of forensics is concerned with physical evidence related to human identification. A major goal of forensics is to help reconstruct and determine crime scene events from physical evidence and often a big part of this reconstruction is identifying a victim and/or a perpetrator. Therefore, the Residential College Introduction to Forensic Science course is focused primarily on learning about the analysis of pieces of evidence that are specific to human identification including fingerprint analysis, blood typing, microscopic hair analysis, and DNA analysis. In addition, drug analysis, or unknown powder analysis, is also included due to the influence of drug use on human behavior and the societal, medical, and legal aspects of acceptable use. Some of the specific scientific active learning objectives are to use fingerprint development and identification techniques, to microscopically identify blood type through simulated antibody/antigen reactions, to microscopically examine the cuticle, cortex and medulla of hair strands, to use the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gel electrophoresis to compare short tandem repeat regions of DNA, and to use preliminary screening drug identification tests. In addition to focusing the course primarily on evidence used for human identification, the analysis of each piece of physical evidence is also taught to help students understand what is physically, chemically, and biologically common about the evidence to all humans and what on the other hand can be unique about the evidence from person to person. In this way, students can try to put into perspective what they have in common with other humans and what may make them individual from a scientific perspective. As an example, part of the semester is spent learning about fingerprinting and most people are aware that fingerprints can be used to help determine who may have been present at a crime scene. But instead of delving straight into the specifics of how to match a fingerprint with a person, the discussion first involves the aspects of fingerprints that are common to all humans. All invisible prints from fingers can contain some combination of fatty acids, proteins and salts and so these compounds are defined and explained to be universal classes of chemical compounds that are 191 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


common to all humans and animals in general. While this kind of discussion would be appropriate whether this class were taught for the Residential College or not, because the Residential College students are immersed in the question of ‘Who am I?’ emphasizing the concepts of common and individual characteristics can naturally be more meaningful for these students. Once students learn about the chemical make-up of invisible fingerprints, the discussion then turns to learning about the patterns contained in fingerprints. Again, emphasis is placed on what is common and what is individualizing about the patterns. There are three common patterns that all fingerprints fall into, but it is the more detailed aspects of the fingerprints that make them unique to individuals. It is a goal for students to learn about the common classifications and the individual details in fingerprints in order to compare fingerprints found at their mock crime scenes to those of suspected mock criminals. The assessments and grading for the Residential College Introduction to Forensic Science course have remained the same compared to the course not taught for the Residential College. The homework writing assignments work particularly well in the Residential College course to help students delve deeper into some of the topics especially as they relate to questions of identity or the human side of science. Students are asked to read articles on certain topics and write one to two page response papers about three or four times throughout the semester. An example of an assignment given towards the start of the semester is to consider what the CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) effect is, if it seems to be real, and if so, if it is good or bad for society. Another example given during the DNA unit is to consider if other factors besides genetics determine identity and what subset of the population would be appropriate to include in a DNA database. The students complete the assignments and submit on the course management system, Blackboard, prior to class and then the first 15-20 minutes of class are used to have a discussion about the topics to help consider the different perspectives and points of view. These assignments help students put what they are learning into a broader perspective to consider the true possibilities and limitations of the science. Residential College course faculty are encouraged to help students make connections between course material and events on campus to help integrate living and learning whenever possible. In the fall of 2015, a special exhibit was on display at the Fairfield University Art Museum entitled, “Hair in the Classical World (16).” The exhibit focused on hair arrangement in ancient Greece, Cyprus and Rome and its meaning in terms of identity, wealth, social status, ritual, and divine iconography. The exhibit made a nice connection between information students in the Residential College Introduction to Forensic Science course were learning about microscopic properties of hair related to identity and other aspects of hair related to identity. Public faculty panels related to different aspects of the exhibit were organized to spur discussion related to the art in conjunction with the exhibit. The author was a member of a panel entitled, “Science, Health and Marketing of Hair,” and presented material related to the basic morphology of hair and what kinds of questions can and cannot be answered with microscopic hair analysis such as species identification, age determination, gender determination, etc. Students were encouraged to attend the panel discussion and were offered 192 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

extra credit for attending and writing a response discussing what hair means to identity from either an emotional, social, or scientific perspective.


Outcomes and Future Plans Overall, the response to the Residential College version of the Introduction to Forensic Science course by the students was positive with students commenting most frequently on their end-of-semester course evaluations that the mock crime scene analysis and associated labwork were most helpful to their learning. The students performed well on the midterm and final exams as well as the other assessments throughout the semester. The labwork definitely seemed to help the students meet the scientific learning objectives, bringing the topics to life for them and giving them hands-on practice developing and identifying fingerprints, identifying blood types, using hairs for species identification, using PCR and electrophoresis for DNA analysis, and using chemical tests for preliminary drug identification. At least one student commented that the professor connected the material back to the Residential College goals, but it would have been nice to see more students comment on this aspect of the course. The course will be offered as a Residential College course again in Fall 2017 and the plan will be to make the connections to the Residential College ‘Who am I?’ theme even more obvious by tailoring the writing response papers to this topic more clearly and designing the mock crimes to more specifically focus on unknown person identification. A final exam review session was held for the class in the residence hall, and this will be repeated in Fall 2017 with a residence hall midterm exam review session added as well. In addition, a class field trip to a forensic institute in the vicinity will be planned to enhance the out-of-class experience for the students.

Conclusion Redesigning the Introduction to Forensic Science core science course for the Sophomore Residential College made it possible to expose students to the scientific perspective of who they are in addition to the traditional liberal arts perspective. The topic of forensics was a natural fit to incorporate concepts of identity from a scientific perspective because of the many human identification techniques used to analyze physical evidence. Students learned about what is possible with forensics always coming back to the questions of how all humans are similar and how they can be individualized.

Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Dr. Marice Rose for her leadership of the academic portion of the Sophomore Residential College program at Fairfield University and for including Introduction to Forensic Science in the program. The author also wishes to thank the editors of this volume for the invitation to submit a manuscript and the reviewers for their advice. 193 Kloepper and Crawford; Liberal Arts Strategies for the Chemistry Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

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Making Connections to the Liberal Arts College Mission: Exploring

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