made "an important step forward" compared with their earlier mercury system. He notes that the platinum catalyst not only works better but also avoids use of mercury, which is very toxic, in the catalytic process. In O H bond activation, none of the free radicals typically generated in hightemperature reactions are formed. Instead, a metal takes only one C-H bond, breaks it, and then binds the resulting methyl fragment. Because the fragment is "never free to do what it wants," only one O H bond is oxidized, explains Periana. Yields are low. however, if the product continues to react with the metal. That is not a problem in the Catalytica system because methyl bisulfate reacts much more slowly with the catalyst than does methane. Given the catalyst system's performance, Periana believes the chemistry is more than just feasible for commercial development. "It's doable," he tells C&EN. Of course, other issues need to be addressed, he stresses. "We're not interested in just operating this chemistry. We're interested in operating it competitively with significantly improved economics and environmental advantages. " Maureen Rouhi
Research universities: Undergrad reform urged A commission assembled by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Menlo Park, Calif., is calling for a sweeping reform in the way the country's 125 research universities educate their undergraduate students. Highly critical in tone, its newly released report says these universities should be seen as an "ecosystem" of intellectual inquiry that undergraduates should share in but most often don't. It makes 10 recommendations for change. The commission thought its report would be controversial. It was right. Media accounts elicited an outraged response from presidents of many of the country's top universities gathered in Washington, D.C., last week for the spring meeting of the Association of American Universities. AAU's president, Cornelius J. Pings, was especially upset and sent a letter to the Sew York Times protesting its coverage of the report. The commission was originally established by foundation President Ernest L. Boyer, who died soon after the project
Science societies ask Congress for more funds for NSF Last week, for the first time, leaders of organizations representing a quarter of a million scientists—Paul H. L Walter (center), president of the American Chemical Society; Ralph G. Yount (lefl\ president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology; and Andrew M. Sessler (right), president of the American Physical Society—presented common testimony before the House Appropriations Committees Subcommittee on VA, HID & Independent Agencies. They united to urge Congress to increase the National Science Foundations budget by 10% to $3.8 billion for fiscal 1999. "The sciences have become almost totally interdependent," testified Walter. "Our progress in treating AIDS and our understanding of its pathology would never have occurred without critical advances in chemistry, biology, and physics, and, yes, mathematics, engineering, and computer science as well. NSF is the only federal agency that has the program breadth needed to see that all the disciplines remain vibrant and healthy." Linda Raber
was launched. Replacing Boyer as chair was Shirley Strum Kenny, an English scholar and now president of the State University of New York, Stony Brook. One of the commission's members is Bruce M. Alberts, biochemist and president of the National Academy of Sciences. The report says: "Students paying tuition get, in all too many cases, less than their money's worth. Universities are guilty of an advertising practice they would condemn in the commercial world. Recruitment materials proudly display7 the world-famous professors, the splendid facilities, and the groundbreaking research that goes on within them. But thousands of students graduate without ever seeing the world-famous professors or tasting genuine research. Graduate student instructors, it goes on, are badly trained or not trained at all. Many have not mastered English. "All too often," it continues, "students graduate without knowing how to think logically, write clearly, or speak coherently." Universities, it claims, have done little more than apply "cosmetic surgery" to the problem. Such criticisms are hardly new, and universities and federal agencies that support them have been addressing the problems. That is the main reason the report upset AAU members. An AAU spokesman says a recent AAU survey recounted example after example of programs that universities began in recent
years to remedy complaints by undergraduates and their parents. Commission member Alberts was not in total agreement with the report's findings, either. He says it "does not adequately reflect the many efforts being made by7 senior scientists to do new types of teaching at the early7 undergraduate level." But he said the report's most important message is that we should rethink the freshman year, aiming to make it completely different from high school." Kenny tells C&EN that the report was not meant to be inflammatory but a "wake-up call." The commission did recognize, she adds, that man}7 universities are dealing with the issues in the report. But for those who aren't, "we are offering a l()-point plan for remedying problems that aren't new," but are persistent. The report lists and elaborates on the 10 steps: make research-based learning the standard, construct an inquiry-based freshman year, build on that freshman foundation, remove barriers to interdisciplinary7 education, link communication skills with course work, use information technology7 creatively7, culminate with a "capstone" experience, educate graduate students as apprentice teachers, change faculty reward systems, and cultivate a sense of community within the universities. The report can be downloaded from the Stony Brook web site at http://www. sunysb.edu. Wil Lepkowski APRIL 27. 1998 C&EN 9
