C&EN TALKS WITH
LOUISA HOPE-WEEKS AND BRANDON WEEKS In the wake of a lab accident, TEXAS TECH PROFESSORS discuss the fine line between appropriate lab supervision and micromanagement JYLLIAN KEMSLEY, C&EN WEST COAST NEWS BUREAU
Aside from helping ensure Tech University laboratory last that students know what year resulted in a chemistry they’re doing, the protocol apgraduate student losing three proach also documents commufingers on one hand and injurnication between adviser and ing his eyes. The incident was advisee. Additionally, Weeks one of several in recent years and Hope-Weeks now take that have put a spotlight on minutes of their group meetlab safety; it also resulted in ings. “Often that’s where we an investigation by the federal communicate with our students Chemical Safety & Hazard Inand give them advice on reacvestigation Board (C&EN, Oct. tions, data they should collect, 24, page 25). The explosion and or ways to adjust experiments. its aftermath led the project’s Or they get advice from other principal investigators, Texas students,” Hope-Weeks says. Tech chemistry professor Lou“We record all this so there Hope-Weeks (left) and Weeks isa J. Hope-Weeks and her spouse, chemical engineering profescan be no question of what we sor Brandon L. Weeks, to find ways to more closely supervise and talked about.” The minutes are document their interactions with their lab groups. available to students if they want to review what was said. “After the accident, what became clear to me was that oral comBoth professors make sure they visit their labs to check up on munication with students was never enough to ensure they unthings in person, including reading lab notebooks. They try to derstood” what they were supposed to do or not do, Hope-Weeks make the visits random, but their ability to do that is limited. “Stusays. Now, both Hope-Weeks and Weeks require anyone working in dents aren’t stupid,” Weeks says. They know when he arrives or their labs to discuss experiments with their adviser and then write leaves for the day, or when he’s teaching class. protocols for what they will do. Having a literature protocol in hand is not enough, though: Students must rewrite it in their own AND MEMBERS OF BOTH LABS now have to sign a contract words. They must also write their own instrument-use protocols agreeing to follow the lab rules and report any unsafe practices rather than referring to a lab document. The professors review the or unauthorized workers in the lab. The penalty for not followprotocols before work can proceed in the lab. ing the rules is dismissal from the lab, a punishment that makes Having students write the protocols themselves helps to ensure Weeks somewhat uncomfortable. “I don’t know that that’s the that they have thought about and understand what they’re to do, best way to deal with safety,” he says, noting that the threat of the professors say. The protocols have also flagged some training dismissal may encourage people to hide things. At the same time, problems. For example, according to one procedure Hope-Weeks Weeks doesn’t know of a better way to promote safe laboratory read recently, the student would use a cannula to behavior. He’d like to see more of a dialogue in the transfer 30 mL of an air-sensitive material. When queacademic community about positive ways to encourried about that part, the student confessed not knowage safe conduct. “After the ing how to do it. The student will have to set up the Trying to walk the line between appropriate superequipment and practice with a solvent before proceed- accident, vision and micromanagement of their lab members what became ing with the experiment. is tough, both professors say. On the one hand, the As she reads the documents, Hope-Weeks also tries clear to me people working in the labs are all adults, and “there to be conscious of the line between appropriate overhas to be some trust in the lab because you can’t be in was that oral sight and allowing her students room to learn in the communication there all the time,” Weeks says. He notes that trust is lab. If she reads a protocol that says a reaction will renot just a safety issue; faculty also have to trust that with students flux for two hours and she thinks it will need 24, she’ll students aren’t fabricating data, for example. was never let the student proceed as long as there’s not a safety On the other hand, Hope-Weeks adds, “if you enough to concern. “As long as it’s not unsafe, I’ll let them try it think you’re providing enough vigilance and overensure they their way,” she says. “I think that’s the only way they sight, double it, because it is amazing what students understood.” can learn.” will do when your back is turned.” ◾ AL L ISO N RALSTO N /T T U
AN EXPLOSION in a Texas
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