Editors' Column Mobile Short Course: Professional Analytical Chemists and What They Do in Industry Ever since the concern over the shortage of trained analytical chemists surfaced within the last couple of years, there have been numerous public forums addressing the issue of inspiring more young people to pursue careers in analytical chemistry. Taking this supply and demand imbalance prediction to heart, The Procter & Gamble Company and its dedicated analytical PhDs are going directly to the young people. What they have done is put together a kind of "road show" that can be given anywhere in the country, wherever there are willing students. This one-day short course is designed for undergraduate chemistry majors, especially at the junior and senior levels. The course instructors, drawn from the pool of Procter & Gamble analytical chemists, include Rich DePalma, Mark Greenberg, Tom Thorpe, and Alan Ullman.
The intent of the short course is to stimulate students' interest in graduate analytical chemistry programs. To this end, the course confronts directly the issues that are of immediate concern to students on the threshold of deciding on a career path. Thus the course begins with the presentation of data on the supply and demand situation for PhD analytical chemists, projected into the future when the current undergraduates are likely to be looking for jobs. The projections, which are based on the survey data available from the ACS and the National Research Council, convincingly predict that the supply will fall considerably behind the demand. Following this brief introductory discussion, the bulk of the full-day course is devoted to the main theme— the changing role of the analytical chemist in industry. To dispel the notion of the analytical chemist as some-
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1410 A • ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 55, NO. 14, DECEMBER 1983
one who does just routine analyses day in and day out, the course focuses ex tensively on the role of the industrial analytical chemist as a problem solv er. For this purpose some specific real-life analytical problem solving at Procter & Gamble is described. How ever, rather than present the problem solving in a straightforward lecture format, the course is structured to en courage learning by participation. Thus the students first learn about the specific problem and the signifi cance of the problem to the company's commercial activity. Then the stu dents, working in groups, are asked to come up with their own step-by-step analytical approach that will lead to the best possible solution. The stu dents' approaches are subsequently compared with the steps that were ac tually found to be the best analytical approach by Procter & Gamble's team of analytical chemists. The course was launched this past January with its first offering at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. A total of 18 students participated. The second offering, which was given at this year's FACSS meeting, was not quite as well attended, probably be cause undergraduate students rarely go to scientific meetings. For this rea son, the organizers do not expect to offer the course again in conjunction with scientific meetings, but plan in stead to give it at large universities, which are ideally situated to allow participation by students from neigh boring smaller schools. To get some feedback, the organiz ers sent survey questionnaires to the attendees several months after the course was given at Miami University. Responses were overwhelmingly posi tive. One typical respondent wrote, "The information presented did not taeet my expectations because I antic ipated another boring chemistry meet ing and not a thorough and informa tive course." For the first two of ferings, there was no cost to students. The organizers are currently seeking long-term funding arrangements that will allow the course to travel any where on request without any cost to students. Anyone interested in invit ing the course is urged to contact one of the instructors at Procter & Gam ble, 513-562-1100. Barbara Cassatt
