Chemical Education: Whence From? Whither To?
opinion
the others that most people have forgotten the contributions On this silver anniversarv I would like to brine-to vou . some of our other scientists. Some of the older members of the staff of my concerns about the future of the profession of chemistry of our host institution remember work on this campus relating and of the role that you as teachers may play in molding that to antimalarials, penicillin, RDX explosive, etc. If you enjoy future. I t has been my good fortune to have close acquainamorning cup of freeze-dried coffee, just remember that the tances in both academic and industrial circles. Through vartechnology for freeze drying was developed during World War ious ACS activities and other associations I have acqiired a 11 for the presenration of whole dried blood. The accomsensitivity to the interaction of chemists with governmental nlishments of scientists and eneineers were so'outstandine officials and with the general public. Today I find many attithat many of the military wished& preserve the close working tudes and actions on the part of others which affect our prorelationships among the universities, industry, and the milifession and which in many instances, could and should protary after the war. The Office of Naval Research was a funcduce a counteraction by members of our profession. How well tioning organization before many of those loaned by the uniwe react could determine, a t least in par< the course of future versities to war-related projects had returned to their home events, many quite outside our professional environment. You bases. Much has happened since that time and we forget that as teachers can and must play a significant part in the situaONR was committed to fundamental research in the broad tion confronting us today. I'll try to enlarge on this stateareas of their interests and not to specific applications. For ment some, the tempo of research hardly changed as they left a Despite all the inherent pitfalls in characterizing any segwartime organization to return to a campus with an ONR ment of historical time as the so-and-so age. .. . I want to charcontract. The other armed services followed suit and so a little actrrize the latesixties and the seventiesasa particular kind later, did the Atomic Energy Commission. When the National of ace. It is the awe ,A the breakdown of confrd~nie.The public Science Foundation was formed, some of the patterns of rehaslost confideke'iu their officials, be they a t the national, search support were already well established. Of course, NSF state. or local level. Officials, in turn, are discouraged and had broader functions than just the support of research. Hence occadionally angered a t what they consider unfair attacks on it sponsored many programs for scholars and teachers: curthem. There are few faculty members who are not absolutely riculum design, summer institutes, etc. Its accomplishments certain that each of them cduld do a far better job than is being are many and praiseworthy. done by their department chairman, dean, or president. These However, my purpose today is not to dwell on the accomofficials in turnwill point out how their freedom of decision plishments of the good old days when science and education making and leadership is so restricted by regulations and by fared well but to focus on what went wrone and whv the idols advisor\, and rons~llu~tirr cornrnitrees that c r h v e leadership fell from grace. NSF could never have been establiihed if the is impossihlr. Many of our public officials, reflecting the st~uhlic.throueh our elected officials. did not feel it was fittine r i t u d r ~ thcirconsrit~~encies. f have lost faith in education. In and proper that lhisagcncy he established. Inother words, the the priorities for support, education does not get the priorities ouhlir had confidence in science. scientists. and the scientific that it once euioved. Industrv officials are nainfullv aware of kstablishment. the loss of concdence on t i e part of t h e public "and their Now vou won't like this next statement hut I say academia elected officials. You would he surprised a t the cost in time, gave [him ample justification for the loss of that ioniidence. money, and effort in complying with the many governmental You mav wonder why industry lost confidence. Had you been reeulations olaced on industrv. in my shoes in the sixties, supervising an industrial research h o w hoddoes the present situation affect the chemical organi7atiun. you'd know full well. It wnssaid that thenational nrofession and teachers? Well within the memories of many effort was to increase the number of people trained in science of you here, education, science, chemistry, and many of us as and engineering. Now we get into a sticky area where we have individuals enjoyed many privileges; adequate support of to be careful how we use raw data. With a variable number of research, teacher-training institutes, advanced and foreign bodies to pick from because of a variable birth rate, the fairest study support, curriculum improvement programs, travel way to compare one year toanother is to compare the number grants, and many other niceties. How did these come of bachelor's degrees granted in science and engineering as about? a percentage of the number of people of graduation age in the During the first World War chemists won their spurs, so to total population. I was shocked to find that this varied almost speak. The unavailability of items previously obtained from not at all durine the fifties and sixties.'Des~itea nation-wide abroad necessitated the development of our chemical industry campaign to attract new entrants to these professions, the so that we would be independent of foreign sources of supply. percentage of the population of'age 22 receiving bachelor's The combat-critical items were developed quickly but the degrees, 3.7% did not increase. Does this mean that our reprocess of gaining complete independence continued despite cruitine was ineffective or does it mean that 3.7% re~resents the deoression. In fact. late in the thirties. we reached that the limir to whirh rhose possessing the tnknts to hecomeenstage of sophistication where we were becoming leaders in the gineers and wientists exisr in our popularion?" world: Kodachrome film.. Nvlon. rubber. and high . . svnthetic . perforrnancc gasoline, to mention only n few products. ~ a ; ~ y readers will he rewarded b\. reading "200 Years of American Luncheon address on the occasion of the twenty-fifth annual . 118(7), 25 (Feb. Chemicals" by J. F. ~ e n a h s n[ ~ h e kWeek, meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of College Chemistry 20.1976)l. Teachers, State College, Pennsylvania, May 8,1976. ~efore'theoutset of World War 11science was organized to I Brade. W. R., Science, 173 (3993).206 (1971). solve problems related to combat, health, etc. The success of Could this ~ereentaae - be increased by the full recruitment of women into these professions? one oi these, the atomic bomb, so completely overshadowed ~~
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What then was the result of the widespread support of the education of scientists and engineers? Instead of nrovidine more people with BS degrees,kany more of those with ~g degrees received advanced degrees, some of whom, I regret to say, would not have been granted such degrees a t an earlier period. Had the general level of intelligence risen enough to justify this? I think not, especially since I saw the product in action. The biggest difficulty was that the academic oroduct was conditioned against industry. Further, since industry needs BS and PhD chemists in about the ratio of 3 to 1,the universities were not supplying the right "product mix". In our scramble for funds to do the things we considered worthwhile, I am sure we left the general impression that there would be some return to the public. We did our work, published our results, wrote our orooosals. and recruited more post-docs. Did we have a gwdan;wer when the public asked: Where is the cancer cure you talked about? or the improved transportation? or the low-cost housing? I maintain that contributions to these were made but the time scale on which we envisioned complete solutions and the time scale on which others expected them were completely different. Is it any wonder that when the crunch came, education and science were given lower priorities than they had enjoyed only a short time before? The science-educational establishment made the tragic error of withdrawiue from the real world. Our research seldom touched base withthe problems facing those who paid the bi.What about developments in teaching? With all the work on methods of presentation, all of the new audio-visual aids and all the excellent textbooks now available. teachinn and learning have ncquired au entirely new dimension. Svt how much ol'all this de\.eloprnent has been directed toward helnine the average citizen u1;derstand the game we are all playing? Toward enabling him to distinguish between the true. the conjecture basedon assumptionB which may not be justified, and the out-and-out falsehood in the public statements we hear every day? Do we help the average-citizento understand how our economy and our standard of living are dependent upon chemical processes and the activities of chemists? Do we make it clear that, although chemists have some resoonsibility for the environmental deterioration, they are the only experts who offer any real hope t'nr cleaning up the mess we hwv r w s / o h l r c h i n ~a situation are in? It's time that we all e u ~ of confidence. unfortunately, thehisillusioned &e often the most difficult to reconvert. I know that many of you are going t o tell me that your in-
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stitution does have a eeneral education course or a survev course in chemistry. I have examined many of them. They & not what I have in mind. AU tw often the mention of industry, the environment, etc. is only a means, commendable as this may he, to lead to the same objectives as the conventional "rigorous" course. I propose that the course for the citizen or the legislator should involve very little theory and that you spend very little time teaching students hbw to balance equations or work problems. I urge that you present chemistry as the science of chanees in comoosition and the chemical in- - ~ dustry'as engaged in producing in quantity compositions of Then it follows that raw materials use to the consumine ouhlic. are essential, that there must be plants to carry out the changes in composition. and that the ooeration of these olants requires energ$ Show how many i t e k w e use every daGesult from these changes in comoosition. Characterize orocesses bv the by-productsas well a s t h e desired products A d how thk disposal or avoidance of by-products keeps chemists busy. Such courses I am sure will pay off. Don't offer them just to students, present them as extension courses and over T.V. No one will ever question their relevance! So the "whither to" in chemical education today is largely in vour hands and the "whither to"of the chemical nrofession ~~~~~~sigkficantly so. This is a great challenge and an opportunity. Are you eaual to the task? If vou aren't. who is? I can hold out one possible compensation. w i t h the cmtractiou of the education industry, many are concerned with iob securitv. A preferred way out wodd be to make instruction in chemrstry for the citizen and special citizen . grouos . more attractive. If you arouse sufficient interest, your pupils might just want a "real" course in chemistry. A surge in the use of chemists is bound to come in the near future; extension courses of this type may be the way employment-wise to bridge the gap. Oh, I know there remain among your colleagues those who feel that teaching the kind of courses I have in mind is beneath their professional dignity. I can only say that one can't let the scorn of a few colleagues distract one from what one knows should be done even if the scornful one ultimatelv benefits in the doing. Good luck and great success! However, I have one important word of caution. Once vou do establish confidence on the part of the public don't re& and take it for granted. You must keep on earning it!
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W. Conrad Fernelius Kent State University Kent, Ohio 44242
Volume 53, Number 10, October 1976 / 633
