Chemical Education Today
Editorial
The Boyer Report In April of this year the Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University released a report that is bound to stimulate debate among faculty in all disciplines and might have a lasting effect on higher education in America. Titled Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’s Research Universities, the report is dedicated to the memory of Ernest L. Boyer, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching at the time of his death in December 1995 and formerly Chancellor of the State University of New York and U.S. Commissioner of Education. The report is available on the web at http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf. In 1994 only 6% of all institutions in the U.S. that grant bachelor’s degrees were research universities, but 32% of all undergraduate degrees (and 56% of the degrees granted to those who subsequently received science and engineering doctorates) were granted by them. According to the report, graduates of these institutions have “furnished the cultural, intellectual, economic, and political leadership of the nation.” But at the same time, the report concludes, “the research universities have too often failed, and continue to fail, their undergraduate populations. … An undergraduate at an American research university can receive an education as good or better than anything available anywhere in the world, but that is not the normative experience.” All too often students “graduate without knowing how to think logically, write clearly, or speak coherently.” They do receive a credential—a degree. But, with many others doing the same, the value of that credential is becoming less and less. The Boyer report does not concern itself with the continuing discussion of the content of the undergraduate curriculum, but rather recommends ten process-oriented ways that higher education should be changed. These apply across disciplines and across the wide variety of institutions that are categorized as research universities. They are • • • • • • • • • •
Make Research-Based Learning the Standard Construct an Inquiry-Based Freshman Year Build on the Freshman Foundation Remove Barriers to Interdisciplinary Education Link Communication Skills and Course Work Use Information Technology Creatively Culminate with a Capstone Experience Educate Graduate Students as Apprentice Teachers Change Faculty Reward Systems Cultivate a Sense of Community
These changes are designed as a means by which the wealth of intellectual resources and power that is the hallmark of a research university can be shared among undergraduates as well as graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The Boyer Commission argues that to do this will require “a complete transformation in the nature of the education offered.” The commission’s model is that undergraduate education at research universities should be uniquely tailored to the research environments and fully integrated with the research efforts of faculty at such institutions. Instead of using as a
…the research university should
model the specialized situation celebrate its size of a liberal arts college (making a small college out of a big uniand resources by versity), the research university incorporating them should celebrate its size and remuch more fully sources by incorporating them much more fully into underinto undergraduate graduate education. That is, an education. undergraduate’s experience at a research university should be distinctly different from that at other types of institutions, and should be “an inseparable part of an integrated whole” that includes graduate and research programs that are available nowhere else. Undergraduates who will flourish in the environment envisioned will be those who “enjoy diverse experiences”, are “not dismayed by complexity or size”, have “a degree of independence and self-reliance”, and seek “stimulation more than security”. In at least one area, remedial work at the freshman level, faculty will probably applaud the commission’s report. It proposes that remedial work should be carried out before a student enrolls in a research university: through summer programs, in pre-college institutions, at other kinds of post-secondary institutions, or by special, noncredit courses such as English as a second language. Students in beginning courses would then be ready for the significantly different, inquirybased kind of education that is advocated for the first year. From the perspective of our own discipline, it appears to me that some liberal arts colleges already provide an experience at least qualitatively similar to what the commission espouses for the research university. Students and faculty work together on research projects and publish their results in the same journals as do those at research universities, even though there is no graduate program. Consequently, making an undergraduate’s experience at a research university distinctly different from that at certain liberal arts colleges may be a tall order. Even more difficult, however, will be achieving redirection of resources in the way that the Boyer Commission advocates—toward interdisciplinary programs, use of information technology, and opportunities for undergraduates. For the large number of faculty who currently are running as hard as they can to stay where they are, the broad perspective and vision of the commission’s report may seem overwhelming, unworkable, or threatening. Nevertheless, the commission is pointing in much the same direction as many current efforts toward reform of undergraduate education. Its report deserves a careful, critical reading by all of us, not just those at research universities. Such a reading will certainly broaden our thinking about how we might improve the teaching/learning process, and it might just cause us to change some preconceived notions. Applying to the problem of improving undergraduate education the same kind of thought and creativity that go into research projects is something we all should do more often.
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 75 No. 8 August 1998 • Journal of Chemical Education
935
