An Endowed
Summer Science Research Community
(Draft for external case presentation)
The sciences
at Earlham have a long history of integrating student research opportunities
into the curriculum. In the early
1960s, for example, students in biology, geology, chemistry and physics engaged
in intensive summer-long research projects that ranged from soil science
studies using radioactive tracers to chemical synthesis projects to ongoing
investigations of bat species populations. These students and their faculty mentors gathered together
for regular presentations and progress reports on their work, and
cross-collaboration between projects was not unusual. The research community that emerged from these programs provided
challenging and stimulating ideas and directions for every participant.
Students
during that period experienced what is known today as the "lean but
rich" curricular model now promoted by Project Kaleidoscope at the
national level. Such a model has
fairly lean sets of first-year courses that emphasize laboratory investigations
and creative approaches. This then
creates space for a richer range of upper-level courses, for early student
engagement with investigatory projects and research within those courses, and
for building longer-term research opportunities within an intellectual
community of students and faculty.
Other undergraduate colleges that are currently known as national models
for excellence in the sciences - Occidental College for example - have clearly
demonstrated the importance of undergraduate research opportunities that are
broadly available across an entire four-year program.
The
success of students who graduate from such programs speaks for itself, but it
is equally important to recognize the potential for societal contributions by
well-prepared and inspired science graduates of strong liberal arts colleges
such as Earlham. In a recent
speech on this topic, Donald Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief of Science and President Emeritus of Stanford
University noted*:
"...To
explain why the undergraduates from the Stanfords, Berkeleys, Harvards, and
Yales are entering academic doctoral programs in the sciences at a lower rate
than those from Swarthmore, Williams, Oberlin, Carleton and Reed, ÉKalamazoo,
College of Wooster, Earlham, Macalester and the other underendowed star
performers - we can't ask only why the latter are doing so well..."
While
Earlham has never lost sight of the importance of undergraduate research,
sustaining the summer research community model across the intervening years has
often been difficult. Many
projects have been dependent on external grants from federal and private
foundations, and the level of such support is essentially dependent upon the
national political and economic climate and the time required to prepare strong
competitive proposals. More
recently we have been able to renew a strong summer research community through
successful longer-term grants such as HHMI, with important additional grants
from sources such as NSF, Petroleum Research Fund, Lilly Endowment and
Merck/AAAS. We believe that this
program is so important to sustaining our strength in the sciences that we
should try to ensure the ongoing existence of a summer research community by
building an endowment for this purpose. An initial part of the required funding
is already in place, and we propose a capital campaign project to build this
endowment to $8 million, a level that would support approximately 15 summer
research projects involving 15 faculty and 30 students each year. An even larger number of projects is
likely in many years, but this endowment will provide an assured base of
continuity for a summer research community, with additional projects continuing
to be supported by outside grants.
* [D. Kennedy,
"Science and the Liberal Arts College", Council on Undergraduate
Research
Quarterly, September 2001, page 16]