EDUCATION
Inorganic curriculums not meeting need Chemists call for course between freshman and graduate levels, more emphasis on laboratory and descriptive material RD
ACS NATIONAL MEETING Chemical Education
Is inorganic chemistry really meeting the needs of today's chemistry major? Not quite, was the answer given at the Symposium on the Teaching of Inorganic Chemistry. The symposium was held jointly with the Division of Inorganic Chemistry. But there are signs of continuing improvement. Inorganic chemistry—the modern science that embraces organometallics, boron hydrides, ligand field theory, and more—is now fully established as a mature discipline. Now its professor practitioners must come to some agreement on how to give students proper training in the diverse subject. There are problems. For one, much of the content of inorganic chemistry courses today is theoretical —so much so that its descriptive aspects are in danger of being ignored. For another, the length of laboratory training, especially at the graduate level, is declining. Thirdly, most curriculums lack a course between the introductory general course (now only partially inorganic) and the advanced inorganic course given to well-prepared undergraduates or graduate students. Also, the inorganic background of new graduate students is too diversified. As a result, graduate inorganic courses often begin at too low a level. But if the field has problems, nobody participating in the symposium seemed particularly worried. Inorganic chemistry professors aren't a complacent lot; they know the field is exciting and can draw talent, they know it is undergoing an educational transformation, and they regard the current pangs as part of the normal process of growth. Dr. George W. Watt of the University of Texas, whose paper was read by his colleague, Dr. J. J. Lagowski (symposium chairman), pointed at World War II—specifically the Manhattan Project—as the force that rescued inorganic chemistry from its state of being a grim, moribund, routine science identified only with freshman curriculums. What emerged, Dr. Watt says, was "a realization of its potentialities" as interest shot up in, 62 C&EN APRIL 24, 1967
for example, the lanthanides and actinides, fission products, construction materials that can withstand high temperatures, ultrahigh-purity metals, separation processes, and less familiar elements such as zirconium and niobium. As Dr. Watt describes it, physics and physical chemistry soon became common tools of the inorganic chemist. Emphasis broadened to highenergy fuels and to areas such as boron hydrides and nitrogen-fluorine compounds. The effect of all this was to propel the field out of its tiredfreshman-course identity into realms such as bonding theories, molecular orbital and ligand field theories, coordination compounds, organometallic compounds, and an extensive array of bonding situations.
Pittsburgh's Bodie Douglas Don't miss the point
This is the world—and the whirl— of inorganic chemistry that surrounds the undergraduate as he pursues his chemistry studies. Whether he acquires a true feeling for the subject depends on the obvious ingredients of faculty interest and manpower. Teachers must take care, says the University of Pittsburgh's Bodie E. Douglas, that the instruction the student receives is not so advanced and theoretical that he misses the point of inorganic chemistry: that it is the study of nonorganic elements and their properties. "We must be alert to avoid the complete loss of familiarity with the
properties and reactions of common substances," he says. "The trend in high school courses, the emphasis on physical chemistry in the first year course, the de-emphasis of qualitative analysis, and the structure-bonding emphasis in the upper level inorganic course tend almost to eliminate descriptive chemistry." The solution? An intermediate course below the upper level inorganic course, in keeping with an ACS recommendation. The content, Dr. Douglas says, should fall into two components. Those topics which are "unquestionably inorganic" and "those essential for the treatment of inorganic problems but not covered adequately elsewhere," such as electrochemistry and its use in potential diagrams. What Dr. Douglas stresses most heavily is the unifying force of inorganic chemistry. In an intermediate course, students can take a broader view of some topics treated earlier and begin to see some of the interrelationships among the rather highly compartmentalized chemistry to which they have been exposed. Probably the most difficult problem of all, he says, is the shortage of courses and instructors. He suggests remedial steps such as development of contacts between industrial inorganic chemists and colleges through, say, the ACS local sections, a more inorganically slanted National Science Foundation-ACS visiting scientist program, and more ACS summer institutes and short courses in the subject. But what of the laboratory? Dr. W. L. Jolly told the symposium of the University of California's method of incorporating synthesis, analysis, and theory in a laboratory program. For example, students synthesize sulfamic acid, which they then use to standardize sodium hydroxide. Or they synthesize sodium triphosphate and use the product to perform endgroup titrations for chain-length determinations. On the more advanced level, students mix mercuric nitrate with triiodide solutions and are asked to interpret why the changes vary from initially no reaction to a dark precipitate, to a reddish precipitate, to a bright red precipitate, back to a clear solution, to a cloudy white precipi-
Michigan's Robert Parry A mature branch of science
tate, and again to a clear solution. Not even the experts understand all the reasons. Dr. Jolly stresses that most of the many experiments he described could be carried out without fancy lab equipment. Money-short liberal a'rts colleges could introduce students to advanced analytical techniques simply by giving them the recorded measurements of, say, a nuclear magnetic resonance tracing. "Anybody can learn to push buttons/' he adds. "The important thing is understanding the results." -His whole approach to laboratory coursework is backed by the aim of teaching a student how to attack a problem, and to exposing the student to interesting but incompletely understood problems. "If you don't give him the frontier areas," he emphasizes, "you're not giving him the true picture." On the graduate level, Dr. Robert W. Parry of the University of Michigan thinks inorganic chemistry has "survived its childhood so that it can now be considered a mature branch of a vigorous and exciting science." Dr. Parry bases his optimism on a survey of graduate curriculums he conducted among 138 inorganic chemistry teachers early this year. They were teaching in 64 institutions and account for at least about 85% of the yearly crop of graduate inorganic chemists. In the first place, his respondents said the student comes into graduate school much better equipped than he did 10 years ago. But there are still deficiencies, which are revealed by placement tests (or other evaluative procedures) given before deciding whether to give the student remedial work. Dr. Parry's survey reveals a wide
variety of graduate programs in inorganic chemistry. Berkeley has no graduate course in the subject. Most schools—60%—give a broad-spectrum course in inorganic for all entering graduate students. This is then followed by a series of courses of increasing specialization, frequently ending with a course labeled special topics which varies in content from year to year. On the average, three to four one-semester courses are offered under the heading inorganic chemistry. A few schools offer more and a few schools offer less. Dr. Parry says that probably the most significant change he detected was that inorganic chemistry seems to be moving toward greater sophistication. Most of the courses offered under the heading of inorganic chemistry, he says, would have been listed as theoretical chemistry or even as theoretical physics 10 years ago. Such courses now include quantum mechanical and group theory arguments for interpretation of inorganic properties, thermodynamic properties, and spectral characteristics of a variety of inorganic materials. As further indication of scope, Dr. Parry finds, 10 schools offer courses in organometallics and six have a course on the solid state. Several include crystallography as a separate course. Special topics courses include molecular orbital theory, nuclear magnetic and electron spin resonance, ligand field theory, and electron-deficient compounds. Perhaps the biggest deficiency in what otherwise was looked on as a generally healthy field was the decline in laboratory work in inorganic chemistry. Dr. Parry says that only six of the 64 schools queried required any laboratory training at all. But some students seem to want it. At Oregon State, a one-year lab sequence course was recently begun, enrolling a maximum of eight students at a time. Several students are waiting to take the laboratory course. The symposium's stimulator was Dr. Earl L. Muetterties of Du Pont. He wants to abolish single undergraduate disciplines such as inorganic chemistry, plan today's curriculums for what the world will be like 15 years from now, and pare the chemical undergraduate program to no more than two years of course work. "We have fallen behind in many areas," he says. "If we're only concerned with bringing things up to date, we're never going to get up to date." He said chemistry's excitement in future years lies with its intermingling with the problems of other sciences. He singled out the life sciences, earth sciences, astronomy, and even the social sciences as areas where chemistry will be contributing
most creatively during the next two decades. As preparation, the future chemist will be trained to feel at home with mathematics and thus be prepared to delve into problems of any other disciplines seeking chemical solutions. "I think that two years of chemistry for the undergraduate is enough if he is going to meet commitments to other areas of science," he says. "At the same time," he continues, "it must be brought home to the student that chemistry is an experimental science. There have been no first-rank theories that have been purely chemical since 1900. I think the biggest advances in chemistry will continue to come from the laboratory." Thus, the undergraduate chemistry major, despite his reduced chemistry course load, would nevertheless be made to prepare a senior thesis as a routine requirement for graduation. In fact, the thesis would explore some unknown area of chemistry. And in graduate school, the student would hold off his choice of specialty until he acquires a "thorough grounding" in quantum and statistical mechanics, biochemistry, organic chemistry, and inorganic chemistry. "I also would like to recommend two thesis advisers. And they would have different backgrounds. The students would combine the interests of both men. Or, the student might prepare two theses —one major, the other minor." "One of the things that has always disturbed me," he concludes, "is the answers I often get from interviewees when I ask them about work going on elsewhere in their schools. It goes something like this: O h , he's down the hall, so I don't really know what is going on there.' " "If this is a liberal education," Dr. Muetterties says, "I think we ought to redefine what a liberal education is."
Du Pont's Earl Muetterties Abolish single disciplines APRIL 24, 1967 C&EN 63
