Chapter 15
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Organizing International Collaborations Charles H. Atwood* Chemistry Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112, United States *E-mail:
[email protected] The American Chemical Society (ACS) has considerable interest in expanding its reach to countries other than the United States. There are both scientific and financial reasons for doing so. The BRICK countries (Brazil, India, China, and Korea) are of special interest to the ACS because these countries have potential to make significant progress through partnering. In fact, the ACS has opened international chapters in some BRICK countries to encourage their chemists to join the ACS. This society wide effort makes ACS division international collaborations with counterparts in BRICK countries real possibilities. In this chapter I will describe how Resa Kelly and I organized an active collaboration with the Sociedad Cubana de Química (SCQ) that has endured three years despite numerous financial and political hurdles. I will also address some issues that anyone thinking about an international collaboration must consider as they begin the process.
History of the ACS DivCHED IAC-SCQ Collaboration Former ACS President and renowned University of North Carolina chemist, Ernest L. Eliel, graduated from the University of Havana. During World War II he sought refuge in Cuba to escape the Nazi horrors occurring in his native Germany. After the war finished he moved to the United States to continue his career. During the early 1990’s, when Dr. Eliel was ACS President, he reached out to some SCQ members with an initial attempt to start interactions between the two societies. While there were some educational exchanges during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, the political climate between the two countries would not permit full-scale collaborations. Things began to change in 2013 when Dr. Luis © 2018 American Chemical Society Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Alberto Montero-Cabrera, SCQ President at the time, contacted ACS President Dr. Miranda Wu at the Istanbul IUPAC to suggest it was time to renew contacts between the two societies. Other contacts between the societies occurred, most notably between SCQ representative (now SCQ President) Dr. Daniel García and Bradley Miller, Director of the ACS Office of International Relations, at the 2014 Latin American Chemical Congress (CLAQ) in Lima, Peru. As discussions between the two chemical socities progressed Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro decided to begin normalizing the relationship between Cuba and the US. These negotiations resulted in President Obama flying to Havana in March 2016. The more cordial international relations opened the door for larger collaborations between the ACS and the SCQ. In 2015 ACS President Diane Grob Schmidt invited four SCQ board members to attend the Boston ACS meeting. She also invited ACS divisions to reach out to Cuban chemists with possible collaborative efforts. I was chair of the International Activities Committee (IAC) of the ACS Division of Chemical Education (DivCHED) at the time. Resa Kelly and two other DivCHED IAC members met with the Cuban delegation at the Boston ACS meeting. There was mutual interest in both camps to share educational impacts in high school teaching as well as the impact educational research has had on university teaching. A plan was hatched to send an American delegation to Cuba to see how teaching occurs there as well as hold a workshop in the US that Cuban chemists would attend in concert with several American chemists. A more detailed discussion of SCQ-ACS interactions over this time period is provided in a previous ACS symposium series (1). Pursuant to an announcement from Diane Grob Schmidt that ACS Innovative Projects would entertain Cuban collaborative proposals, Resa Kelly, Joel Harris, and I submitted to the ACS both a Global Improvement Grant proposal (GIG) and an Innovative Project Grant proposal (IPG) to fund a workshop at the University of Utah and two visits to Cuba. Resa and I first visited Cuba in June 2016 to attend the 2016 Simposio Internacional Quimica in Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba. Two other ACS affiliated speakers Norbert Pienta and Thomas Bussey also attended the symposium. Besides presenting talks and listening to presentations from the SCQ, there were many opportunities to interact with SCQ members to plan for future interactions. One essential component of the meeting was listening, with the aid of translators, to Cuban edcuators describing their struggles getting present day students interested in chemistry both as a course of study and a career. It was obvious to US educators that our struggles were nearly indentical to those of the Cubans. An important decision made at this meeting was for the SCQ to send a delegation to the University of Utah in April 2017 for a workshop on analytical chemistry and chemical education. Resa, Joel, and I traveled to Havana February 18 to 24, 2017 to interact with SCQ members; to see their research facilities, classrooms, and teaching labs; and to visit two high schools as well as the Cuban pedagogical university. Graduate and undergraduate students from the University of Havana presented results of their research to the three of us. Resa and I interacted with high school and university students on their understanding at the molecular level of redox reactions. It gave us some insight into how Cuban students understand chemical symbolism as well as 236 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
the realization that the Cuban educational system does not emphasize this in their teaching. This overview gave us insights into what to work on at the upcoming workshop. Shortly after returning from Cuba, Joel, Resa, and I were awarded the GIG and IPG funds allowing us to complete our workshop planning. Eight SCQ representatives arrived in Salt Lake City at 2:00 AM on April 7th after their delayed flight from Orlando finally arrived. Sleepy ACS and SCQ participants started their workshop at 8:30 AM. A list of the participants and their presentations (in bold) is given below. All SCQ participants were from the University of Havana. ACS participant affiliations are in parentheses. SCQ Presentations and Participants •
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Higher Education in Cuba and the Role of Universities, The University of Havana and its Faculty of Chemistry - Leslie Milagros Yáñez Gonzalez Development of Analytical Methods Applied to Advanced Materials and Environmental Studies - Margarita Edelia Villanueva Tagle Electroanalytical Detection of Compounds, Biological and Environmental Interests - Ana Margarita Esteva Guas Experiences in Environmental Education at The University of Havana, The Case of the Bachelor in Chemistry - Cristina Isabel Diaz Lopez The Cuban Society of Chemistry and the Relationships with the American Chemical Society (ACS) - Loreley Morejón Alonso Metrology and Spectroscopy - Manuel Alvarez Prieto Role of Research in the University of Havana’s Bachelor of Chemistry - Alicia Marcelina Díaz García Future in the Relationships Between SCQ and ACS - Armando Augusto Paneque Quevedo
ACS Presentations and Participants • •
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U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad - Cecilia Hernandez (Washington ACS Office) Animation Perspectives: Making Sense of Contrasting Molecular Animations through Commentary – Resa M. Kelly (San Jose State University) Assessment in Chemical Education – Charles H. Atwood (University of Utah) Membership Involvement in ACS: A Perspective from an ACS Member - Carmen Valdez Gauthier (Florida Southern College) Interfacial and Bioanalytical Chemistry – Joel M. Harris (University of Utah) Electrochemistry and Biosensors – Shelley D. Minteer (University of Utah) 237
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2015 ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs – Thomas J. Wenzel (Bates College) Advances in Analytical Separation Science and Mass Spectrometry in US – Susan V. Olesik (Ohio State University)
Other events in the workshop included visits by SCQ representatives to Salt Lake’s Cottonwood High School and to the University of Utah Global Affairs offices to discuss University of Havana – University of Utah interactions. Saturday afternoon was spent with the two groups discussing mutual areas of interest. An April snowstorm accommodated us delivering several inches of snow Saturday/ Sunday night allowing several members of the Cuban delegation to experience snow for the first time in their lives. A brief trip to downtown Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake occurred Monday before taking the SCQ delegation back to the airport for their trip home. Here are the major points that the SCQ hopes to achieve in its interactions with the ACS. These were sent to Dr. Peter Dorhout, the incoming ACS President, on June 23, 2017. 1.
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The SCQ would like to issue a special invitation to the ACS for people to participate in a symposium on teaching chemistry that will be held in conjunction with the 33rd Congreso Latinoamericano de Quimica 2018 (CLAQ 2018) to be held in Havana in October 2018. SCQ asks the ACS to initiate a method to facilitate attendance of young US chemists at workshops and courses, especially those associated with CLAQ 2018. At the workshop both ACS and SCQ members propose that one result of the CLAQ 2018 teaching chemistry symposium could be an ACS symposium book on Best Practices in Teacher Training in the Americas. DivCHED already has plans to invite one or two Cuban chemists to a symposium at the New Orleans ACS meeting in March 2018. The SCQ would like to interact more extensively at an ACS-SCQ symposium in 2019, presumably at the Fall ACS meeting. SCQ would like to have international chapter status in the ACS. They suggest that the ACS open an office in Havana having the name, Ernest L. Eliel Chapter of the ACS. This office could be located in the University of Havana Chemistry Department where the SCQ offices are located. SCQ would like to explore the possibility of holding a joint Chemistry Olympiad with/between the US and Cuban students. For example, it could be a practice run for the International Olympiad or could be an actual competition between the two sets of students. The SCQ requests access to ACS journals and books. For example, would it be possible to have a computer capable of accessing ACS publications somewhere on the University of Havana’s campus? The SCQ wants to know if the Board of Directors of the ACS is receptive to an invitation to participate in an international colloquium on the 290th Anniversary of the founding of the University of Havana. 238
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At this point in time (December 2017) the ACS has decided to send a delegation to the CLAQ 2018 meeting but no further steps have been made. Recent changes in the US-Cuban political relationship have made interactions, particularly financial ones, more difficult. Hopefully, this will change in the foreseeable future. On November 21, 2017 I flew to Havana staying there until November 25th. I was asked to give lectures on chemistry teaching and interact in a three-day workshop. Interactions with the SCQ members were friendly and congenial. They are anxious to form collaborations, advance teaching, and promote chemistry as a science in both nations. However, the reality of the current political situation has tempered expectations. Resa Kelly and I have organized a symposium on US-Cuban interactions for the Spring 2018 ACS meeting in New Orleans. The SCQ had agreed to buy visas and airfares for their four participants to attend the meeting. But the US Embassy in Havana no longer has the staff to process visas. To obtain US visas the four Cuban participants must travel to Colombia, submit their visa paperwork to the US Embassy in Bogota, and wait anywhere from two days to three weeks for their visa applications to reach the top of the pile. This is both a financially and temporally untenable situation for the SCQ.
Problems To Consider in Planning International Collaborations The first consideration for any international collaboration has to be money. It is difficult for us to relate to the financial realities of some of the nations we would like to collaborate with. I am familiar with the financial realities of Cuban faculty. Depending upon faculty rank, they make $30 to $50 per month. Registration for an ACS meeting is the equivalent of one year’s salary for our Cuban colleagues. Consequently, while the SCQ can typically afford visas and flights from Havana to Miami or Orlando, afterwards their expenses must be borne by someone or some entity in the US. Chinese and Korean Chemists may not experience such financial difficulty. However, given the present economic situations in Brazil and India their money will likely not allow them to travel to the US. Someone with deep pockets will have to fund any on-going collaborations with poorer nations, particularly those from Latin and South American nations. Sustainability becomes an even thornier issue when there are such large financial disparities. On scientific and educational issues, pay attention to the present state of each nation’s interests, capabilities, and trajectory. For example, in analytical chemistry there is a huge difference in measurement capability between Cuba and America. In the US analytical chemistry now routinely operates in the nano- and atto- ranges, allowing quantification at or near the single-molecule level. Cuban analytical chemistry cannot go much below the micro- range, a result of 50 plus years of scientific isolation between Cuba and the US as well as a financial embargo preventing Cuban chemists from purchasing modern US made instrumentation. Clearly this makes ACS-SCQ collaborations in analytical chemistry challenging. Chemical education in the US and Cuba overlaps more significantly because both countries have similar issues: student motivation, attractiveness of chemistry as a career, technological interference with standard 239 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
learning models, and decline in student mathematical aptitude. But approaches to the problems in both countries are significantly different. Cuban educators are focused on pedagogical training as their solution. American educators have focused on discipline based education research to better inform teaching practice. These differences are not insurmountable but definitely are challenging.
What Makes a Successful Collaboration? Successful international collaborations are built around a common purpose, determination, people, and funding. Good timing can also play a role. For the collaboration to start both sides must conclude that there are good reasons to collaborate. That could be common scientific interests, educational initiatives, or a need for instrumentation that each country can provide. At least from my perspective, if someone in both nations isn’t determined for the collaboration to succeed it will fail in short order. Frankly, there are times when the interested parties must say full steam ahead even in the worst of times and conditions. People in both nations must want the experience of enjoying each other’s company, desire to grow from the mutual experience coupled with scientific/educational goals that benefit all parties. I have been lucky to pair up with Resa and Joel here in the US on our Cuban collaboration. There is no way this would have continued without their able assistance. My Cuban collaborators, Margarita Villanueve, Leslie Gonzalez, Manuel Prieto, Daniel Garcia and Alberto Montrero-Cabrera have been essential in developing what we have done so far. When I go to Havana, it is genuinely a pleasure to see them, spend time with them, and learn from them. We have not solved the money issue. The SCQ can fund activities that occur inside Cuba but outside Cuba their funds are quickly exhausted. Unless the ACS takes a genuine interest in furthering this collaboration, I fear that it will not last much longer. The SCQ very much wishes to continue the collaboration. However recent US political changes have made the ACS leery of any interactions with Cuba involving monetary transactions. Finally, the ACS DivCHED IAC managed to make a credible offer to collaborate with the SCQ at a propitious time. Not only had the relations between the two nations thawed but also Diane Grob Schmidt was determined to improve relations between the two countries. This lucky timing kicked off the process and has fueled it since then.
What Are Equitable Collaboration Areas? Collaboration areas depend greatly upon the state of science and education in each country. As mentioned above, analytical chemistry was not a good fit for US-Cuban collaborations but it may well be for China or Korea to US collaborations. Many international scientific organizations are developing interests in climate change, renewable resources/energy, and environmental chemistry. All would be equitable starting points. In our case the ACS-SCQ workshop identified four major areas of potential educational collaboration. 240 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
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Both groups agreed to hold a Chemical Education Symposium at the 2018 Congreso Latinoamericano de Química (CLAQ 2018) to be held in Havana in October. We hope to publish the symposium proceedings in an ACS Symposium book series. If possible, we would like to hold a similar symposium somewhere in the US in 2019 at an ACS meeting. It was agreed that the two countries should co-organize a symposium focused on “Best Practices in Teacher Training in the Americas” which would tap into the expertise of South, Central, and North American, as well as Caribbean educators. A proposal to examine student and faculty exchange programs with the possibility of codirected MS or PhD degrees for graduate students. Examine the possibility of holding a joint Cuban-US Chemistry Olympiad in preparation for the international Olympiad.
There were also several chemical areas where there appears to be enough joint interest to build future working relationships. These include synthesis (both organic and inorganic), renewable energy, material characterization, and environmental chemistry.
Conclusion Building an international collaboration between scientists and educators through their official organizations is a challenge. Sadly, things like international political tensions can interrupt long hours of progress. But the opportunity to see and learn from your international colleagues is worth the effort. Plan your efforts, pay attention to funding, and try to enlist the aid of colleagues and the ACS. Without their financial backing it will be difficult to sustain your efforts.
References 1.
Atwood, C. H.; Montero-Cabrera, L. A. In Stereochemistry and Global Connectivitiy: The Legacy of Ernest L. Eliel Volume; Cheng, H. N., Maryanoff, C. A., Miller, B. D., Schmidt, D. B., Eds.; ACS Symposium Series 1257; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017; Chapter 4, pp 57−62. DOI: 10.102/bk-2017-1257.ch004.
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