The Life Sciences Recent Progress and Application to Human Affairs The World of Biological Research Requirements for the Future (1970) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
University Education
University Education
Pages 364-384
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 364... ...
The outlook of the student is restricted, and he may be ill prepared for subsequent graduate work. The tendency is to train disciples rather than pioneers.
|
From page 365... ...
Together with other pressures, this has had the laudable result of encouraging integrated curriculum planning for students in the life sciences, often drawing autonomous departments together. There seems to be agreement that there exists, in the intellectual content of biology, a common core of material that should form the basis for an undergraduate major, appropriate regardless of subsequent fields of specialization.
|
From page 366... ...
The diversity of the life sciences is a critical consideration in the design of undergraduate curricula. While the trend has been toward unification of biology departments and standardization of major curricula, the quite different requirements of different life science subspecialties will always pose special problems.
|
From page 367... ...
Shall we strive to provide access to an electron microscope for each student, at a cost increase of perhaps 100-fold? Granting that, ideally, electron microscopes and a variety of other costly instruments should be available to all students, economic considerations force us to consider alternatives.
|
From page 368... ...
Even without those major instruments for which we may have to provide only indirect experience, the conversion will be costly; apart from the building costs of new and adequate laboratory space, a large institution that graduates about 100 majors each year would require at least $250,000 to convert to a modern laboratory program for the core courses in its major curriculum alone. By this estimate, the national equipment deficit for undergraduate instruction in 1,200 institutions of higher education is currently $50 million to $100 million.
|
From page 369... ...
The conspicuously successful trainer of research students typically maintains an extremely open atmosphere in the laboratory; the hopes, plans, frustrations, failures, and successes are all visible and shared. Unfortunately, this atmosphere is not to be found in teaching; hence the largely nonprogressive character of teaching.
|
From page 370... ...
Fewer than 20 biology courses in the country now make use of television, and only a dozen use audiotutorial laboratory methods. Among this small number the overwhelming majority use these methods for freshman courses; to our knowledge only two advanced course programs in the country employ them.
|
From page 371... ...
The 4,0005,000 full-time life sciences faculty members in these institutions would all benefit from exposure to a program of retraining. Thus one of the most vexing problems confronting education in biology is improvement of the existing situation at both secondary school and college levels.
|
From page 372... ...
Knowledge of the principles and facts of biology is required to make intelligent decisions in innumerable matters of social and political importance: air and water pollution, radiation hazards, biological warfare, agricultural policies, voluntary and compulsory quality control of food and drugs, and population control, to name only a few. Biologists cannot expect public understanding or acceptance of their advice on public issues unless the college-educated segment of the community is biologically literate.
|
From page 373... ...
Though enjoyable, it would be a difficult course to give, but it should be possible to present it at increasing numbers of institutions as the pioneer teachers develop the textbooks for such an advanced treatment of elementary biology. Research Training: Graduate Ecincation in the Life Sciences THE INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM: FUNCTIONS AND DIVERSITY The system for educating life scientists at the graduate level is as complex and diversified as the roles biologists serve in society, but since this complexity largely reflects historical accident, it invites scrutiny.
|
From page 374... ...
This annual input of students suffers substantial attrition; we can make a rough measurement from data reported in the questionnaire sent to department chairmen by this Survey Committee. In the academic year 1966-1967, there were 23,287 graduate students in the responding life science departments; of these, 15,755 were Ph.D.
|
From page 375... ...
Half of the graduate students in the life sciences are supported federally: 42 percent enjoy federal fellowships and traineeships, 38 percent have nonfederal (institutional) support, 13 percent are paid from faculty research grants (most of which are federal)
|
From page 376... ...
Such fellowships are twice as important in private arts and sciences graduate schools as they are in the overall support picture because a relatively small number of high-prestige graduate schools attract a disproportionate share of the students able to compete successfully for these fellowships. Hence, competitive national fellowships loom larger in the support picture in the Northeast and on the Pacific Coast-concentration points for such institutions.
|
From page 377... ...
At the same time it is most strongly urged that the National Institutes of Health particularly the National Institute for General Medical Sciences continue to mount a vigorous, broad program of support for research training in the biological sciences. Federal Support An analysis is required to ascertain the wisest combination of national competitive fellowships and traineeships available for allocation by departments.
|
From page 378... ...
Training grants offer virtually all the freedom of choice of institution and of research mentor available with the fellowship device and, by their geographical distribution, assure the continual strengthening of graduate education across the country. As long as the grants are awarded on the basis of periodic peer review, there is little chance of misleading prospective graduate students while matching the training capability of each departmental unit to the actual magnitude of its training support.
|
From page 379... ...
Terminal M.A.'s find their principal academic opportunities in the secondary schools or junior colleges, but many school biology teachers take other routes, such as the Master of Arts in Teaching. To the extent that it survives as a distinct program, the M.A.
|
From page 380... ...
Although 29 percent are found in schools of agriculture and forestry, only 14 percent are receiving degrees in the agricultural sciences; the difference is accounted for by students in basic life sciences departments in these professional colleges. Eighty-six percent of the candidates are in biological sciences departments, 14 percent of them in biochemistry, 18 percent in biology-ecology, 20 percent in zoology-entomology, and 5 percent in physiology.
|
From page 381... ...
The tendency has been, and will continue to be, a general curtailment of the duration of study, with four to five years becoming a universal norm. Its attainment demands a more prescribed and carefully organized graduate curriculum than has prevailed in many institutions; freedom from excessive burdens of teaching and from research assistantships that are not directly related to the thesis; and continuation of the trend, now more common in science than in the humanities, to prescribe appropriately modest research goals for the dissertation.
|
From page 382... ...
Misuse of the apprenticeship system may be fostered by the prevalent dependence of student research opportunities on the faculty's research funds. Departmental funds are needed for student equipment and facilities, for research as well as for formal course work in those not infrequent cases in which an able student's own research goals do not coincide fully with those of his sponsor.
|
From page 383... ...
There is a central core of empirical generalization and theory whose existence every biological specialization must recognize, and doctoral programs should no longer be based on selection from the a la carte menu of courses that a department happens to offer. We are impressed by the fact that major national efforts have been devoted to the development of curricula in biology at the high school and undergraduate levels, but insufficient thought has been given to the development of a core curriculum at the graduate level.
|
From page 384... ...
Our concern is, moreover, not just that the students have some adequate course preparation in these five areas, but that their interrelations in contributing to a truly general science of life be fully developed. There is no doubt, in our view, that a student with an exclusively physical science background could be given this proper overview of the central core in biology within a year, yet we know of no single department that has seized the challenge of developing a general biology at the graduate level.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.