Japanese Deal With U.S. School Promises To Boost Science

Salem-Teikyo University in West Virginia awaits an influx of Asian students as it links up with a Florida biotech institute Wayne England, a fungus physiologist and chairman of natural sciences at Salem-Teikyo University, has had a longtime interest in shiitake mushrooms. But it was only last year that he thought about learning Japanese. That's when Teikyo University bought Salem (W.Va.) College and announced that some 500 Japanese students would be arriving over the next three years beginning last month. The influx will double the enrollment. A merger with the 22,000-student Teikyo University last July bailed Salem out of financial difficulties. And though administrators expect most Japanese students to major in business after completing the two-year core curriculum, England says he's "hoping some will trickle into science majors, after they get more English under their belts and begin to see the range of things they can do." That's not all that the merger will do to boost science at Salem-Teikyo. From computers to a new curriculum, the Japanese connection is pumping new life into this tiny liberal arts college, which has a nine-member science faculty. It has also forged links to an NIH-funded Florida research institute that is expected to sponsor a graduate program in biotechnology at the university. Most struggling U.S. colleges are not going to solve their financial problems by finding a Japanese sugar daddy. But a look at what's going on at Salem provides an interesting example of what can happen when unexpected prosperity gives a school the chance to rethink its mission. One immediate bit of good news was the 27-percent pay raises granted faculty and staff last fall, part of the sudden economic good health at the school. "Everybody in charge seems very interested in getting all kinds of new equipment," says physics professor Howard Powell. "This is the first time I've ever sent in a purchase order where things weren't turned down. Like many school labs, we had lots of old stuff. Some of it worked and some of it didn't. And we needed visual aids and especially two or three good computers we could do physics on. Now we're getting them." Another change is in the quality of its computer facilities. This semester the computer lab's 22 micros, at the time the only computers on campus, were replaced by much more powerful machines. Computer science professor Sandra Gumm and her students are thrilled. "It's the first time ever I've had machines ahead of the textbooks. I always had to look in warehouses for outdated texts," Gumm says. "My students rushed right in and started using the new equipment. I have some of the best students in the school as majors, and it's great to see them enjoying the new possibilities." This spring, the school began to link offices, classrooms, labs, resource centers, and dorm rooms into a state-of-the-art computer network. The network, which by summer's end should include linkages with the Library of Congress, the University of Kentucky, and the University of Pittsburgh, among others, will significantly change the kinds of research open to students, according to England. Previously, most have done library research. Now, thanks to the computer net, camcorders, and other audio-visual equipment, students will be able to do original field research in fields like ecology. "We'll be able to collect, catalog, and process information and link it to what's available at other institutions," England says. "There's a lot of biology to study in the West Virginia countryside." Junior science majors will pursue two-year research projects with an eye to publication in the journal of the West Virginia Academy of Sciences and here. "I've got two students with projects ready to go already," England says. Linking the campus via electronic mail is also vital to Salem-Teikyo's new scheduling system, according to President Ronald Ohl. In the semester that began in April, the traditional parallel course system was replaced by a block system. Each of three semesters, which run throughout the year, includes five three-week blocks. A student takes one course during each three-week session, with one session off each semester. (Japanese students are required to attend all three semesters, American students only two.) Faculty members teach one course in each of three or four of the blocks. "The block system stresses immersion in a subject," says Ohl, who was dean at Colorado College when a similar system was instituted there. "Since teachers and students concentrate on one course at a time, they can communicate much more closely. A student can do an assignment in the afternoon, send it to me via electronic mail, and get it back with comments by early evening. The computer net will allow the three-week sessions to be more intense and productive than they would be without it." The block system presents some unfamiliar challenges to faculty. "We're all used to lecturing for an hour," England says. "So this system - which means five hours of class per day for four-credit-hour courses - will require learning new approaches to teaching." Administrators hope it will also help them achieve their goal of a more research-oriented faculty. That's because the new schedule permits blocks of up to six weeks within a semester for study and travel. "We don't really know how this is going to work," says one professor. "We've heard about it mainly in speeches. But it'll be good if there's more time to follow up on research interests. With the teaching schedule we've had, plus committees and other administrative work, there hasn't been much time for extended projects." Students can also be included in travel opportunities, another instructor notes. Along with a greater concentration on research, faculty members are now required to earn terminal degrees in their field, preferably the Ph.D. Previously, only about a third had earned doctorates, though others had degrees in progress. A faculty of 55 has been reduced to a "core faculty" of 31, largely through attrition of untenured staff who did not plan work toward terminal degrees. "This was a good place to work if you were interested in teaching but not in formal research," says one instructor who is leaving after this semester. "It'll be a different kind of place now." The student body will be different, too. "Already, we're attracting more academically minded students," says Ohl's assistant Percy Ashcraft. Since the merger was announced, freshman applicants' grade point averages have increased from 2.0 to 3.2, and SAT and ACT scores are also up significantly. Over the past 20 years, Salem's student body has grown more career-oriented, with most choosing majors with direct utility in the marketplace. "Fifteen years ago we offered a major in physics," says Powell. "Since then physics has been a support course for majors like medical technology." Nevertheless, faculty and administrators say, the science department has remained strong, despite the lack of pure science majors. "And for a small college, we have a good record of placing kids in medical school," says England. It was this good record that has led to plans for a graduate program in biotechnology, jointly sponsored with the Tampa Bay Research Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. The institute, a small NIH-funded basic cancer research facility founded in the early 1980s, has several Japanese-American members, including its president, Meihan Nonoyama, and has worked extensively with Japanese postdocs. For several years, the institute has wanted to develop a graduate program in microbiology. Alerted to Salem's interest in a merger by Teikyo University President Shoichi Okinaga, the Tampa Bay researchers immediately began to explore the possibility of collaborating with Salem on the program. "Everyone here is a researcher," says Raymond Lau, Tampa Bay's vice president for corporate affairs, "and to have a graduate program, classes are also needed. Salem-Teikyo faculty would teach those classes, and Ph.D candidates would come here to do research. We hope to begin in three to five years, but a lot of planning is needed, and they have to have a good undergraduate program first." Lau says the first step for the university is to strengthen its undergraduate curriculum by emphasizing molecular biology. The institute runs a similar program with the University of South Florida, he notes, "but we were especially interested in Salem-Teikyo because we have ties to the U.S. and Japan, and would like to have international graduate students." The curriculum changes are consistent with Salem's plans, says Ohl. "We were interested in doing the biotech because it would build on our strengths," Ohl says. "We've traditionally had strong programs in health sciences and sports medicine." The university has moved to cement its ties with Tampa Bay, with Nonoyama serving as chairman of its board of directors. But so far institute staff have had little contact with Salem-Teikyo faculty. "We've been in a negotiation phase," Ohl explains, and he acknowledges "understandable frustration" on the part of faculty members who would like to know more about planned programs. But though details of Salem-Teikyo's future are uncertain, Eng-land does know that his biology department will receive increased at- tention, and that he will be permitted to maintain a core of 20 to 25 majors. And though Powell says he doesn't "see a renewed physics major very soon down the road," he predicts that "all the science will improve when some does. We'll have really good facilities soon, better than a lot of big state institutions, and that should attract American students, too." England thinks the school's emphasis on language study could also attract science students. "If we could get more Americans interested in doing science in conjunction with people from the Pacific Rim, that'd be great," he says. "They could come here and study Japanese with their science."

Japanese Deal With U.S. School Promises To Boost Science

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