Doing Science Off The Beaten Path At Liberal Arts Schools

When astronomer Bruce Partridge left Princeton University to join the faculty at Haverford College, a small liberal arts college in southeastern Pennsylvania, his colleagues thought he was crazy. But 22 years later, Partridge says it was the best decision he ever made. "Sure, there's times when I wish I was in the fast lane," says Partridge, now Haverford's provost. "But I'm more fulfilled personally in this setting. I've been able to maintain a research career that made me happy, it's a pleasure to give really bright kids their first taste of science, and I enjoy participating in the life of a small institution." Partridge's sentiments are echoed by other first-rate scientists who have traded in the rough-and-tumble world of the major research institutions for what they say are more satisfying careers at "science-active" liberal arts colleges. The term refers to schools at which research is an integral component of the educational process. It was coined in a June 1985 report entitled "Educating America's Scientists: The Role of Research Colleges," by Sam C. Carrier, provost, and David Davis-Van Atta, former director of institutional research, at Oberlin College in Ohio. The report was prepared for a conference at the college on the future of science at liberal arts schools. A 1987 Oberlin College report, "Maintaining America's Scientific Productivity," identified a group of 50 liberal arts colleges as the best "science-active" colleges in the United States, based upon their research records and proportions of science graduates. The criteria used were the percentage of freshmen scoring above 600 on the mathematics portion of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the number of National Science Foundation fellowship winners in the preceding five years, and the number of doctorates in science awarded to graduates of these colleges from 1920-80. The following institutions have continually produced outstanding graduates, with unusually high proportions earning majors in the sciences and equally unusually high proportions of graduates subsequently going on to doctorates and careers in scientific fields, according to the report. "There's been no major changes to this list" in the years since the report was issued, says Oberlin provost Sam C. Carrier, a coauthor of the study. Albion College, Albion, Mich. Alma College, Alma, Mich. Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. Antioch University, Yellow, Springs, Ohio Barnard College, New York, N.Y. Bates College, Lewiston, Maine Beloit College, Beloit, Wis. Bowdoin College, Brunswick,, Maine Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr,, Pa. Bucknell University, Lewisburg,, Pa. Carleton College, Northfield,, Minn. Colgate University, Hamilton,, N.Y. Colorado College, Colorado, Springs, Colo. Davidson College, Davidson,, N.C. Denison University, Granville,, Ohio DePauw University, Greencastle,, Ind. Earlham College, Richmond, Ind. Franklin and Marshall College,, Lancaster, Pa. Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y. Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va. Harvey Mudd College,, Clarement, Calif. Haverford College, Haverford,, Pa. College of the Holy Cross,, Worcester, Mass. Hope College, Holland, Mich. Kalamazoo College,, Kalamazoo, Mich. Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. Macalester College, St. Paul,, Minn. Manhattan College, Riverdale,, N.Y. Middlebury College,, Middlebury, Vt. Mount Holyoke College,, South Hadley, Mass. Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio Occidental College, Los Angeles,, Calif. Ohio Wesleyan University,, Delaware, Ohio Pomona College, Claremont,, Calif. Reed College, Portland, Ore. Smith College, Northampton,, Mass. St. Olaf College, Northfield,, Minn. Swarthmore College,, Swarthmore, Pa. Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. Union College, Schenectady,, N.Y. Vassar College, Poughkeepsie,, N.Y. Wabash College, Crawfordsville,, Ind. Wellesley College, Wellesley,, Mass. Wesleyan University,, Middletown, Conn. Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. Whitman College, Walla Walla,, Wash. Williams College, Williamstown,, Mass. College of Wooster, Wooster,, Ohio --L.M. The 1985 report found that the United States' liberal arts colleges--which are generally defined as institutions that focus primarily on undergraduate education and rarely award advanced degrees--produce a disproportionate share of the nation's scientists. A subsequent report by Carrier and Davis-Van Atta, entitled "Maintaining America's Scientific Productivity" and issued in 1987, found that the graduates of these schools earn Ph.D.'s in science and mathematics at more than twice the national average. Carrier and Davis-Van Atta's 1987 report compared the record of graduates from the U.S.'s top liberal arts colleges with that of alumni from the nation's premier research institutions. Alumni were compared among several parameters, including receipt of National Science Founda- tion fellowships, membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and hav- ing high citation records as determined by the Philadelphia-based Institute for Scientific Information. The report found that the record of the liberal arts colleges paralleled--and, in some cases, surpassed--that of the leading research institutions, like Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the California Institute of Technology. "These schools [liberal arts colleges] place a high value on teaching, and they are good at nurturing students, so it's not surprising they are so successful," says Robert F. Watson, division director of undergraduate education for NSF. Consequently, for many scientists a career at a private liberal arts college, which combines research with mentoring, can be quite rewarding. It is particularly gratifying to work at an institution that encourages the intense involvement of undergraduates with faculty members in basic research, these scientists say. "I love the one-on-one contact with students in the laboratory," says Harvey Blankespoor, a professor of biology at Hope College in Holland, Mich. "And the research provides me with an opportunity to do teaching that never occurs in the classroom," because of the emphasis on undergraduate laboratory experiences, he says. Of course, not everyone is suited to the special demands made upon a member of the faculty of a small college, such as the need to work very closely with undergraduates, be heavily involved in administrative duties, and spend more time teaching than is necessary at research institutions. And there are distinct disadvantages to veering off the more traveled road, say scientists at these small schools. These include becoming isolated professionally as well as lacking the money, time, equipment, or trained staff to do sustained and complex research. But these obstacles can be circumvented, and, for scientists like Partridge, the benefits of working in this environment far outweigh the drawbacks. Scientists at small schools say they have more interaction with faculty from other departments than they would have at major institutions, as well as more opportunities to become involved in administration. Others cite liberal arts colleges' supportive environment, which they say tends to be more hospitable to women than that at the highly competitive research institutions. "This campus is crawling with women in the sciences--and more than half of our chemistry majors are women," says Nancy L. Devino, a biochemist at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. "When I was in graduate school at a research university it was almost exclusively male, and the atmosphere was intimidating. There was very little emphasis on undergraduate education, and little reward for people who were interested in that, and did it well." Faculty members at small liberal arts colleges do double duty. Unlike their counterparts at research institutions, who may teach only one or two classes a semester, they teach a full load-- perhaps four or five courses. They are also expected to be active in their field so they can teach the research skills essential to scientific inquiry. And the evidence indicates that, despite daunting obstacles, they do. According to Carrier and Davis-Van Atta's 1985 report, nearly 60 percent of the faculty at the top 48 science-active liberal arts colleges had published one or more articles in professional journals during the previous five years, or an average of one article per person annually. Moreover, the Oberlin report found that the 2,465 faculty members polled at these schools had published 351 books and 3,549 reviews in the preceding five years; 1,140 had presented papers at professional conferences in that period. Although nearly 98 percent of all federal research and development support to the academic sector is given to doctorate- granting institutions, funding is available for faculty doing research with undergraduates at smaller colleges. These grants provide faculty members with money to continue their work, as well as to teach students research methodology. NSF funds research projects at these schools through its Research in Undergraduate Institutions Program (RUI), and also makes grants to upgrade undergraduate laboratories through its Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement program (ILI). Last year, the agency awarded more than $15 million to fund about 600 RUI projects, and dispensed 692 ILI grants totaling $25.1 million. The National Institutes of Health offers programs similar to RUI and ILI. In addition, several private philanthropic organizations, most notably the Research Corporation of Tucson, Ariz., give grants for undergraduate research in basic science to both colleges and universities. But these programs cover only a fraction of the need at small colleges. Consequently, it is tough to avoid being relegated to a scientific backwater. Most small colleges can't afford to purchase the costly equipment needed to complete sophisticated experiments; teaching responsibilities eat up a big chunk of a faculty member's time; professors don't have a pool of experienced graduate students to do the laborious bench work; and individual students participate for only a short time. By being resourceful, however, it is possible to do cutting-edge work. "Our faculty often spend their sabbatical leaves at research universities," says Oberlin's Carrier. "Or they'll participate in research groups to pick up new skills and techniques. Other faculty members regularly collaborate with investigators at research universities." But there's only so far one can go. "Facilities are a crucial issue, and on that score, we can't even compete with an okay state university," says Haverford's Partridge. "So there are two approaches: You can do small-scale experiments that require modest equipment, which some of my colleagues have done, or use the big national facilities. We don't have the world's largest radio telescope at Haverford--but neither does Princeton or Harvard, so we're all competing. I just export myself and my students to New Mexico or the other national sites like everyone else." Hope College's Blankespoor solved the small college research conundrum by picking a specialized area--swimmer's itch, a form of dermatitis caused by flukes harbored by snails and birds. "What I am doing is not in the [mainstream] of molecular biology," says Blankespoor. But Blankespoor, along with his team of undergraduate researchers, has developed a new method of control (H.D. Blankespoor and R.L. Reimink, Michigan Academician, 24:7-23, 1991). He says he's inundated with calls from all over the U.S. to give lectures. Philip Myhre, a professor of chemistry at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif., sees distinct advantages to keeping his operation lean and mean. "It's hard to be a risk-taker if you have a big group that counts on you for their degree and a job, and you have to produce at a level that attracts funding to keep these people going," he says. "But with a small lab, you can take a flier on something without worrying that you'll endanger someone's career." A small college can be an ideal setting for researchers like Lynne Butler, a mathematician at Haverford, who is in a discipline that requires little more than a sharp pencil and a sharp mind. Butler left Princeton for a tenure-track position at Haverford because there was a mathematician on Haverford's faculty with whom she could collaborate, so she felt her research could flourish. "For a mathematician, who doesn't require an enormous laboratory investment," says Butler, "anything that can be achieved at a big research university can be achieved at a little college." Nevertheless, there's no question small colleges are off the beaten career path, and it's difficult to make the switch from a job there to a tenured post at a research university, say scientists at liberal arts schools. Fillmore Freeman, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, for one, did it--but not without the benefit of some unusual circumstances. Freeman worked at the California State University at Long Beach from 1965 until 1973 (the mission of the California State University system is teaching, while the University of California system is geared toward research). He taught four classes a semester and did research at night and on weekends. "I felt like I was working 30-hour days," he says. What prompted his departure was that he hit a plateau in his research at Cal State. "As your research becomes more sophisticated, you need more sophisticated students and more complicated instrumentation," which weren't available at Cal State, he says. What made him appealing to UC-Irvine is that he had published a number of papers, and his research ventured into what were new areas in the early 1970s, such as heterocyclic and mechanistic chemistry. "But there's definitely a danger if you are off track for too long," says Freeman, who was single and in his 30s when he made the switch. "Another year or two--or if I had a family who made demands on my time--and it would have been impossible." But a move in the opposite direction--from a university to a small college--can often be just as tough. "It's relatively uncommon for a small school to hire a senior faculty member from a research university," says Harvey Mudd's Philip Myhre. "They prefer to hire junior faculty so they come in fresh and can accommodate to the system. "It's not easy to make the transition from a big university which emphasizes research to a place where more attention is paid to [nurturing] students." But the scientists interviewed for this story who have made the switch have no regrets. "I don't want a job where I have to work 20 hours day and night and don't even enjoy my family," says Blankespoor, who was formerly on the University of Michigan faculty and stills does research at Michigan's field station. "There are some people in my area who are more productive. But I haven't met anybody who is enjoying their work more than I am. Every day I get up and I can't wait to get to school." Linda Marsa is a freelance science writer based in Los Angeles.

Doing Science Off The Beaten Path At Liberal Arts Schools

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