Wendell H. Slabaugh O r e g o n State University Corvallis, 97331
The
Educator
Before the age of specialization, the 40-hr woikweek, and the extended coffee hreak, the typical professor taught classes, researched, advised, and even administrated, all quite successfully. In fact, the first president of my university over 100 years ago taught all the chemistry and pharmacy courses, researched in fertilizers, and was in great demand as a public lecturer. Nowadays, the emphasis on specialization has typically produced the research-oriented professors who ordinarily teach one or two classes to advanced students and who are seldom concerned with the ordinary chores of undergraduate instruction. Our profession is well supplied with awards of one sort or another for achievement in these areas of specialization, and we must push ahead in such areas in order for chemistry to continue its vitality. But where does this leave the mass of students who, even as future citizens, must come up through their high school and college years with an adequate introduction to chemistry? Fortunately, there are those who are attracted to the rewards of teaching-working with students, hopefully teaching them same chemistry, and helping them to grow up with a healthy outlook on life. Same of these teachers maintain an active interest in research, they refuse to sell their souls for higher pay as administrators, and yet they continue an all-out effort to deliver good teaching to large numhers of students. In fact, a brief examination of the list of nearly 80 MCA awardees over the years reveals a n unusually high incidence of this kind of teacher, one who has maintained a balance among the several facets of chemistry. In addition to their dedication to teaching, most of these have written extensively in chemical education, most continue t o pursue their research specialties, and a few of them assist with the administration on their campuses. This is the balance in outlook which seems'to he vital to the successful teaching of chemistry. With a balanced viewpoint toward chemistry the instructor can relay to his students the fundamentals of the subject, the planning of an experiment, the importance of communicating with one's colleagues, the hard work that may go for naught, yet the hope of success in another try, and possihly the excitement of making a new discovery. We live by example, and our students gain a better idea of chemistry the more we maintain a position of balance in what we as chemical educators actually do.
Out of Gas? We hear these days that the frontiers of chemistry are no longer the wide open spaces they once were. In other words, the question is sometimes raised: Is chemistry nearly used up. Our technologies have supposedly been nearly perfected and we are already faced with restrictions on the support of basic research. It has been seriously proposed that a moratorium be declared for the sciences. A respectable scientist, who recently listed the priorities for survival of the human race, places the study of basic sciences a t the bottom of the list, and he even labels basic science as an overstudied field of endeavor. But if we look a t the higher priorities on this list, the problems of nutrition, population, the environment, and energy resources attract our attention, and it's going to take a lot of chemistry to resolve these problems. How, for instance, are the energy needs of our modern society to be met in the near future? The forecasts that we are about to run out of natural gas are sufficient to cause us to be concerned about running short an certain types of fossil fuels. Maybe we should have already ceased to burn petroleum products and conserve this valuable resource for more useful purposes, such as some of the products already derived from petrochemicals. Then we should turn to other sources of energy-coal, farm and city refuse, nuclear energy, and eventually solar energy. These changes are going to require lots of chemists, or whatever you wish to call these people, who are knowledgeable in the properties and reactions of materials. Similar cases can he made for the problems of our environment, nutrition, transportation, etc. So, it seems, the importance of teaching chemistry is as great as ever. Our society will not only need the services of more and more adequately trained chemists, who will know how to solve practical problems, hut the general public must he made more awaie of haw these problems will be resolved and who will do it. I wonder if part of the cloudy reputation of chemists as evil purveyors of pollution and inventors of foul devices stems partly from our lack of attention to the large number of would-be nonchemists who are in our high school and college classes. Less than 1%of the high school students and a proportionately small fraction of our freshmen ehemistry students ever become practicing chemists. Yet, what do we do for this vast majority of our students, many of whom become our public citizens who greatly influence the policy decisions that affect our on-gaing work as chemical educators. Teachers and representatives of the industry are aware of the many attacks on the chemical industrymast of which are unwarranted. Because of the great number of nonchemists-99% of students-we, the academia and the chemieal industry, must join hands to somehow educate the great mass, a continuing public, of the good of chemistry. Maybe our courses might make more sense to our students if approached from the standpoint of everyday chemistry, household chemistry, environmental chemistry, or even hat-rod chemistry-all because chemistry is the key to the well-being of modern man. Remarks to the Manufacturing Chemists Association a t the Greenbriar, June 7, '1973 in acceptance of the MCA Awards for high school and college teachers.
730
/
Journal of Chemical Education
