Chemical Education Today edited by Ann Cartwright San Jacinto College, Central Campus Division of Science and Mathematics Pasadena, TX 77501-2007
Association Report: 2YC3
The DuPont Conference: Implications for the Chemical Technology Curriculum by John Kenkel, Sue Rutledge, and Paul Kelter
Southeast Community College (SCC) hosted the first DuPont Conference for Chemical Technology Education at its Lincoln, Nebraska campus October 4–6, 1997. The conference brought together fourteen practicing chemists and chemistry technicians and five college and university faculty members for the express purpose of suggesting new laboratory activities that would help relate the real world of work to the education of chemical laboratory technicians in community colleges. Participants included seven men and seven women from DuPont, Procter & Gamble, Eastman Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Dow Chemical, Air Products and Chemicals, Monsanto, Union Carbide, the Nebraska Agriculture Laboratory, and the University of Nebraska Biological Process Development Facility, Department of Food Science. The conference, sponsored by the E. I. DuPont DeNemours & Company through a grant awarded to SCC in June 1997, was intended to help further the goals of the two major projects underway at SCC, funded by the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education Program. These projects, dubbed “Assignment: Chemical Technology I and II”, or ACT-I and ACT-II, are curriculum and materials development projects. The invited scientists had between 2 and 32 years of experience that ranged from bench work to management levels. Many are or have been active on the national scene as members and officers of the American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Technicians and the ACS Committee on Technician Activities. After three days of discussion, it was clear that community colleges should modify their current thinking about the chemical technology curriculum if program graduates are to be fully prepared to meet the challenges of the modern workplace. As one senior member of the group stated, “Almost nothing [I do] now did I learn in school.” Chemistry technician education must relate better to the needs of future employers. In this report, we discuss the educational priorities that employers have for new laboratory workers. Use of Voluntary Industry Standards (VIS) Some members of the group, including both the practitioners and academicians, had been intimately involved in the recent development of the Voluntary Industry Standards (1) for chemical laboratory technicians. The methodology by which the VIS will be implemented was a point of concern at the conference. Addressing the group first were two members of the Advisory Board for the SCC NSF projects, Onofrio Gaglione, longtime chemical technology educator and retired Dean at New York City Technical College; and John Amend, chemistry professor at Montana State University. Gaglione, a member of the American Chemical Society's Chemical Technol-
ogy Program Approval Service (CTPAS), the two-year chemical technology equivalent to the four-year college Committee on Professional Training (CPT), spoke of program assessment and the Gap Analysis. “Gap”, which is not an acronym for anything, simply describes the difference or gap between what a particular chemical technology program teaches and what the local industry needs. The VIS are used as benchmarks for comparison purposes. In a Gap Analysis, industrial representatives rate the importance of specific standards to the workplace on a 0–3 scale. Academic faculty rate the importance of these same standards to the curriculum. The numerical “gap” rating of each standard is defined as Gap = college rating – industry rating Gaps of “–2” or “–3” (so-called “gap non-compliance”) show discrepancies between the local industry's needs and the academic program's curricular emphasis that could be addressed. Community colleges are being encouraged to perform the gap analysis on their curriculum as part of the approval process. John Amend discussed his vision for how the concepts of teamwork, problem-solving, and technology can be introduced into the curriculum. The process would essentially be laboratory-driven and problem-based. A problem would be defined in the laboratory course, teams would be assigned and planning sessions held. The basic science backgrounds of the students would be important for the process and the lecture course, which introduces concepts, and technology, which introduces modern methods, would feed into the process. The defined problem would be solved via laboratory experiment design and implementation, and students would generate a report. Following this, the instructor would evaluate the report and might recommend that the process be repeated to improve the results. It was noted that “Planning, Designing and Conducting Experiments” is a critical job function of chemistry laboratory technicians as defined by the VIS. Industry Priorities In advance of the conference, all participants were asked to examine the tasks and workplace standards for each critical job function defined in the VIS document and prepare remarks which would suggest laboratory activities that could be performed by the community college students as part of the educational process. Many of the participants adhered strictly to these guidelines, offering both rough and specific suggestions for lab activities. Others, however, commented on what they saw as the observable gaps between what community colleges teach and what is required by industry. The following summarizes the participants' comments.
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Association Report: 2YC3 I. Safety in the Workplace This item was mentioned in the remarks of nearly every industry participant and was the main topic chosen by two of the participants. It is apparently an area where the gap between what students learn in college and what chemical industry demands is literally a canyon. Intensive safety training, often consisting of 8–10 training sessions, is given to all incoming large-industry employees. The training, which may be given at least yearly to practicing chemical technicians, may include: interpretation of MSDS sheets (referred to as “the Bible” among workers in one large firm), working with fire extinguishers, first aid, “lockout/tagout” procedures regarding instrumentation shutdown in an emergency situation, cleaning glassware, and solvent use. It is apparent that chemical technology instructors need to make a renewed commitment to get real and significant safety training into the curriculum. II. Good Laboratory Practices (GLP) This, too, was chosen by two participants as the major topic for their remarks and was mentioned by most of those present as being of considerable importance. Intertwined with GLP are such topics as standard operating procedures (SOP's), documentation, audits, regulations, safety, calibration, validation, maintenance, and technique. One participant suggested that GLP are so much a part of life in the workplace that community college faculty should consider using a GLP manual as a textbook. It was clear that an academic laboratory program should include proper use of a notebook; the writing, validation and use of SOP's; the calibration of instruments; good fundamental analytical technique; and statistics. If a laboratory is regulated by the government (EPA, FDA, etc.), GLP guidelines must be followed in order to pass government audits. III. Laboratory Notebook Protocol This area represents another canyon between academic training and the chemical industry. A tremendous amount of emphasis is placed on notebooks in the workplace. Here are some example comments from conference participants: “Your thinking is done in a notebook”; “If it is not documented, it is ‘rumor’”; “If you backdate, you are lying.” It was very obvious that laboratory workers develop a unique mentality regarding notebooks in the workplace environment. It was noted that there are GLP standards for laboratory notebooks, including log sheets, calibration records, and maintenance records. Many companies have two signatures on each entered page—that of the worker, and another verifying the entry. One company puts notebook entries on microfilm and stores these away from the company's offices. Participants stressed the importance of modeling proper professional behavior in regard to notebooks in the academic setting. IV. Oral and Written Communications/Teamwork This came up frequently in the discussion and in a number of different scenarios. For example, one participant described his ascent from “analyst” to “super analyst” to “technical staff ”, the latter of which consisted mostly of Masters and Ph.D. chemists. In his words, he was “scared to death”. Another described as "scary" her experience of having to make
presentations to Ph.D.'s. There is absolutely no denying that technicians will be asked to communicate clearly in their speech, in their writing, and also in electronic communication. In addition, all students should learn to become productive team members. Suggestions in this area included giving students all of these experiences in the college setting, including assigning group projects, and the use of oral and written reports.
V. Math, Graphing, and Computer Skills These were discussed by virtually every presenter. Two mentioned dimensional analysis (factor-label method). Several mentioned skill with spreadsheets. Regarding solution preparation, one mentioned that the math is an essential skill that a technician should be able to perform routinely and quickly. Another provided an example of a solution preparation problem that could be approached in several different ways, the point being that it is not the calculation method that is important, but rather the end result. He said that, in contrast to academe, industry is interested in the right answer, not the calculation method. It was interesting that the perceptions of one presenter, whose highest education is high school, seemed to mirror that of another who has a Ph.D. The math involved in data collection, recording and reporting, including the use of computers for charts, graphs and spreadsheets, and the integrity of results, is absolutely “essential and vital”. VI. Variability/Statistics/Control Charting One of the greatest concerns of chemists and technicians in the workplace is the inconsistency of experimental data and results. Such inconsistency stems from the variability occurring from worker to worker, from method to method, from instrument to instrument, and from day to day. Numerous exercises were suggested to make students aware of this situation, including comparing results when graduated cylinders are used versus volumetric flasks, comparing results when Na2HPO4 is used for a phosphate standard versus NaH2PO 4, and using different instruments for the same analysis. The importance of control charts was heard over and over again from the presenters. Students should go through the exercise of recognizing variability and using control charts and statistics to reject or retain results. VII. Instrument Analysis, Calibration, and Troubleshooting There was no question that the modern workplace presents an immense array of advanced technological activity to technicians. At least one participant complained that there was insufficient exposure to this in her college experience. She suggested the use of polymer science to solve this problem. Students could use sophisticated instrumental analysis (IR, gel permeation chromatography, and many of the other instrumental methods listed in the VIS) to characterize the polymer after it has been synthesized. There were a number of other suggestions for this, including the analysis for phosphate by visible spectrophotometry, the analysis of soil for metals by atomic spectroscopy, and so forth, all of which would involve calibration and possibly troubleshooting.
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Association Report: 2YC3 VIII. Standard Analytical Methods Several participants noted that industrial chemists and technicians routinely utilize standard laboratory methods published by a variety of organizations. These include the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC). It was also noted that two of the eight VIS critical job functions specifically deal with reading and carrying out these standards. One participant complained that training on standard methods was not part of her education. Another said: “Hot-dogging— going around ASTM standards—can really screw up an analysis.” It was apparent that ASTM and other standards are very much a fact of life in the workplace (2). IX. Wet Chemistry The conferees strongly disagreed with the notion that college curricula should minimize the importance of wet chemistry in favor of computer-driven automation, data processing, and instrumentation. While the latter is considered important, four reasons were cited for the continued teaching of titrations, for example. These were redundancy, speed, cost, and understanding of a process. Some analyses are simply done faster, and sometimes more accurately, if done by titration rather than by an instrument. One participant mentioned the Kjeldahl analysis for total nitrogen, saying that instrumental methods are available, but that it can be done routinely, quickly, and inexpensively by the classical titrimetric method (3). X. Problem-Solving While chemistry technicians are often not given the professional recognition they deserve, their experience and expertise as problem-solvers cannot be denied. It is most desirable if an entry-level technician can immediately bring problem- solving skills to the job because such skills are expected. They have a wide variety of roles, including serving as trainers for incoming Ph.D.'s. One participant described the frustration at having to teach the basics to these incoming scientists—safety, quality concepts, basic terminology (GLP, SOP, etc.), procedures, regulations, and even basic solution preparation technique. She said, “I've trained two Ph.D.'s, and I don't know if I can train another one.” There is no denying that chemistry technicians in the workplace have the wealth of experience and understanding that makes them true prob-
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lem-solvers. College graduates should be better prepared for this challenging world. Conclusion One of the participants described those attributes that, when taken together, would provide the ideal chemical technician. The “perfect lab rat”, as he called the worker, would have: a strong background in chemistry; good mechanical skills; a working knowledge of electricity; computer skills; an understanding of the laws of physics; reading comprehension and writing skills; the ability to think inductively and deductively; keen observation skills; the ability to be a teacher and student; honesty, impartiality and objectivity; a good sense of safety, health and environmental issues; the ability to respond to the unexpected; the hands of a surgeon; and the patience of Job. The message to chemical technology faculty is clear—we must change what we teach and the way we teach in order to better meet the needs of our students and the needs of the chemistry workplace. Acknowledgments We acknowledge the employers listed in the Introduction section for allowing their chemists and/or technicians to participate. The support of the E. I. DuPont DeNemours & Company and of the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education program is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DuPont Company, the National Science Foundation, or any of the employers. Literature Cited 1. Hofstader, R.; Chapman, K. Foundations for Excellence in the Chemical Process Industries; American Chemical Society: Washington, D. C., 1997. 2. ASTM Home Page. http://www.astm.org (accessed Mar 1998). 3. Kenkel, J. Analytical Chemistry For Technicians, 2nd ed.; CRC Press/Lewis Publishers: Boca Raton, FL, 1994; p 131.
John Kenkel and Sue Rutledge are in the Department of Environmental Laboratory Technology, Southeast Community College, Lincoln, NE 68520. Paul Kelter teaches in the Department of Chemistry, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 685880304.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 75 No. 5 May 1998 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
