Chemical Education Today
Association Report: CUR
Opportunities and Issues in Research and Education: CUR Fourth April Dialogue by Bridget Gourley Dibble Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) held its Fourth April Dialogue in Arlington, Virginia on April 15– 17, 1999. Rita Colwell, Director of the National Science Foundation, gave the opening plenary address, “Surfing and Sailing in the Information Age”. In her remarks, she spoke of her strong support for undergraduate research, the importance of integrating teaching and research, and the need to educate students both broadly and deeply. Through her own work with students, she is aware of the extent to which research helps students extend their knowledge and strengthen their Rita Colwell, Director of the problem-solving skills. Colwell National Science Foundanoted the importance of the tion, gives keynote address cultural, social, and economic to the April Dialogue audiimpacts of today’s rapidly ence. Photo by Council on changing technology. IncreasUndergraduate Research. ingly, students need to be trained as creative problem solvers who can see beyond cookbook solutions. Students graduating in 1999 can expect to have seven or eight career changes; their education can be expected to continue from cradle to grave. In talking about specific issues near and dear to the heart of Journal readers, Colwell emphasized the revised the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program that helps faculty members integrate research-like experiences into courses (more about the CCLI program later in this article). Over the next couple of years, NSF will be looking at all components of the Education and Human Resources (EHR) Directorate, trying to find ways to further leverage the dollars for education to provide a more comprehensive approach to improving the education of our nation in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET). Colwell discussed a new program to provide opportunities for more scientists to acquire teaching experience early in their career by bringing science education into the career paths of Ph.D. students. In this program, SMET Ph.D. graduate students receive fellowships to teach SMET material in a K–12 setting or undergraduate college. This year, NSF received 146 preliminary proposals representing requests for $50 million in this new program. Clearly the competition will be steep, since only $7.5 million is available to start the program. Colwell said NSF is looking for new ways to reward those teaching first-year college students their scientific basics. She is looking for feedback from the educational community and asked us to contact her with suggestions we might have. In concluding her prepared remarks, Colwell emphasized current changes that are placing unprecedented demands on educators, but they are also providing us with unprecedented 886
opportunities. We must learn to accommodate a range of ways of learning and to create entirely new paradigms of learning. In fielding questions from the audience, she reminded us that we all need to encourage Congress to bring NSF’s budget up from $4 billion to $14 billion in order to bring it in line with the other major agencies (i.e., NIH, DOE, and NASA) funding SMET. A second session that was of critical importance to chemical educators was the panel discussion on the EHR Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) CCLI program. Many readers will remember the old Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement (ILI) program that has been a part of EHR DUE for many years. For faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs), ILI was a lifeline, providing our students with necessary hands-on experience with modern instrumentation. However, in recent years it has become increasingly difficult to make a convincing justification for new and novel experiments that one would develop if ILI funded a NMR, IR, GC–MS, or other common piece of equipment. Yet, many schools still need NSF’s help to obtain this instrumentation. Under the new program, the Adaptation and Implementation (A&I) track of CCLI (1), you can now make a convincing argument for why a specific piece of equipment ought to be incorporated into the curriculum for your students and how you will adapt effective materials and practices from other institutions to make a positive change in your institution. Additionally, you can now include faculty development components into your proposal to maximize the benefit your institution will receive. All three panelists discussing the CCLI program—Susan Hixson, Lead Program Director for the Course and Curriculum Development Section of DUE at NSF; Jill Singer, Associate Professor of Geology at Buffalo State College; and Girja Subramaniam, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Penn State University—echoed the importance of being explicit
CUR members John Newman, David Elmes (President-Elect), and Charlotte Otto (President) converse at opening reception while, in the background, several undergraduates show the posters that they presented at the CUR Undergraduate Research Posters on Capitol Hill event the previous day. Photo by Council on Undergraduate Research.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 76 No. 7 July 1999 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Chemical Education Today edited by
Judith A. Halstead Skidmore College Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Alison Biddle of Connecticut College shows her research results to CUR member John Newman at the April Dialogue opening reception. Photo by Council on Undergraduate Research.
in your proposal about how you will adapt ideas to your institution, about the impact the CCLI grant will have on your department or institution, and about the evaluation component of your project. Singer and Subramaniam have both served on review panels for the old ILI program as well as on review panels for CCLI proposals submitted in November 1998. All NSF proposals, particularly those submitted to the EHR directorate, must be specific about planned assessment procedures. NSF wants to fund proposals that will sustain positive change and catalyze future change within a department or institution. Finally, there were two very thought-provoking sessions about “Unlocking Our Future—Toward a New National Science Policy” (2), a report to Congress by the House Committee on Science. We heard from Science Fellow Laura Rodriguez, from the Office of Congressman and Committee Vice Chairman Vern Ehlers, about how the document was designed to provide a starting point or foundation from which to build a future science policy. Rodriguez noted that the Nation’s science policy for the past 50 years has been based on Vannevar Bush’s writings, Science: The Endless Frontier (3).
While still valuable on many counts, it is also outdated. She outlined the background and purposes of Ehlers’ report as well as its primary recommendations and urged us to recognize that the report was written to educate Congress. Rodriguez also urged us to realize that the report’s success will require the full participation of scientists and educators. Everyone should visit the Web site, http://www.house.gov/science/ science_policy_study.htm, outlining the full-study process. Providing a conflicting opinion about the utility of the recommendations in the Ehler’s Report was Richard Sclove from the Loka Institute, who discussed his views with April Dialogue participants, which he previously outlined in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, titled “For U.S. Science Policy, It’s Time for a Reality Check” (4). Sclove reiterated his thoughts that the Ehler’s Report ignored House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s charge to be visionary and, instead, opted for timid mid-course corrections and “fine tuning”. This certainly made for some lively conversations. The wide range of perspectives represented by these two opposing views should cause all scientists to note the importance of being active participants in government conversations about science funding, its future, and direction. Literature Cited 1. Program Announcement and Guidelines for CCLI, CETP and ATE; NSF Publication 99-53; National Science Foundation, U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1999. 2. National Science Policy Study. http://www.house.gov/science/ science_policy_report.htm (accessed May 1999). 3. Vannevar, B. Science: The Endless Frontier; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1945. 4. Sclove, R. The Chron. of Higher Educ. 1998, October 23, B4.
Bridget Gourley Dibble is in the Department of Chemistry, DePauw University, Greencastle, IN 46135; phone: 765/ 658-4607; email:
[email protected].
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