Chemistry and Social Concern
W. P. Slichter
Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974
I
Users of Chemistry
In the overall context of this symposium, Chemistry Instruction and Social Concern, several other contributors are dealing closely with values to society through experiences of thc ~tudent. It appears to be my job to say something about values to society derived through the people who oncr were students but who have since become ctlreer chemists. We take it for granted that we all accept the values for society derived from people who have gone on to he teachers of chemistry at various levels in the curriculum. My emphasis, therefore, is on people whose careers ultimately occur outside of teaching. I am more than a little reluctant to be a spokesman for the attitudes of these people who use chemistry or for the firms that employ them. Maybe some of the blame for what follows can be shared with the many hut presently anonymous chemists in industry who have given me their viewpoints on this subject in the past couple of months. Much of the spirit of these remarks derives from the deliberations of a panel on "Graduate Education in Chemistry and Beyond," which was one of five discussion groups in the International Conference on Education in Chemistry, held in July, 1970 a t Snowmass-at-Aspen, Colorado. This group of about sixteen was obviously too small to he considered representative of the community of professional chemists. Nevertheless, it had inputs from universities, industrial and government laboratories, funding agencies, and overseas chemists. It also spanned the ages from graduate student to senior research scientist or administrator. The central charge to this group was to examine the objectives and long-range performance of chemical education, especially a t the graduate level, and the effectiveness of chemical careers in meeting society's broad requirements. The Expectafions of Society
Society makes separate requirements upon education and upon industry. Through funding by taxbased sources and through tuition, society makes a major commitment to chemical education. For this, society asks for some important returns from our educators. Among these returns are the training of skilled people needed for the continuing growth of our economy, the education of competent teachers for all sectors of our academic system, and the enrichment of human knowledge through basic research and scholarly endeavors. The returns that society expects from industry and other users of the products of the educational system include the development of an ever better standard of living, a growing and more effective awareness of the problems of our environment, and a continuing com-
petence of our country to hold a satisfactory place in international commerce. As we shall note in later remarks, there has always been a serious gap between "producers" and "users" of chemists. Moreover, although it would seem to be a fair premise that industry can only succeed in the long run if it meets the thoughtful needs of society, as an industrial chemist I venture that this view is too simple. Thus, while our free enterprise system gives advantage to the innovator, he may not be the scientist or the inventor: he may be the salesman. Yet it is the believable assertion of my friends in the chemical industry that no amount of sales promotion can long substitute in our consumeroriented economy for genuine value and fair price of the product. Still, granting all these end points, we in the chemical profession can still pose the challenge: are the "users" making proper use of the products of our educational system? Or examining another aspect, is the present graduate program well geared to the broad needs, practical and scholarly, of our society? The Graduate Program
The heart of graduate education in chemistry is the doctoral program. It has been tremendously successful in developing creative, imaginative people. It is fundamental to the role of chemistry as an adventure of the human intellect, hut even more it is basic to mankind's useful exploitation of sophisticated new discoveries in chemistry. The history of chemistry is exttaordinarily rich in examples of the application of fundamental scientific discovery to the benefit of society. Nevertheless, as a clear partisan of industrial chemistry, I would beg leave to emphasize at thia point that the fundamental work of industrial chemists (the "users") comprises a very large part of our basic knowledge of chemistry. The main criticism with respect to this last point, in my view, is that somehow this body of information has inadequately been brought into the domain of common knowledge. Granting then that the current graduate program in chemistry is a vital resource, one may question whether it is good enough for these times, and whether it is what we need. As to the 6rst point, the graduate program in chemical education is built on a venerable tradition of scholarship, which has roots in this country that go back to the early decades of this century. The need for vigorous programs of education in fundamental chemistry will continue, and the importance of chemistry as a scholarly venture will remain undisputed. However, one sees that the great growth in chemical knowledge has caused the PhD degree to move toward ever narrower specialization. A concern for the future is to modify this trend by increasing the breadth of Volume 48, Number 10, Odober 1971
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Chemistry end Social Concern
accepted PhD programs, both within t,he broad field of chemistry as \ve now describe it and also by the study of other disciplines. While we must not allow chemistry to be neglect,ed as a rich component of human scholarship, rigorous and deeply probing, we must ask for the sake of our societal responsibilities whether t,his highly valued role is enough or even right,. I t seems to me t,hat the answer here is "no,'' and that chemical education must not only see hut also seek very much broader goals. As an experimental science that is important not only to academic scholars but t,o "users," chemistry stands in a central .position. By being determined to broaden it,s horizons, chemist,ry is in a singular posit,ion to provide stroug leadership to programs that involve other disciplines that interface wit,h chemistry. On the ot,her extreme, chemist,ry can distribuk an increasing proportion of it,s efforts toward the rigor and depth of an individual science. I believe v e ought to work along bot,h lines, for to me chemistry must be both a prime constituent of rigorous scholarship and also a highly effective infiuence on neighboring or emerging fields of physical science. That the chemical industry seeks PhD's in large numbers is more than a mere habit or t,radition. Modern chemistry is a demanding science, requiring ext,ensiveand sophist,icated experience in t,he laboratory and broad understmlding of theory. The PhD graduate should have this sort of competence. The person wit,h lesser training mill almost always be less useful at t,he outset,; and because the academic syst,em t,ends to filter out people who can't reach the requirements of the PhD. people with lesser t,raining are likely to have poorer potential than the PhD graduates. There are obvious exceptions, and also there are clearly many which would be unsuited for t,he persou who had felt that cert,ain kind of ambit,ion t,hat drove him t,oseek t,he PhD. Are PhD's being properly educated from the viewpoint of t,he industrial employer? Here I t,hinli most employers are discontent,ed t,o a degree. The classical pattern has been that the student is trained in the image of his professor and that his highest aspiration is t,o have a career like t,hat of his professor. The research programs have classically dealt with fundamental principles of Nature, or a t least t.he investigators so believe. There has been eit,her a deliberate avoidance of problems that will yield useful results for a lot of people, or else an ignorance of t,he existence of such problems. There are of course many important exceptions t,o this generalization. Nor is t,he study of science for it,s own sake to be fauked by industry, for the solution of practical problems of increasing complexit,y requires continued growth in fundamental knowledge. But indust,rial cherni~t~ry is exciting, too, and the solution of practical problems cont,ains stiff challe~lges and keen satisfactions. It has largely becn technological industry thrct has put. the discoveries of academic research ir~t,o the service of man, enriching our lives in a diversity of ways arid at a pace that can only be described as a revolution. In so doing, indust,ry is Iceenly and competitively responsive t,o the needs, wishes, and changing habits of the public. Moreover, modern industry has developed such an ext,ensive technical structure that the contribution of industrial research t,o Icnowledgc in a wide diversky of fields relevant to t,he 646
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Journal of Chemical Education
economy is comparable to the body of knowledge gained in purely academic research. Indeed, there are vast, fields basic to our intellectual and pragmatic way of life t,hat, derive their strength chiefly from industrial discoveries. Among these are communications, solid stat,e electronics, the useful generation of energy, the synthesis of fibers, plastics, rubbers, and drugs, and the development and exploitation of high-speed computation. The understanding-in-depth required for success in such fields cont.ributes as basically to our knowledge of t.he principles of science as does the research of our universities. I t is an import,ant consideration for this Symposium on Chemical Instruction and Social Concern that there is a large body of teachable knowledge produced by indust,rial research that has not reached the classroom. Although t,he full communication of such knowledge may be limit,ed by proprietary considerations, still t,here is great potent,ial value to society if much more t,han this knowledge were to become part of the resources of universities than is now t,ransmitted. Let me ret,nrn to the viewpoint of the employer of the product,s of ~niversit~ies.What industry cherishes are people who are innovators and problem solvers. Such people are likely to be supremely successful in academic research, too. I suspect these kinds of people are born t,hat x a y or are so iucliued in early youth. What industry xvould like is more of such people and improved opportunity t,o attract them. There is a conspicuous and growing interest on the part of young people to be involved in mat,ters that have what is termed "relevancy." It is perhaps not recognized t,hat what industry does generally teuds to be "relevant,." Industries that, fail to be relevant to the needs and wishes of society simply pass out of existence. From the viewpoint of the user and from the viewpoint of the concerned student, I mould plead for an increased content in our educational system, specifically our chemistry curricula, of problems of the real world. This plea is easily said, but it is not easily done nor is it necessarily dest,ined to be welcomed. To broaden the value of chemistry, for the purposes stated above, I think we need to do several things. One improvement can be made through a conscious awareness for the need for adaptabilit,~in careers. We should examine t,he int,erfaces between chemistry and relakd sciences, so as to improve t,he interdisciplinary character of chemical training. This is not t,o say that we should abandon rigor and qualit,y for the sake of diversificat,ion. However, we should resist overspecialization and inst,ead should encourage diversification. Several universities are already deeply involved in such measures, reportedly with very gratifying result,s. Anot,her way t,o strengthen our present program is to provide a higher level of contact with practical problems. It is fair to ask how to go about this act,ivit,ywisely and realistically. Professors tend to be isolated from the broad sweep of pract,ical problems. When they are consult,ants to industries they see only specific problems, which are not likely to find their way easily into the educat,ional struct,ure. What, is needed is some input from the broad areas of industrial lcnowledge that were mentioned earlier. .An obvious method for the transfer of informat,ion is through t,he exchange of per-
Chemistry and Social Concern
sonnel between universities and industries for periods of time long enough for genuine dialogs to be created. Such interactions already occur to some degree, through visits of seminar speakers, with the short-term employment of research scientists from one scientific community in another, and in postdoctoral fellowships served in industrial or government laboratories. But much more is needed. Dr. W. 0.Baker, in his 1966 Priestley Medal address, suggested that we may have a larger scientific exchange of scholars between this country and the Soviet Union than between the industrial and academic parts of our own country. As an obvious extension of the exchange of personnel between universities and industries, one can foresee the establishment of shared institutions of learning. This approach, which is quite different from the funding of universities by gifts from industries, would entail a mingling of personnel under a system of planned
objectives. Probably such an institution would be interdisciplinary in character, not the artificial sort of interdisciplinary structure that comes from diverse people sharing the same money but rather the aggregation of versatile people who have in common the desire to study problems of interest to the real world. The establishment of such institutions will require universities to broaden their traditional patterns of thinking, and will require industries to see major support of education as part of th8 cost of doing business and not merely as a charitable grant. There are indeed embryonic developments of such institutions. It seems doubtful now if t,hey will ever be numerous or occupy much manpower. Nevertheless, it is overwhelmingly important that communication between industries and universities be broadened and made more effective, for both communities have a tremendous stake in the welfare of our society.
Volume 48, Number 10, October 1971
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