Chemical Education Today
Commentary
The Joys and Trials of Doing Research with Undergraduates* by Norman C. Craig
Although it was not always so, today most chemists strongly affirm the value of undergraduate research. Not only does doing research in a college setting with undergraduates help faculty members to keep growing professionally, but doing so is a powerful teaching strategy. Students grow before one’s eyes in this engaged, one-on-one teaching. Having a commitment to doing research with undergraduates that spans 41 years, I intend to draw on my experience to make a series of practical observations. These will include some challenges as well as the joys in such activity. Perhaps the best way to express this tension is to tell what my grown daughter Mary said when she heard that I had won the ACS Award for Research in an Undergraduate Institution. Mary said, “Congratulations, Dad. That’s remarkable. What I recall most clearly from my youth was your frequent ‘news of fresh disasters’ in the lab. So, you and your students were really accomplishing something after all?” As background for my comments, I report several things. I was trained as a physical chemist. My research interests have been principally in the area of vibrational spectroscopy— infrared and Raman spectroscopy and normal coordinate analysis—with a recent emphasis on using very-highresolution infrared spectroscopy to determine the structure of molecules that are nonpolar. Lacking a dipole, such molecules cannot be investigated by microwave spectroscopy. One unifying theme in our investigations has been the study of small fluorocarbons. Over the years we have synthesized several new fluorocarbons and a large number of isotopically substituted species. We make heavy use of vacuum systems and a wide variety of instrumentation. It was not always the case that undergraduate research was a highly valued activity. When I started my teaching career in 1957, undergraduate research experiences were the exception. Fortunately, the chemistry department at Oberlin College had a long tradition of undergraduates doing research during the academic year. Little research occurred, however, in the summer months, as most faculty members were away from the department. Because little research occurred during the summer, rarely did projects to which the students contributed lead to publication. In addition, for faculty members, there was a tension between writing textbooks and doing productive research. Harry Holmes, the well-known head of the department from 1914 to 1945, had been able to do both with the involvement of master’s degree students and postdoctoral fellows. Subsequently, no one had been able to sustain this *This commentary is an edited and updated version of a talk that was given at the 14th BCCE at Clemson University in August 1996. It was a contribution to a symposium with the title “Undergraduate Research as a Teaching Tool in Chemistry”. I was invited to participate as a consequence of having won the 1996 ACS Award for Undergraduate Research.
combination of activities. Seize the Summers; Prefer and Enjoy the Laboratory In the summer of 1958, my first full summer on the Oberlin faculty, I spent most of the time working on a new research program with the continuing help of two June graduates and my wife. My wife, Ann, who is not a chemist, said modestly that her role was principally to help the students feel proficient. Then, unexpectedly, at the end of the summer, I had my eyes opened and my career goals reinforced during a visit to Reed College. My brother-in-law, Frederick Tabbutt, had been teaching there for a year. He took me through the department to observe a vibrant summer research program being carried out by a large number of undergraduates and their faculty sponsors. The charismatic leader in developing this exceptional program was Arthur F. Scott. With one exception, Scotty’s faculty colleagues were equally involved. Recalling my own undergraduate research experiences during two summers at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, especially during the second summer when I did electrochemistry with Roger Bates, the father of modern pH standards, I was convinced that undistracted summer work was the key to productive undergraduate research. For me that impulse has not diminished. Because I enjoy all aspects of the laboratory, it has been natural to sustain this impulse. In the summer of 1998 I spent 10 weeks working closely with three research students on three different projects in the laboratory. I spent about 75% of my time helping the students learn techniques, dealing with apparatus needs and repairs, and finding ways for the students to continue to move ahead toward the research goals. For most of the rest of the time I prospected the computer-intensive next steps for one of the projects. Early in my career, I decided that I should spend at least ten summer weeks in Oberlin concentrating on research and forgoing most conferences, with one regular exception. That regular exception has been the annual International Molecular Spectroscopy Symposium at Ohio State University, where I have learned a great deal and have been annually challenged in mid-June to lift my sights. Beginners in the research laboratory make mistakes. I try to insulate students from the disappointment of bad mistakes. For example, I do not hand over to a new student a precious compound that someone else has worked hard to prepare. Losing such material through, for example, turning the wrong stopcock on a vacuum system would be a setback for the student and for me that would be hard to overcome. Students have to have done equivalent synthetic work themselves to earn such an inheritance. When there is a major accident, I do all I can to get the project rolling again. Once a student dropped a complex, evacuable cold cell for infrared spectroscopy made of glass and metal and equipped with large cesium iodide windows. He was devastated. With the help of an offsite glass-
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Chemical Education Today
Commentary blower, I got that cell rebuilt in less than a week. Subsequently, this student proved to be among my most productive students. He obtained low temperature infrared spectra of several organic cations produced by a new technique of reaction induced by temperature cycling of sandwiched layers, a remarkable achievement for an undergraduate. Insist on Well-Written Reports Today, most mentors of undergraduate researchers agree that an academic-year research project should culminate in a well-written, comprehensive report on the work. Little consensus exists, however, about students writing substantial reports on summer work. For years I have insisted on such reports and have rarely been disappointed. These reports not only help students deepen and consolidate their understanding of the project but also are invaluable when papers are to be written. In designing and developing research projects, I do all I can to keep publication in mind. The students know that publication is the goal and that they are working for keeps. In addition, I do what I can with my hands as well as with my mind to help students obtain satisfying results from each research project. As a consequence, a significant fraction of my research students have become coauthors. Carve Out Niches Finding ways in which students can participate in significant research early in their undergraduate years is important. For our research, students with only a year or two of college course work in chemistry can make valuable contributions to the synthesis and characterization of needed substances. These substances are often isotopomers required for our spectroscopic studies. Although I began synthetic work with the timidity of most persons trained as physical chemists, over the years I have gotten bolder and bolder. Our success in synthesis was confirmed a while ago when a faculty member at a university called to ask how we had made 3,3-difluorocyclopropene. He said that he, a biochemist, had been looking at the Journal of Physical Chemistry and had discovered our paper on the vibrational spectroscopy of this substance. His organic colleagues had already said that this fluorocylopropene could not be made. “Where had we gotten it?” he asked. Synthesizing needed new compounds has not only given inexperienced students a good place to get started in research, it has also provided us with a way to compete with highpowered research teams that work faster than we do. Until we have done our measurements, the new substance is “ours”. Finding such niches is an important element in developing productive undergraduate research programs. Seek First-Class Instrumentation All chemists today understand the crucial role of instrumentation. For faculty members in colleges there is a temptation to accept used instruments being passed along by industry or government laboratories. Often, accepting such instruments involves a triple penalty: (i) much effort must be expended in refurbishing and maintaining the used equip596
ment; (ii) the case for obtaining funding for new instrumentation is compromised; (iii) the quality of data obtained with the instrumentation may not be competitive. I urge expending every effort and engaging in cooperative relationships in order to obtain new, versatile instruments. Exchanging summer salaries for funds for instrumentation is one possibility, which my colleagues and I have used to build up the instrumentation in our department. Of course, good instrumentation not only makes significant research possible but strengthens the overall instructional program. Welcome Professional Cooperation This recommendation follows nicely the suggestion that up-to-date instrumentation may become accessible through cooperation. Cooperation with colleagues in one’s department is the first possibility. Cooperative projects with scientists in other laboratories is another good strategy for enhancing undergraduate research. Having something to share, such as specially synthesized materials and good ideas, is a sound basis for such cooperation. Taking every opportunity to spend sabbatical leaves in new settings is another effective way to develop cooperative linkages. Recent cooperative developments for our research program, which have grown out of sabbatical leaves, have been doing microwave spectroscopy with a cooledjet, Fourier transform instruments and infrared spectroscopy with high-resolution, Fourier transform instruments in other laboratories. With rare exceptions such instrumentation is too specialized and too costly for a college department. Avoid the Nobel Prize Syndrome By this phrase I mean that one should not set one’s sights so high in designing research projects for undergraduate participation that little happens in the laboratory. I have known college faculty members who were stymied by unrealistically high expectations for research. Most significant discoveries in any laboratory occur because one is working regularly and effectively on research, not because they were foreseen as grand projects. Damn the Loose Ends; Full Speed Ahead Loose ends accumulate at a frightening rate when doing research with undergraduates. My grabber for this observation is too flip. Loose ends are a big problem when students are inexperienced and participate in research for relatively short periods of time. Rarely, however, do I ask new students to deal with loose ends. I deal with the loose ends, and I do a lot of that. Such commitment by the faculty member is crucial to getting projects done and published. It is the students who can and should move ahead despite the loose ends. Express Enthusiasm Students benefit from regular doses of enthusiasm from the faculty mentor and from observing close up a faculty member who likes to work in the laboratory. Research, like baseball, has many disappointments. One is fortunate to get a hit every third time at bat. When those good hits come,
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 76 No. 5 May 1999 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Chemical Education Today
Undergraduate researchers Christopher Neese, Christiana Nwofor, Catherine Oertel in the lab with their mentor Norm Craig.
the rewards are comparable to hitting a home run. These should be celebrated. Honor Your Students Although most undergraduates are newcomers to research, I do all I can to help them become decision makers and colleagues. I never refer to them as assistants but rather as research participants, associates, or simply students. I rejoice with them when they make significant contributions, as they usually do, and especially when their contributions go beyond any outline or set of questions with which we started. How well I recall one student coming down the hall to ask me if I knew that the bonds in the ring of the cyclopropenyl cation were stronger and more aromatic than those in benzene. He based that insight on a comparison of the CC force constants of benzene, a comparison he had thought of, with the larger ones that he had just finished fitting to the vibration frequencies for the set of isotopomers of the cyclopropenyl cation. I include undergraduate researchers as coauthors whenever their contributions are of sufficient substance to warrant such coauthorship in the eyes of my professional colleagues. I welcome opportunities for undergraduate researchers to speak before audiences in the college and away from the college and to compete for prizes. I do all I can to keep in touch with these students after they graduate. Shown in the photograph are the three students who did research with me in the laboratory in the summer of 1998.
Catherine Oertel, on the right, is a National Goldwater Science Scholar who intends to go to graduate school in chemistry after she completes her senior year. Christopher Neese, left, is a fifth-year student who has completed a chemistry major in the College of Arts and Sciences and is now completing a degree in computer-generated music in the Conservatory of Music. He plans to go to graduate school in chemistry. Christiana Nwofor, center, a biochemistry major, is a native of Nigeria. She intends to do an M.D.-Ph.D. degree after two more years in college. Summary I have attempted to comment in rather practical terms about doing research with undergraduates and to reflect the joys and trials of such activity. The display summarizes the essential ideas of this account. For many college faculty members it is difficult to sustain an effective research program after the strong impulses from graduate school have faded. Not only does a successful undergraduate research program take much more direct involvement in the laboratory by the mentor than does a program in a graduate setting, but it also takes more energy and more personal dedication. The satisfactions for the students and the faculty member are, however, enormous. Norman C. Craig is in the Department of Chemistry, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074-1083; Email:
[email protected].
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