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A Million-Dollar Teacher
November 2002
by Bruce Fellman When the Committee on Yale College Education convened last fall, prominent in the review of the undergraduate curriculum was an examination of the opportunities students are offered in the sciences. One researcher is already gearing up for an experiment in science education. “I want to expose undergraduates, early in their careers, to the thrill and fun of research,” says chemist Alanna Schepartz, who recently received a million-dollar course development grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. According to HHMI president Thomas Cech, a biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry with Yale professor Sidney Altman in 1989, this approach is long overdue. “Research is advancing at a breathtaking pace, but many university students are still learning science the same old way—by listening to lectures, memorizing facts, and doing cookbook lab experiments,” says Cech. “We want to empower scientists to break this mold.”
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“I want to expose undergraduates, early in their careers, to the thrill and fun of research.”
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Schepartz, one of 20 recipients nationwide of an HHMI grant that attracted proposals from 84 research universities, was already known as a pioneer at Yale. The first woman hired and tenured by the chemistry department, she received a teaching award in 1999 for her ability to make organic chemistry, a notoriously difficult subject, compelling. With the grant, Schepartz, the Milton Harris '29PhD Professor of Chemistry, is putting together year-long lecture and laboratory courses in chemical biology, an emerging discipline that uses the tools of chemistry to understand biology and vice versa. Her target audience is sophomores, many of whom are now coming to Yale having already taken the prerequisites that traditionally occupied students during their first two years here. “What keeps people in science is the intellectual stimulation of forming a hypothesis and experiencing the thrill of finding out if you were right,” says Schepartz. So instead of following the tried-and-true paths carved out in the past, students in the chemical biology courses will learn current information and techniques, and then tackle bona fide problems. In this endeavor, the undergraduates will be mentored by graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, about half of whom are women, a group that is chronically underrepresented in the physical sciences. The chemist hopes that the HHMI grant will accomplish three goals. Enabling undergraduates to get their hands dirty early allows them to experience the heart and soul of science and “make an informed choice” about pursuing a life in research. And by letting graduate teachers, women in particular, run what Schepartz calls “their own microcosmic research group,” the scientist hopes “they’ll be encouraged to venture on.” In addition, having female instructors may also give women undergraduates added incentive to see chemistry as a viable career path. And even those who opt out will benefit. Says Schepartz: “Businesspeople, politicians, writers, and health-care professionals who understand current scientific practices and culture can help us create a more informed public.”  |
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