Chemical Education in American Institutions UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS JOHN C. BAILAR, JR. University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois ficial ventilation was not well developed in 1902, and the hoods in the chemistry building were provided only with ducts leading to the roof, through which, it was hoped, the natural draft would draw obnoxious fumes. -ROGER ADAMS As the university and the Chemistry Department - continued to grow, this building became entirely inadequate. The 1913 legislature provided funds for an adILLINOIS Industrial University was foundkd in dition which more than doubled the floor area of the 1867, primarily for the training of students in engi- building and gave the University of Illinois what was neering, agriculture, and technology. In such a setting said to be the world's largest building devoted to the it is but natural that chemistry should have been among teaching of chemistry. As a part of the dedication of the first courses to be offered, and that a large propor- the new addition the American Chemical Society held tion of the s t d e n t s should have enrolled in it. The its national meeting in Urbana in the spring of 1916. scope of the university gradually broadened and the The 1902 and 1916 units were rededicated in 1939 in word "Industrial" was dropped from its name in.1886, honor of Professor W. A. Noyes, who was Head of the but the colleges of engineering and agriculture and the Chemistry Department from 1907 until 1926. The science departments long continued to play the predomi- structure is now known as the William Albert Noyes nant role in its growth. As a service department to Laboratory of Chemistry. the technological branches of the university, and in its The real growth of American chemistry, and of the own right, the Department of Chemistry has grown universities, was yet to come, however, and it was soon steadily and has always been one of the largest depart- seen that the new quarters would not long be adequate ments in the university. This growth is well reflected to meet the demands made upon them. The building in the building program of the department. Until was fairly bursting a t the seams within a decade, but 1878 chemistry was housed in the basement of the orig- it was not until 1931 that relief was provided. In that inal University Building, but in that year it moved into year all of the work in general chemistry, qualitative the first "Chemistry Building." This building was soon analysis and elementary quantitative analysis vas outgrown, and in 1901 the state'legislature appropri- moved into the Chemistry Annex; a four-story, fireated $150,000 for a new and largerhuilding. This proof structure 50 feet by 200 feet close to the main building was in the form of the letter E, 230 feet long, Chemistry Building and connected with it by a tunnel.' 116 feet wide and four stories high. Originally it The remainder of the Chemistry Department expanded housed the State Water Survey and State Geological into the vacated space in the older building. By 1937 Survey as well as the Department of Chemistry. Un- the university had grown so much that the main buildfortunately, the amount of money available proved to ing was again badly crowded; and plans began to be be inadequate for both construction and equipment, so laid for increased space. Because of the war, the fulthe building was largely equipped with furniture taken fillment of these plans was much delayed. I n 1945 the from the earlier quarters. Even so, the new structure legislature appropriated the necessary funds, but conwas the pride of the campus and was thought to beade- struction had to be delayed because of shortages of quate for many years to come. Little was known of materials and labor. The new building now under fireproof construction in 1902, but the architects did construction is near the Noyes Laboratory and the the best that was possible with the materials of construc- Chemistry Annex and will be connected with them by tion then available and provided a "fire-resistant" underground passageways for the trucking of supplies structure. The bearing walls are of brick and the build- and equipment. It is to be five stories high, with a ing is divided laterally into three sections separated by total floor area of 108,000square feet. The lower three heavy brick "fire walls." The structure of the floors floors will house the Division of Chemical Engineering, is particularly interesting. Wooden beams, eight and the upper two, Biochemistry. inches by eighteen, support a floor of two-inch plank, upon which lie twelve inches of sand, and then a layer of For a. description of the laboratories in the Chemistry Annex one-inch flooring covered with a mastic surface. Arti- see J. CKEM.Eouc.. 24, 327 (1947). T h e succes~julchemist musf live his projession and And grelfer pleasure in his wbrk than i n anything else hz docs.
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NOVEMBER, 1947 ORGANIZATION
The Chemistry Department is one of the eighteen departments of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. For convenience it is unoffi:ially and loosely divided into six divisons, each of which handles its own courses. These are Analytical Chemistry, Biochemistry, Chemical Engineering, Inorganic Chemistry,, Organic Chemistry, and Physical Chemistry. Occasionally a st& member may serve in two divisions simultaneously; transfers from one division to another are not uncommon. Illinois offered a curriculum in "Applied Chemistry, with Engineering Subjects" in 1894, and was thus one of the first universities t o establish a program in chemical engineering. This was reorganized as a curriculum leading to a degree in chemical engineering in 1901. While the inclusion of chemical engineering in the D e partment of Chemistry is somewhat unusual the plan has been highly successful a t Illinois, and both the engineers and the chemists kel that the close association is mutually beneficial. While specific requirements in chemical engineering are somewhat. differentfrom those in chemistry, the underlying philosophy of education is the same. I n addition to advanced inorganic, the Inorganic Division handles the courses in general chemistry and elementary qualitative analysis. It is rather an anom: aly that some of the members of the Inorganic Division, are not inorganic chemists, but are primarily interested in other fields to which they devote their research time. T h ~ s epeople do their teaching in general chemistry, where, it has been found, the work is greatly strengthened by the diversity of interests of members of the staff. During the fall term, 194647, the Chemistry Department, a t Urbana had 5321 enrollments, including both
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graduate and undergraduate students. This number does not represent the number of individual students, as advanced undergraduates and graduates may carry two or more chemistry courses simultaneously. Of the total number, 2582 mere enrolled in general chemistry. There were about 500 unilergraduates majoring in chemistry or in the chemistry curriculum and 378 in chemical engineering. At that time there were 227 graduate students majoring in chemistry and chemical engineering. The ratio of freshmen and sophomores to advanced students will probably change soon, for in 1946 the university established junior college branches in Chicago and Galesburg, the graduates of which will feed into the junior class a t Urhana. At present the permanent "senior" staff consists of thirty-seven persons. These give the lectures, direct the work of research students, and carry part of the instructional load in the recitation and laboratory classes. Most of the latter work, however, is done by 105 assistants, who constitute the "junior staff," and who are graduate students devoting part of their time to teaching. These people are given "in-service" training by the senior staff, and their work is carefully supervised, both in recitation and laboratory. They usually attend the lectures in the course in which they are teaching and are guided by weekly staff' meetings and by personal conferences with the senior staff. While they are expected t o give short written quizzes to their classes a t least weekly, the monthly "hour examinations" and the final examinations are set by the senior staff member in charge of each course. The assistants are graded on their teaching, just as they are graded on the graduate courses which they take. :-Lecture sections may consist of 20Por more students (every effort i s made to keep the number below 150), but recitation and laboratory sections do not exceed 24. The laboratory
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classes in physical chemistry usually contain only about a dozen students. Relations between faculty and students are on a pleasantly informal basis, and it is not unusual to find a professor playing golf with his students or swapping yarns with them in the laboratory. The annual Phi Lambda Upsilon picnic, the Alpha Chi Sigma smokers, and many other social functions help to bring the faculty and students together in informal ways. The friendly atmosphere of the department is of great importance in its success. CURRICULA IN CHEMISTRY AND CHEMICAL ENGINEERING
Undergraduates wishing to specialize in chemistry may enroll in the chemistry curriculum (Table 1) or take a major in chemistry in the general curriculum. These curricula differ in several respects, the most important of which are: (1) The former requires 130 hours of graduation, as compared with 120 for the latter. (2) The general curriculum requires 15 houn of "liberal arts" work (literature, economics, history, philosophy, etc.) for graduation. The chemistry curriculum permits this but does not require it. (3) The general curriculum requires two years of any foreign language, while the chemistry curriculum specifies German or French (Russian will now be. accepted, also). (4) The major in the general curriculum demands twenty hours of chemistry beyond the freshmeh courses, including five hours of course work open only to juniors and seniors. As Table 1 shows, the chemistry curriculum requires nearly double this amount of chemistry. Most students wishing to become professional chemists elect the chemistry curriculum, while those expecting to go into allied fields, such as medicine, choose the chemistry major. The chemical engineering curriculum is shown in Table 2. Since many students enter $he university inadequately prepared for this program, an optional five-year curriculum is also offered. This not only allows time for additional training in mathematics, chemistry, and foreign language, hut enables the student to work in some nonscience electives. The chemistry courses required by the chemical enginrering curriculum are nenrly the same as those sueeifie~li u thc chemistrv in the " curriculum. Stu~lcnts latter, however, normally take twenty or thirty additional hours in chemistry, while the chemical engineers devote their time to courses in chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering, theoretical and applied mechanics, and engineering drawing. Students who have had high-school chemistry take a three-credit-hour course in the first semester of the freshman year, while those who have not take a fivehour course. At the beginning of the term, the former group is subjected to a placement examination, and those who do poorly are advised to register in the fivehour course. Those who do extremely well. on the
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
other hand, are given credit for the first semester's work and go directly into the next course. This plan has proved to he a great help, for it has allowed each student to work a t the limit of his capacity. After this first semester the students are divided into groups on the basis of their professional interests. For example, second-semester freshmen who plan to specialize in chemistry or chemical engineering are segregated and are given a course in descriptive and theoretical inorganic chemistry (Chemistry 6), which is designed to interest them and stimulate them to further work. The assumption is made that they have selected this course because they are particularly interested in chemistry or learn it readily, and the course is pitched a t a rat,her high level for freshmen. Second-semester freshmen in engineering (other than chemical engineers) take a course which emphasizes the chemistry of the materials which are of interest to engineers (Chemistry 4). Since this is a terminal course in chemistry for these people, about three weeks of organic chemistry is included, special attention bqing paid to petroleum, fuels, rubber, and other engineering materials. All second-semester freshmen who do not fall into one of the groups just mentioned are in still a third chemistry course (Chemistry 5). This group consists mostly of students in agriculture and home economics, and premedical, predental, and preveterinary students. The course includes the chemistry of the metals and elementary qualitative analysis. A fourth course (Chemistry 8a-8h), enrolling a highly selected group of chemists and chemical engineers, runs through both semesters of the freshman year. The same sort of distinction .is made in the later years. For exatnple, the preprofessional and agriculture groups take a slightly different (and easier) course in organic chemistry than do the chemists and chemical engineers. It is not impossible for a good student to "cross over" to the chemistry maj.or program, but he may find the courses rather difficulbuntil he becomes adjusted to the greater demands of this program. The Chemistry Department a t Illinois offers very few specialized courses (as, for example, in plastics or in gas and fuel analysis) but tries to give each student a grasp of the fundamentals of chemistry. This attitude is based on the belief that anyone who truly understands chemistry will be able to acquire for himself any specialized knowledge which he needs for his specific job. RESTRICTIONS ON ENROLLMENT
Because of the crowded conditions in the Noyes L a h e ratory, it has been necessary to limit the enrollment of advanced undergraduates and graduates in both chemistry and chemical engineering to those having superior records. Students may not take chemistry or chemical engineering courses more advanced than the first semester of quantitative analysis or organic chemistry unless they maintain from semester to semester scholastic averages of a t least 3.5 (A = 5, B = 4, C = 3, D = 2 E = 1) in all of their work or in their chemistry and chemical engineering courses. A student is not ad-
mitted to graduate work uniess his undergraduate aver- way and learns of new methods of approaching chemical problems. Of no small importance is the fact that he age is at least 3.75.% Throughout the department emphasis is laid upon has to compete with a new group of students and imthe research point of view, and even in the f r e s h a n press a new group of teachers. In short, i t puts him on courses gaps in our knowledge and flaws in our current his mettle. theories are discussed. The students in Chemistry 6, LIBRARY for example, are introduced to the problems of the strucThe Chemistry Library, containing about 22,000 ture of the boron hydrides and phosphorus pentachlorideandthestabilizationof valencethroughcoordination. volumes, is housed in Noyes Laboratory. The stacks I n former years all seniors in the chemistry and chemi- are open, but books which are,in-great demand are kept cal engineering curricula were required to do research on "reserv?" alid may be borrowed for only two hours. work and present theses as requisites to graduation. Reference books, such as Beilstein and the International Because of lack of space this has been abandoned as a Critical Tables, do not circulate a t all. Many books requirement, but it remains as an option. The better and journals which are not strictly chemical may be students are urged to do thesis york, and the seniors found in other departmental libraries, such as physics, in chemical engineering are required to take a "proj- engineering, or agriculture. All of the departmental ects course" which is in many ways s i d a r to the thesis libraries are branches of the main library and are not work. Most of them also take part in the problem con- controlled by the departments concerned. However, test sponsored by the American Institute of Chemical the library staff has been most cooperative in securing Engineers. Unless a student has taken part in one of books'which are requested and in ot,her ways. t,hese projects or has done research and written a senior thesis, he is not eligible for honors upon graduation. GRADUATE WORK Each graduate dudent in chemistry or chemical The thesis work may require as much as one-third of the student's time during his senior year; i t has been engineering, after admission to the Graduate School found to broaden greatly the youthful chemist's and but before beginning his work, is required t o take a engineer's horizon and frequently gives him an entirely series of four "registration examinations" in the fields of analytical, inorgnic, organic, and physical chemistry.' new conception of the chemical profession. The staff at Illinois has always emphasized the value Each of these examinations requires three hours and of graduate work, and a large number of the seniors covers little more than the work in the first year of each (both in chemistry and chemical engineering) go to of the fields mentioned. These examinations are not other universities to pursue graduate work. A few designed to test the student's fitness for graduate work continue a t Illinois, but this practice is strongly dis- but to locate his weak spots and enable him to strengthen couraged as it is felt that the student gains much from a them. I n each field in which he does poorly he is new environment-he sees things done in a different required t o take a broad general course, for which he is "4 slightly higher standard is expected of graduate students vho have done a year or more of graduate work before coming to I l l i n o ~ ~ .
8 Students in chemical engineering take two examinations in that subject, one in physical chemistry and any one of the other three examinations.
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given full graduate credit. He is expected to finish these the first semester, or a t least in the first two semesters. A candidate for the master's degree in chemistry may present all of his work in chemistry, or he may include in his program a ''minor" subject such as physics, mathematics, education, bacteriology, etc. Master's degree candidates in chemical engineering often include chemistry courses in their programs; in addition, some present minors in mechanics, engineering, or mathematics. Normally, candidates for the master's degree in chemistry include research among their courses and write theses based upon the research. This is required of can-' didates in chemical engineering. The research constitutes about a quarter of the work required for the degree. The students are allowed free choice in the selection of their fields of research and their research directors and are encouraged t o discuss research problems with several members of the staff before making a selection. While it is not uncommon for two or more staff members to work together on a research project it is generally true that each has his own field of research, so the student has a very wide range of problems from which to choose. The master's degree in chemistry may be granted without the requirement of a thesis, but in this case a t least half of the work presented must be from the more advanced graduate courses. This program is most suitable for high-school teachere who attend the university only during summer sessions, or for others whose programs are irregular. A candidate for the doctor's degree selects one of the fields of chemistry or chemical engineering as his major and usually selects another branch of chemistry as a minor. He is required t o select a field outside of chemistry as a minor, whether he has an "inside minor" or not. The "outside minor" is usually a science or mathematics, but the choice is, left almost entirely to the student. Minors in education and philosophy are not uncommon for chemists, and a f & years ago a student selected English literature. Chemical engineers usually select mechanics or some branch of engineering. The minimum t i e in which a student. can complete work for the Ph.D. degree is three years of two semesters each, but very few students finish the mork in that length of time. Those who are assisting in the teaching of undergraduates, of course, must expect to stay longer. In addition, there are several pitfalls which often cause delays. For example, a student may not be considered t o be in his "second sear" until he has passed an examination in either ~ e r m a nor French.4 He may stay on and take courses, but he is making no progress toward the doctor's degree. Similarly, he may not take his preliminary examinations and become a "third-year" student until he has completed all of his course work and passed the other language examination. The final year is devoted entirely to the& work. The preliminary examinations cover the major and
' Russian can now be presented in lieu of Frenoh.
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minor subjects and are both written and oral. Each written examination requires three hours; only those who are successful in the written examinations may take the orals, which are given by a committee (usually five members) appointed by the Dean of the Graduate School. When a student's thesis is completed it must be approved by this same committee, which also s u b jects him to an oral examination upon it. Most of the "third-year" graduate students and some of those who are not so far along hold fellowships or research assistantships, and can devote full time to their research mork. The university offers a considerable number of graduate scholarships and fellowships, many of which are financed by the university itself. A substantial number, however, have been presented by industrial companies or other benefactors. I n addition, there are numerous research assistantships, the money for which has been given to the university by outside agencies. These differ from felloxvships in that the conditions of the grant place some l i t upon the field of the recipient's research. HOF ever, the university mill not accept grants which limit the student's field too rigidly, for the work which is to be done must be fundamental in character and suitable for a Ph.D. thesis. The Graduate School has wisely been very strict in enforcement of this policy. One of the distinctive features of the Illinois organization is the "Division of Organic Chemical Manufactures," which was set up during World War I t o supply much-needed chemicals for war research and industry. The actual laboratory work was done by graduate students working under the .flirection of the organic staff. The plan proved to be remarkably successful, not only in supplying chemicals but as a teaching tool, and it has been continued ever since. Most of the work is done during the summer months when laboratory space is available and when the students can devote their full time t o it. They are given credit for the course in "Organic Preparations" and are paid a small wage for their work. Only chemicals which are not readily available from commercial dealers are prepared, but these have found their way into laboratories in all parts of the country.
TABLE 1 Curriculum in Chemistry For the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Chemistry BECOND BEMEBTER
Chem. 8%-Inorganic Chemistry and Qualitative Ans1yris. Math. 108-Freshman Mathernatios .................... German or French.. .......... Rhet. 1-Rhetoric snd cornposition ................... Physioal Eduohtion.. . . . . . . . . . Military science (for men). . . .
5 5 4
3
..
-
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
AOUR8
Chem. Rb-Inorganio Chemis5 try and Qudiintive Analyaia. Math. lob-Freshman Math.. rnatios .................... 4 German or Frenoh.. .......... 4 Rhet. 2-Rhetoric and Composition ................... 3 Hygiene 2 or 5-Hygiene and sanitstion ................. 2 Physioal Eduoation.. ......... Military Science (for men). . . . . . Total .....................
18
