The Threat to Undergraduate Research D. C. Neckers Bowling Green State university, Bowling Green. OH 43403 In the "Provocative Ooinion" " iust ~recedina this one. . I'rofessor David K. Lewis makes again a compelling case for research with undereraduaces in .'underrrnduate onlv" collece settings. I've neve;really understood-how therecould be arguments about something so seemingly obvious as the necessity for research experience in the training of a chemist. Research experience is as much a part of the pre-graduate school, pre-medical school, pre-job chemistry major's training as homolytics for the seminarian, or calculator "button pushing" for the CPA. Quoting Professor Lewis: "Our primary function is to motivate youth, for then they will teach themselves"; I'd add a caveat. The motivated youth must he skilled enough and hrieht enoueb to handle the demands of research in science. forlt is a creative activity. Though it includes the mechanical maniodations of laboratow work.. our oroducts will onlv add . to our profession as research scientists if they can interpret the results as well as perform the experiments. The problem of attracting America's brightest and most capable science undergraduates into careers in scientific re-
search represents an urgent and difficult challenge for the scientific community. Undergraduates in the physical and biological sciences with the greatest promise and ability are torn between a broad spectrum of career opportunities, including some-medicine heing the prime example--that offer prestige and financial rewards beyond those associated with scientific research. Indeed, there is worrisome evidence that more and more of our most able undergraduates are selecting careers other than research at the PhD level for attractive alternative careers and our laboratories in PhD granting schools are filling with more foreign nationals. What can he done to give science undergraduates a glimpse of the excitement of research at the time these critical career decisions are being made? It is ironic that the National Science Foundation, in the post-Sputnik scramble for science superiority of 3 three decades ago, asked this same question-and answered it with a highly effective program that the Reagan administration has marked for extinction. The Undergraduate Research Participation Program (URP) was launched by the National Science Foundation in
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Number 4
April 1982
329
October 1958, with the fundamental purpose of accelerating and enrichine the develo~rnentof uudereraduates maiorine . in the physical, biological, mathematical and engineering sciences throueh directors. Institutions that received URP grants selected students of high achievement from among those who had amlied to them, and save most of those chosen weekly or monthiy stipends from tKe grant for the duration of the UPR. Students who did not need financial assistance were also included in the program without receiving a stipend. URP participants were considered junior research colleagues rather than research helpers. Many experienced first in URP programs the excitement of creative thought and careful experiment and the thrill of science a t the research frontier itself. Few NSF programs have been as important, or as cost-exfective. The enthusiasm of ex-participants now employed as industrial scientists, government scientists or university nrofessors for their ex~eriencewas illustrated by response to a single-question survey which I conducted last year. The auestion: "In what wavs, your NSF-URP experi. . if anv, .. did . ence influence your career?" Over 200 URP oartici~antsin chemistry took the time to respond. Typical were comments like Y ~ R Pwas so important in my (:homing a srirntifis research career that it's hard for me to imazine an NSF .nroeram ~~~. .. which hus cost as little but been as universally henefirinl" ur "URP introduced mt to the excitement ~,icreati\,escientificinauirv. . . Without thisexperieuce I would never have reached my professional or "I chose a research program as an Undergraduate Research Participant which I am, to this day, continuing. Without URP
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I would never have considered graduate education." Failure to fund a program which focuses on the nndergraduate research training of bright young students in the sciences now will clearly have an impact on the productivity of our nation's PhD programs in the future. I t will not only have an influence on who studies for a PhD degree, but also increase the average resident time in graduate school of those who do pet there. Research and development is the cornerour technical streneth of the future lies. and stone ~ - - oiwhich ~-~ - ~ our technicalstrength will have a dTrect influence on the viability, growth and productivity of American industry. Though decreasing the role of the Federal government in Education may be commendable in some instances, deleting the URP program will have a most negative impact on American science and technoloev. Proerams like URP encourane skilled students toward research careers, and facilitate the development of scientific personnel to meet the wentific needs of both American industry and the university community. Such would not onlv seem commensurate with the Reagan administration's eionomic goals but necessary to their &entual success. Few Federal programs have cost so little yet done so much for American scienrit~cstrength as URP. Now is certainly not the time to terminate it. If you feel as do I, write your Congressman. URP, and other science education support programs which helped chemical educators in smaller schools accomplish their teaching goals, is getting lost in the blitz of the Reagan budget cutters. I believe i t a very important federal program-one more important to the scientific future of the United States than the $3,000,000 or so a year cutting it can save.
