How to Attract Students to Analytical Chemistry

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How to Attract Students to Analytical Chemistry The University of Pittsburgh's chemistry department has won $5000 in a contest to determine ways to increase the number of graduate students in analytical chemistry. Fortytwo chemistry departments competed for the award, jointly sponsored by Procter & Gamble and Eli Lilly as an outgrowth of the recent Allerton Analytical Conferences (Anal. Chem. 1981,53, pages 1290 A, 1475 A, and page 1969). Pittsburgh's proposal, in part, calls for a competition for students within a 200-mile radius of Pittsburgh who are completing their sophomore year of college. Typically, these students have not yet decided if they will go on to graduate school in chemistry or, if they have decided to do so, in which branch of chemistry they will specialize. Students will be asked to submit 1-2-page proposals in which they identify a science-related problem and propose a solution that involves analytical chemistry. The proposals will be evaluated by a panel of industrial and academic chemists, and the 20-30 students with the best proposals will be invited to a one-and-one-half-day forum at the University of Pittsburgh. The forum, consisting of the students and academic and industrial analytical chemists, will begin with a historical lecture on the perception and solution of scientific problems. Following the lecture, the students will present their ideas in 10-minute talks. Development of their ideas through discussion in the forum will follow. The closing lecture will address the importance of experimentation and problem solving to the well-being of the nation. Finally, each student will be presented with a certificate indicating his or her successful participation in the forum and with a year's subscription to A N A L Y T I C A L C H E M ISTRY.

The originators of Pittsburgh's plan are David Hercules and Johannes Coetzee, professors of analytical chemistry; Sanford Asher and Ste-

CIRCLE 205 ON READER SERVICE CARD 548 A • ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 54, NO. 4, APRIL 1982

phen Weber, assistant professors of analytical chemistry; and John Enyart, recruiting and admissions officer for the department of chemistry. Their objective is to show the students t h a t they are capable of identifying important problems, that the solutions to such problems must depend on analytical chemistry, and that their proposed solutions merit the attention of professional analytical chemists. It is their belief that students will develop a proprietary attitude about a field to which they have contributed. The 41 remaining chemistry departments came up with other innovative ideas, aimed at a variety of different groups. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, proposed, in part, to hold a regional science fair for high school students that would include extended faculty involvement and the circulation of literature describing analytical chemistry. The department of chemistry at the University of Houston proposed to host a conference for chemistry department chairmen and advisors from smaller, regional colleges in hopes of instilling in them an appreciation for analytical chemistry that they could then pass on to their students. A handful of chemistry departments hoped to use the $5000 award to produce brochures describing their analytical programs. Still other departments planned to send their analytical faculty out into the field to recruit students from regional institutions. Not surprisingly, many of the contestants proposed to use the award to support graduate research in the form of stipends, fellowships, and tuition waivers. Of course, unlimited funds are not available for support of each department's proposal. The contest's sponsors and the Allerton conferees do hope, however, that these ideas will further stimulate the analytical community to come up with ways to increase the number of analytical chemists in the future. Marcia S. Cohen