in this issue The Past Foreshadows the Future As we approach the end of the 20th centurv. we look both .. forwilrd-w imagine the ponsihilitieii oftht: next cmturyand backwards-to see what we hxve achieved (and failed to achieve). This issue contains a variety of articles that have this Janus-like function, helping us to see how the past and present will formulate the fniure. The centennial of systematic organic nomenclature, featured on this months's cover and reviewed by H. Smith (page 8631, presents just such a fiducial mark. The development of nomenclature paralleled the development of organic chemistry, and its current concerns are related to the newer areas of organic chemistry that will dictate the next changes in the system. Looking to the future of nomenclature, P. Smith (page 877) explores the question of whether it is practical or wise to try to eliminate trivial names for elements and compounds in the next century. The past 100 years have seen the emergence of whole new areas of chemistry that were unthought of a t the last turn of the century. The discipline of chemistry has moved from a n academic pursuit with some applications to medicine and industry to one of the major contributors to the technological revolution. As a result, the teachers of chemistry have been faced with an ever-growing subject that must be covered in the same four years of undergraduate education. This has resulted in whole new courses such as the one on cosmochemistry described by Douglas (page 907). Another response has been to develop demonstrations and teaching units that will integrate these new areas of chemistry into the standard curriculum. One prominent new area is polymer chemistry, which has become a s e ~ a r a t esubdscioline in the last half of this century, actially employing more chemists than any other area and affectine most asDects of our dailv lives. Teachers have long been encouraged to use polymer reactions even in introductory classes in secondary schools; in this issue Rodriguez (page 9151, Sherman (page 883), and Seymour and Kauffman (page 909) all present materials that will help teachers fulfill this task. The subject matter is not the only thing t h a t has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. The students are also very different from their 1900 counterparts and these changes are reflected both in the structure and pedagogy of chemistry courses. Two reports on surveys, one of graduate students and one of academic women chemists, reveal just some aspects of change in the chemistry profession. Roscher and Cavanaugh (page 870) have analyzed the Comprehensive and Employment Status Surveys conducted by the ACS over the past 15 years not only to determine the current staus of women in academe but also to track their progress over that period. They find an encouraging growth in the number of women faculty members and women chemistry majors who complete advanced degrees, and they project this will increase in the future. However. thev caution that counter forces. such as the inability of facdties to replace retiring teachers and the fierce competition from industry for all bright PhD's, may have an adverse effect. Graduate school itself has changed in what it requires from its students both in time and financial sacrifice. In fact, the most common reason cited for not pursuing an advanced demee was the the financial burden assohated with it. In an attempt to find out if this reason was realistic, Sawyer and Wilson (page 874) con-
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Journal of Chemical Education
ducted a survey that determined the "Financial Worries of Chemistry Graduate Students". Their results indicated that the perceived financial health of current students was, in general, more a function of personality than any one independent financial factor. The one exception was single mothers, who had a much higher anxiety level, a statistic that has implicatons for the projections from the survey on women in academe discussed above. Adapting to the changing student population and the changing chemistry profession has been especially important in the introductory chemistry course, which serves the broadest spectrum of students and covers the most topics. This course is currently being scrutinized by the Task Force on the General Chemistry Curriculum, whose contributions have been appearing in this Journal under The Forum logo. It has seemed obvious to the Task Force that before a rational set of recommendations can be made for the future of the general chemistry course, teachers must know what has already been proposed, tried, rejected, or accepted in the past. In the second literature review on general chemistry in The Forum series, Lloyd (page 866) focuses on the the general chemistry laboratory in the 20th century, chronicling its development and the changing attitudes toward it. Two of the most recent factors influencing the curriculum of both the lecture and laboratory course have been the computer and the increased awareness and scrutiny of chemical hazards. The computer has literally revolutionized the wav many aspects of chemistrv are taueht. This month's ~ o & u t e ; ~ e i e s features two &icles t h i t utilize commercial programs: F o r d (page 888) shows how the students can use the X Window system to analyze and graph data and Berka. Clark, and White (.~ a e 891) e evaluate two different computer interfacing systems for gathering temperature and absorbance data. Teachers can now expect far more sophisticated data analysis from their students by using readily available programs, such as the adaptation of a spreadsheet devised by Schwartz (page 879) to predict equivalence points and detect systematic errors. In addition, computer simulations can be used to teach those statistical approaches that students find hard to understand; Douglas (page 885) presents a Montecarlo computer simulation that can be used for an analysis of error sensitivity. The increased awareness to potential hazards both in the laboratory and in waste disposal over the past 20 years has led to many new policies and ada~tationsof familiar laboratory expkrimenis. Before teachers can adopt new policies they must understand the new government regulations. In this month's Safety Eps, Kaufman (page 911) reviews the 1990 OSHA standards that now apply to protecting employees in public and private laboratories. Waste disposal is another source of public concern. Turk, Karamitsos, Mahmood, Mozzaffari, Loewi, and Tola (page 929) report on using granular activated carbon to immobilize liauid oreanic wastes whose identitv is unknown: in addition& detailing the procedure, they aiso discuss its com~liancewith Federal reeulations. Two modifications of traiitional laboratory procedures that avoid health and environmental Droblems are presented in this issue. (page 93k report on the effectiveGaggaro and ness of a hydrogen sulfide free qua1 scheme and Byars and McCreary (page 935) describe "A More Environmentally Acceptable Determination of Iron in an Ore".
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