Richard G. Yalman Antioch College

I Chemistry in Liberal Arts Colleges Yellow Springs, Ohio A program for tomorrow

Instruction in chemistry is as old as Prometheus. From antiquity to the latter half of the seventeenth century it was concerned primarily with the practical arts. During this period the philosophical, conceptual, and theoretical aspects of chemistry moved forward a t a snail's pace and took many blind alleys. The four elements of the Greeks and Aristotle's materia prima, the five elements of the Chinese and their two principles, Yin and Yang, the Philosopher's stone and the three principles of the alchemists-all were abortive attempts to find an underlying concept to explain the nature of matter and chemical change. But in a little over a hundred years, beginning with Robert Boyle, the Skeptical Chemyst, and ending with Lavoisier, who pro-

vided a functional definition of a chemical element, chemistry became a science. And chemical education immediately reflected this development.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, lectures on chemistry were given at Amherst, Brown, Harvard, Rensselaer, West Point, and other colleges and univer- sities in this country. A widely distributed textbook to accompany these lectures was edited by John W. Webster, M.D., Erviug Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy a t Harvard. His lectures and textbooks were typical of the time and covered the entire range of chemical knowledge including Dalton's atomic theory, laws of definite and multiple proportions, equivalent weights, the chemistry of the elements, organic,

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physiological, and analytical chemistry. The book included a number of plates illustrating the laboratory plan a t Harvard, various chemical equipment, manipu- lative techniques, and lecture demonstrations.

By the end of the nineteenth century chemical educa- tion was following classical lines, i.e., as the body of knowledge increased, systematic branches of chemistry appeared and so did the proliferation of chemistry courses. Thus, inorganic, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry had made their appearance. The twentieth century saw the addition of colloid chemistry and electrochemistry and beginning in the twenties a vast array of subdivisions. Physical chemistry pro- grams now included thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, photochemistry, and solutions of electrolytes. In addition to electrochem- istry, analytical chemistry included spectroscopy, qualitative organic analysis, and instrumental analysis. Organic chemistry included physical organic, natural products, biochemistry, and so on.

Today not all changes are colligative. Colloid chem- istry has very nearly disappeared from the scene and qualitative analysis is rapidly disappearing. Inorganic chemistry after a long period of decline and dormancy is being revived. Individual courses in spectroscopy and electrochemistry are part of the second half of undergraduate analytical chemistry and form the back- bone of graduate courses in instrumentation. And the classical analytical course itself is subject to the ebb and flow of the technical tide.

It is evident that the most important factor in to- day's curriculum is physical chemistry. The new general chemistry books and some of the new organic books are typical of the increased stress on physical chemical theory in the classical chemistry course. So too is the recent recommendation by the Committee on Professional Training of physical chemistry as a pre- requisite for both analytical and inorganic chemistry.

It takes no oracle to realize that with another decade the undergraduate curriculum will be as concerned with the quantitative treatment of chemical bonds as it is now with the quantitative treatment of the energy of chemical reactions; and physical chemistry books like Barrow's will be the rule rather than the exception. If we are to do justice to the recent committee recommen- dations and to those which we can anticipate, we must also recommend more mathematics and physics courses. Instead of one year of analytical geometry and intro- ductory calculus and one year of general physics, the undergraduate requirement may include two years of mathematics including differential equations and mod- ern algebra and a year of intermediate physics including theoretical mechanics. All of this sounds very good. We will be giving better and more quantitative chem- istry courses based upon a stronger foundation in mathematics and physics. For if we do not, tomorrow's chemistry will be no less descriptive (although a differ- ent description) than yesterday's.

These changes in the curricula of chemical education reflect technical developments. The impetus for these changes reflects the combination of events, the Sputniks, the educational critics, the Rickovers and the Conants, and deliberate educational policies on the part of various organizations concerned with education and the national welfare.

The engineering society has its education committees as do many other professional groups. The AEC, created by Congress in 1946, is vitally concerned with education in a vast area related directly or indirectly to nuclear energy. The NSF is in its tenth year, and the educational policies of this organization have been ably reviewed.' In October of last year the KIH, to- gether with the NSF and the NASA, began a series of conferences among member colleges of the Great Lakes College Association on science education in the smaller schools.

But all of these changes, both technical and policy, are coupled with problems of first order magnitude for the smaller institutions. Foremost is the difficulty of recruitment. Those of us who have been members of admissions committees or have read their reports know that the able students who apply to the smaller schools also apply to larger institutions. And if u7e both admit the better student, there is a very high probability that he will go to the more affluent schools. There are several reasons for this. In the first place students in CHEM Study, CBA, or advanced placement courses will have instructors who have been to summer institutes at a university or a t one of the better known smaller in- stitutions, and these instructors consciously or un- consciously will steer the student to these schools. Second, the same student with his better high school courses (and higher social-economic background) will be more sophisticated and demand that the school he attends have a larger department, offering a wider va- riety of courses and possessing greater facilities. I know that this is so, from my experience with college seniors, who also tend to select graduate departments on the basis of the number of courses offered. Third and a perennial problem, the more affluent schools can award better scholarships and offer more student aid. The results of recruitment difficulties are such that we may one day find ourselves with an excellent staff, good facili- ties, and no students.

The second aspect of recruitment is the increasing difficulties in obtaining new staff. One reason is financial. But the disparity between faculty salaries at the small and the large schools is not as great as it was and the annual report of the AAUP Bulletin indicates that the differential may be decreasing. More im- portant are the technical facilities required by the young man who is still interested in experimental work; such facilities are often not available at the smaller schools. This combination of facilities and recruitment has already been cited as one of the causes for the crisis now existing in physics departments in small institutions. A third factor is the status symbol. Research is more glamorous and endows the experi- mentalist with more status than teaching. In most schools it also provides h i with more rapid promotion and greater salaries. Although individual sections and divisions award an outstanding chemistry teacher (but in most cases he is outstanding because of the number of graduate students and other contributions), only the Manufacturing Chemists' Association has a national program to award these people. The only postdoctoral program designed primarily to permit and encourage the young PhD to observe or to learn something about

' HAENIBCH, E. L., TA~S JOURNAL, 40, 460 (1983).

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the teaching of chemistry a t the undergraduate level is the internship program in chemistry and biology inaugu- rated by the twelve member colleges of the Great Lakes College Association. This experimental program is supported by a $330,000 grant from the KetteringFoun- dation and provides for six fellows in chemistry and six in biology each year for three years. Details of this program can be obtained from the author.

The advanced placement programs and the advanc- ing standards in chemistry also serve to aggravate the financial and staff recruitment problems of the smaller institutions. On the one hand there will be an increase in the number of courses which a department must offer. Introductory courses, for example, must be available for students with no previous chemistry, for students with typical chemistry courses, and for stu- dents with one of the neweradvanced placement courses. On the other hand, the courses are becoming more technical. Departments with staff members trained Ldore the fiftie?. are finding themsrlves required to offt!r material which was not inc~luded in their own edu~atiou. In thc smnll srhools thew ndded loads cnnlv,r hr ha~vilrd by increasing the staff.

Let us take a look a t the relationship between finances and facilities. It takes $6000 to buy an infrared spec- trophotometer and the most minimal accessories. This is more than the combined equipment and supply budget for our department, which has one of if not the largest budget for facilities in the college. Or, using another, example, the cost of the Chemical Abstracts (a single periodical) to our library is greater than the combined periodical requirements of the mathematics and earth science departments and is very nearly equal to that of the physics department. Our total periodical budget is three times that of biology, our second ranking depart- ment. I have already mentioned the increase in de- partmental financial requirements for recruitment pur- poses, both student and staff. Thus in order to main- tain a healthy chemistry department, we may be doing so a t the expense of the rest of our program. Our business manager inquired a few years ago, "For whom are you working, the department or the college?"

In addition to financial and recruitment problems, the chemistry departments of the small liberal arts colleges are caught in an educational squeeze play. They are committed to developing the best possible chemistry program, a program which will more than meet the minimum requirements of our society. The staff of these departments desire and do take.an active role in local chapters, in the working committees of the divisions, in writing and research. They are also com- mitted to the objectives and policies of theii respective schools. And in most cases one of the educational policies is the general education program which, while increasing the breadth of a student's exposure, does so by limiting the number of credits which a department may require of its major. As a consequence, depart- ments of chemistry may find that they barely meet the minimum requirements of the Committee on Pro- fessional Training and in some instances are unable to meet these requirements. Thus, even the most cursory glance a t this year's NSF awards shows that the small schools are not offering the breadth (and perhaps depth) of technical training as their larger sister universities.

The difficulties which I have enumerated are not new

and have concerned our Society since the inauguration of the Committee on Professional Training in 1936. Since then, more and more departments of smaller colleges and universities have met the minimum stand- ards established from time to time by this Committee. At the same time, several departments have tried to meet these requirements withm the framework of particular institutional programs. Antioch, for ex- ample, has taken advantage of the supervised coopera- tive job program to reduce the number of hours re- quired of its students in the organic, analytical, and instrumental analysis laboratories. Swarthmore has integrated its chemistry department with its honors program. And many schools use independent study, tutorial studies, and senior research projects for the advanced course work. In some instances the classical curriculum has been changed.

Let me anticipate some of the new directions of chem- ical education. As a result of grants from such organ- izations as the AEC, the NIH, or NASA, individual de- partments may become specialized. Thus a given de- partment may iind itself in a position to give very thorough instruction in radiochemistry and related materials; but this may have to be done a t the expense of some other part of its program, say part of its organic laboratory. Or a second department (like ours) may find itself with anunusually well-trained staff in physical chemistry and chemical physics; it may wish to reduce the laboratory in both organic chemistry and instru- mental analysis. It would certainly be difficult to say that the graduate of such departments are really less well prepared than those from the more classical de- partments. Or if less well prepared, less well prepared for what?

In this age of increased specialization, increased in- strumentation, m d increased funds for the purchme of chemicals and apparatus by those who are practicing chemistry, it may very well be that most of our lahora- tory exercises are already obsolete, that they are busy work. We might do well to reduce considerably the amount of laboratory time a t the lower level and to in- crease the degree of sophistication of the laboratory at the upper level. This is already happening in physics instruction. Perhaps it should happen in chemistry.

If we consider the unity of science rather than the division introduced by areas of specialization, it is con- ceivable that within the decade our society will be examining a college and not a department. Again allow me to use my experience a t Antioch to justify this statement. A few years ago it was brought to our attention that chemistry, engineering, and physics were offering very similar courses in thermodynamics. Chemistry and engineering had a laboratory while phys- icsdid not. Today theengineers take the first half of the physics course while many of the chemistry majors take the complete course which is based on Sears's "Thermo- dynamics, The Kinetic Theory of Gases and Statistical Mechanics." We also find that many of our chemistry majors are taking additional mathematics and physics courses including electricity and magnetism, theoretical mechanics, nuclear physics, differential equations, and modern algebra. Not all students, of course, but those who do take more than one from this selection do so a t

t h e expense of their chemistry program and often do not meet the new minimum requirements of the Committee

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on Professional Training. Yet these are often our best students, who get the best graduate school fellow- ships and who do the hest work in their graduate school departments of chemistry.

Going one step further, the budgetary and staff re- cruitment problems have already resulted in coopera- tive ventures among various schools. We are all familiar with the reciprocal arrangements among three such groups: the Massachusetts group consisting of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and the University of Massachusetts; the Pennsylvania group consisting of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, and the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania; and the California group consist- ing of the Claremont Colleges, Occidental, The Univer- sity of Redlands, and Whittier. More recently there have grown up associations of colleges such as the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, the Associated Rocky Mountain Universities, and the Great Lakes College Association. Although these schools do not cooperate as closely as the first groups in terms of ex- change of students, faculty and facilities, it is quite possible that two or more of them may do so in the future. Thus Antioch and Earlham College, both members of the Great Lakes College Association, have for the past five years carried out a joint program of Far Eastern studies. It is not inconceivable that a similar program in biochemistry or radiochemistry or physical chemistry will be established. Thus we shall become less concerned with the on campus facilities of a given department and more concerned with the educa- tional opportunities of the graduating seniors.

This year's Woodrow Wilson fellowship results con- tinue to support the productivity of the smaller schools in the Sciences. It should be noted, however, that the Woodrow Wilson fellowships are primarily concerned with identifying potential college teachers. In view of our need to find and encourage young men and women to enter chemical education at all levels, the Woodrow Wilson fellowships might suggest broader objectives for education in chemistry itself.

Certainly it is time for the small departments to stop emulating their university counterparts. We who are from small departments would do well to recognize that we are small and that we are different. We should work out our own educational techniques and be able to ob- tain from our society help withim the framework of our

own objectives. In effect, I am raising the question as to how we can best serve our chemistry majors during the remainder of this century. I believe that the smaller schools should concentrate on programs which on the one hand may demand a smaller financial burden, but which on the other hand make greater demands on the student. It is the smaller schools which are still in the best position to educate for science rather than technology, to reestablish science as a human endeavor and to return science to the humanities, to install in our chemistry students the values of service, and to recognize and to demonstrate that training in chem- istry may be a preparation for patent law, or business, or administration just as it is for medicine.

These suggestions are not new. The objectives of our society have always been broad in scope. In 1937, Congress passed a bill giving our society a national charter. I quote from paragraph 2 of H. R. 7709 for 1937:

That the objects of the incorporation shall be to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner the advancement of chem- istry in all its branches; the promotion of reeearch in chemical science and industry; the improvement of the qualifications and usefulness of chemists through high standards of professional ethics, education and attainments; the increase and diffusion of chemical knowledge; and by its meetings, professional contacts, reports, papers, discussions and publications, to promote scien- tific interests and inquiry, thereby fostering public welfare and education, aiding the development of our country's industries, and adding to the material prosperity and happinessof our people.

We must begin to think of broader objectives for chemical education and greater flexibility in evaluating those objectives. The debate today should not be con- cerned with course sequence or course prerequisites. It should not he concerned merely with the inclusion of inorganic or instrumental analysis in the undergraduate curriculum. Rather it should be a forum concerned with how different departments of chemistry can best serve their profession, their country, and mankind dur- ing the years to come. I suggest that the small schools become schools of liheral sciences as well as liberal arts. I believe that the Division of Chemical Education should take the lead in encouraging and helping the chemistry departments of these schools to achieve unique programs. For if it does not, then I am afraid that it may lose these departments altogether.

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