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“It was extraordinarily refreshing to read something coming from ACS that was reasonably frank about what most graduate students and postdocs would describe as a dismal job market,” says Christopher J. Cramer, a chemistry professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. “It was also refreshingly frank about how, much as generals fight the last war, graduate faculty tend to educate the last generation.” “It was surprising to hear them say we’re producing too many Ph.D.s for the current employment market,” says Chemjobber, an industrial chemist who blogs about employment issues. “The standard line is that things are pretty good in chemistry.”
NEXT GENERATION
Recommendations from the report could improve outcomes for future graduate students.
MIXED REACTIONS TO EDUCATION PROPOSALS Community lauds ACS report on improving GRADUATE EDUCATION but doubts recommendations’ feasibility CELIA HENRY ARNAUD, C&EN WASHINGTON
THE CURRENT MODEL of chemistry grad-
uate education dates back decades. But is it the right model for the 21st century? That’s the question that 2012 American Chemical Society President Bassam Z. Shakhashiri asked an ACS presidential commission to grapple with last year. The commission’s efforts culminated in the report “Advancing Graduate Education in the Chemical Sciences,” which was released in December. The report made 32 recommendations related to five overall conclusions. Key recommendations deal with aligning the number of new Ph.D.s and job opportunities; improving the graduate student experience, including reducing the time to degree; revamping the system of graduate student funding; establishing a culture of safety; and treating postdoctoral associates as professionals. Now the chemistry community is getting a chance to assess those findings and recommendations. Among the people C&EN contacted, overall response was positive. But potentially affected parties— from graduate students to department heads—expressed skepticism about the practicality of some recommendations, particularly those related to graduate student funding and time to degree. The report “does a good job of identifying the key issues,” says Michael A.
Marletta, chemist and president of Scripps Research Institute. For Marletta and others, the biggest issue identified in the report is the mismatch between the number of newly minted Ph.D. chemists and available jobs.
REPORT CONCLUSIONS ◾ Current education opportunities for graduate students do not provide sufficient preparation for their careers after graduate school. ◾ The system for financial support of graduate students is no longer optimal for U.S. needs. ◾ Academic chemical laboratories must adopt best safety practices. ◾ Departments should give thoughtful attention to maintaining a sustainable relationship between the availability of new graduates at all degree levels and genuine opportunities for them. ◾ Postdoctoral training and education is an extension of graduate education that is important for success in a variety of career paths. A postdoctoral appointment should be a period of accelerated professional growth that enhances scientific independence and future career opportunities.
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IN RESPONSE to this employment mis-
match, the report urges departments and programs to focus on the availability of “truly attractive” job opportunities for graduates. It also urges graduate programs to base their size on a realistic assessment of opportunities for graduates, says Larry R. Faulkner, chair of the commission. If such a strategy results in fewer graduate students than those needed to fulfill a department’s teaching and research needs, those positions should be staffed “through other professional paths,” he says. Gregory A. Petsko, a chemistry professor at Brandeis University, isn’t convinced that too many Ph.D. chemists are being educated. But he suggests a simple solution to reduce the overall number of graduate students. “Let’s suppose we decide as a society that we’re training twice as many graduate students or postdocs as we should,” he posits. “Double their salaries over a three- or four-year period. That will have the effect of shrinking the pool by a factor of two because you won’t be able to afford the number you have now. You’ll keep the best ones, and they’ll finally make a living wage.” Petsko notes if such a step is necessary, now may be the time to act. “Federal funding is flat, and it’s going to stay that way for a few years. It’s the perfect time to do it.” Aside from the numbers issue, the report questions whether students are being appropriately trained for current and future career paths. The commission advocates maintaining scientific depth and
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mastery while enhancing students’ nonscientific skills, such as communication, teamwork, and business acumen.
recommends increasing oversight of their progress in the form of individual development plans. Some schools already touch base with students frequently. For example, at Stony Brook, graduate students meet with their thesis committee in the fall of their second year and submit written progress reports every year, Goroff says. Similarly, at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the chemistry department recently developed a database in which students must comment on their
by an increase in predoctoral fellowships. Zare prefers that the funding be given directly to students as fellowships. “If it goes to the department, the department will disTHE COMMISSION PROPOSES that tribute it to professors,” he says, “and you these things be done while decreasing really won’t have changed the system.” the overall time to the Ph.D. degree. They Zare is a veteran of efforts to change the urge programs to strive for a target time to graduate funding system. When he was degree of four years, with a departmental chair of the National Science Board in the median of less than five. According to the 1990s, he proposed that NSF increase the 2011 National Science Foundation Survey number of grants to graduate students, of Earned Doctorates, the most recent data especially grants given after the first year available, median time to degree of graduate school. Zare’s efforts in chemistry is six years. Although at the time led nowhere, and he’s STUDENT FUNDING Federal agencies fund most many people agree that overall pleased that the topic is being as research assistants on professors’ grants. time to degree has become too revisited. long, they question whether a tarOthers worry that such a shift, National Institutes of Health get of four years is practical. which is intended to be revenue National Science “I don’t understand why they’re neutral, would have a detrimental Foundation putting such an emphasis on effect on the quality of research. Department of Defense four years as the ideal time,” says “If it’s cost neutral and coming Nancy S. Goroff, a chemistry profrom monies that would have Department of Energy ◼ Research assistantships fessor at Stony Brook University. gone to individual researchers, I ◼ Fellowships ◼ Traineeships “The first thing you’re thinking think those investigators accomNational Aeronautics & ◼ Other Space Administration about when deciding when a stuplish less,” Marletta says. 0 5 15 20 25 30 10 dent should graduate is have they “This worries me a great deal, Full-time graduate students, thousands accomplished a Ph.D.’s worth of in part because national-scale work? But that’s a very nebulous funding for science is a zero-sum SOURCE: 2010 NSF-NIH Survey of Graduate Students & Postdoctorates in Science & Engineering quantity. Each project is different. game,” says Paul B. Shepson, head Have they reached the intellectual of the chemistry department at maturity to be a creator of new knowledge progress at regular intervals, with the advisPurdue University. “If you add money to on their own?” er commenting on the student’s comments, some new component of national need, “Four is a tough number to hit, especialsays Jeffrey S. Moore, a chemistry professor then you have to take away from somely for interdisciplinary programs that have and interim head of that department. where else.” If professors no longer have more coursework,” Marletta says. “I don’t “It looks like it’s not going to be too to find the funding for graduate students, think four is realistic.” burdensome and will facilitate moving stuthey might not think hard enough about Matthew R. Hartings, a chemistry prodents through the program,” Moore says. particular projects, he says. fessor at American University, is pleased by “If nothing else, it will catch some of the David P. Giedroc, chairman of the chemthe focus on time to degree. When he chose glitches that arise when a student gets sideistry department at Indiana University, where to get his Ph.D., the department’s tracked and no one seems to have noticed.” questions how such graduate program average time to degree was a deciding facThe recommendation that elicits the grants would be awarded. “For how many tor. “Five years is reasonable for a Ph.D. if strongest responses, both positive and negslots and how much money? How are the you’re doing good work,” he says. “Maybe ative, is the proposal to redeploy funding allocations reviewed? That’s the most difthat means the principal investigator has to for graduate students and decouple it from ficult recommendation to implement.” be more involved in understanding where the funding for specific research projects. projects are.” “The most important recommendation ANY CHANGE in the mechanism for fundCurrent graduate students themselves is to reconsider the funding mechanisms ing graduate students will require support think that a four-year target is infeasible. for graduate students,” says Richard N. from the funding agencies. Shakhashiri and “I had a four-year goal when I entered,” Zare, a chemistry professor at Stanford representatives of the commission have says Joshua Beaver, a fourth-year graduate University. “In the past, funding has come started visiting government agencies to student at the University of North Carofrom the professor through a grant. The present the report. In January, they met with lina, Chapel Hill. “Over the past five or six result of that is that the student often feels program officers and administrators at NSF. months, I’ve learned that I really haven’t obligated to follow very closely whatever Across NSF, about 80% of graduate hit my stride until now. It took that much the professor is doing in terms of research student funding comes from individual time to be able to develop the essential or in terms of desires about what gets done. investigator awards, says F. Fleming Crim, problem-solving skills to earn a Ph.D.” BeaIt makes the student less independent.” assistant director for mathematical and ver is nevertheless on track to finish within The report suggests that graduate stuphysical sciences at NSF. The other 20% is a year, for a total of less than five years. dents could be funded by program grants, divided between graduate research fellowTo help graduate students finish their similar to training grants already offered ships and other funding mechanisms. degrees in a timely fashion, the report by the National Institutes of Health, and Crim doesn’t know how NSF’s graduate WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
2013 John C. Bailar, Jr. Medal & Lectureship
student funding model might evolve, but he emphasizes that NSF won’t proceed unilaterally. “We have to have community buy-in and enthusiasm,” he says. “Something that is done strictly from the foundation side without real discussion and buy-in from the community is preordained to cause problems and not work.” The report calls for “experiments” in funding mechanisms and for phasing in new models over 10 to 15 years. “We are very open to the idea of experiments,” Crim says. “We have a lot of training models, like IGERT [Integrative Graduate Education & Research Traineeship], that are experiments in how you train the workforce.” THE RECOMMENDATIONS on lab safety elicit mixed reactions.
The Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois congratulates
Everyone agrees that safety is important, but not everybody thinks this report was the appropriate place to discuss it. “I don’t think the emphasis of the report should be on safety in the lab,” Zare says. “I think it’s very important, but I don’t think it belongs in this report. This should instead have been about preparing graduate students, about the future.” “I hardly paid attention to that section, because it’s obvious we need to change,” Moore says. “Graduate school needs to do a better job of preparing its students for the culture they’re going to encounter when they leave.” Chemjobber suggests that changing the academic safety culture will be harder than people think. “Many of the best safety cultures come from organizations that are extraordinarily large,” Chemjobber says. Such organizations have enough resources that they can afford to spend a relatively small slice on safety, Chemjobber notes. “That’s not necessarily the case for universities or small companies.” Amy Hamlin, a fourth-year graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, was pleased to see the focus on safety. “I would like to see more collaboration between academics and industry with regard to safety,” she says. “A lot of students move to industry labs and don’t know the safety rules.” Such changes need to come from the top, she says. “Change is not going to start with the graduate students.” That’s something Hamlin welcomes, noting that easy-to-implement safety rules won’t drastically change students’ day-to-day work. In fact, students will probably be more efficient as a result, she says. Ryan Pavlicek, a second-year graduate student at Northeastern University, agrees that safety is important, but he places less emphasis on it. He suggests that the report “paints a grimmer picture than most people encounter.” Shakhashiri is spearheading efforts to get the report out. In addition to visits to federal agencies, he has organized symposia at scientific society meetings, including the ACS national meeting next month in New Orleans. He and commission members have been invited to make presentations to chemistry departments around the country. Last month, he hosted a webinar about the report with presentations from Faulkner and commission member Jacqueline K. Barton, a chemistry professor at California Institute of Technology. But the most important effect of the report may be the conversation it sparks. “A big virtue of the report is that it’s going to stimulate a lot of discussion,” Crim says. “We’re in the midst of an extended conversation among ourselves about the number of people we train and how we train them that has been precipitated by the financial crunch we’re in,” Petsko says. “The dialogue has to be protracted, and the din has to get louder. If this report does nothing but form part of that conversation, it was worth writing.” ◾ WWW.CEN-ONL INE.ORG
Professor Donald J. Darensbourg and
Professor Marcetta Y. Darensbourg on being chosen the 2013 John C. Bailar, Jr. Medalists. The lectures will be presented at 8 p.m. on March 25, and at 4 p.m. on March 26, 2013 on the campus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Supported by the John & Florence Bailar Fund
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