Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Scholarship in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering The Board of Directors of the American Chemical Soand mathematics; and too many students leaving campuses ciety recently endorsed the broad definition of scholarship without the skills and motivation needed to continue to learn in the Statement on Scholarship in the Chemical Sciences and to solve real problems cooperatively. and Engineering on this page. The ACS statement also The statement reflects similar draws upon the Report of the Statement on Scholarship ones that have recently been Task Force on Chemical Eduendorsed and promulgated by In addition to discovery research, scholarship in the chemical cation Research that appeared other scientific and engineering sciences and engineering includes the integration, application, in this Journal in October disciplines. I have touched on 1994 (4). That report clearly issues that prompted it in sev- and teaching of chemical sciences and engineering principles delineates the characteristics of eral earlier editorials (1). The and practice. This expanded definition recognizes that valuable research in chemical education ACS has taken an important scholarship in any of these areas requires originality, creativity, and provides guidance for colstep that will benefit each of us leagues, department heads, a thorough grounding in the previous accomplishments of other individually, our discipline, our and others charged with evalustudents, and society at large. scholars, and effective communication of new contributions in ating the quality of scholarship Readers of this ACS state- peer-reviewed publications. in teaching chemistry. Chemiment should be aware of the cal education research should American Chemical Society context within which it was be based on theory, it involves generated. A number of reports careful observation and collecpublished in the last decade made major contributions. One tion of data, it can produce general results, and those results is Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (2), can be peer reviewed and published—a fact that has often in which Ernest Boyer identified three “new” scholarships, been demonstrated in the pages of this Journal. Published complementary to and coequal with what he called the “scholconclusions and descriptions of innovations that have been arship of discovery” and the ACS statement calls “discovery proven successful are very useful to JCE readers who design research”. These are and implement environments within which students can learn chemistry. • Scholarship of integration: putting isolated facts into The ACS’s official endorsement of the broader range of perspective, making connections across disciplines, scholarly activities embodied in the Statement on Scholarplacing specialized areas into larger context, revealing ship in the Chemical Sciences and Engineering is a signifithe meaning within data. cant milestone along the road toward improved chemical edu• Scholarship of application: bringing knowledge to bear cation. It is now up to us, as educators and chemists, to apon consequential problems and providing service to ply originality and creativity to the body of knowledge colsociety outside academe. lected by previous scholars in our field, thereby conceiving, • Scholarship of teaching: transmitting knowledge and, implementing, and evaluating innovations whose success we in addition, transforming and extending it. can communicate to the discipline at large. These short statements, and more detailed descriptions in Scholarship Reconsidered, significantly amplify the meaning of “integration, application, and teaching” in the ACS statement. Literature Cited More background is provided by Shaping the Future (3), in which the National Science Foundation identified “The 1. Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 741. Moore, J. W. J. lack of adequate rewards for improvements in education” as Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 1381. Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. the greatest single barrier to reform of undergraduate science, 1998, 75, 935. mathematics, engineering, and technology (SME&T) edu2. Boyer, Ernest L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Procation. For some, discipline-wide consensus that it is crucially fessoriate; Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teachimportant to provide all students with access to excellent uning: Princeton, NJ, 1990. dergraduate education in SME&T disciplines might be suf3. Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation Dificient reward. Others would doubtless include more tangible rectorate for Education and Human Resources. Shaping the indicators such as salary increases, tenure, honors, prestige, Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Sciand monetary support for new educational initiatives on their ence, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology; NSF 96-139, lists. Shaping the Future concludes that inadequate rewards 1996; Executive Summary, NSF 96-141, 1996. http:// are largely responsible for current failings of undergraduate www.ehr.nsf.gov/ehr/due/documents/review/96139/start.htm SME&T education: too many courses that students regard (accessed Sep 2000). as dull and unwelcoming; too many teachers entering class4. Task Force on Chemical Education Research. J. Chem. Educ. rooms without real understanding of the essence of science 1994, 71, 850.
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 77 No. 11 November 2000 • Journal of Chemical Education
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