A Venue for Integrative Scholarship

Like other materials scientists I greatly admire the elasticity of the Gordon Research Conferences. As a faculty member conducting multidisciplinary research in the chemistry department of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the Gordon Conferences enabled me to share ideas with chemists and scientists from other disciplines. Attendance at the Solid State Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Electrochemistry conferences helped my research program evolve over nearly thirty years in academia. Moreover, the network of professional contacts and mentors I developed through Gordon Conferences has been a valued source of advice and inspiration for my entire professional career. The Gordon Conferences exposed me to international colleagues whose perspectives have broadened my outlook on the scientific enterprise and to young colleagues who have affirmed my confidence in a bright future for science. From conversations with many colleagues across a multitude of scientific and engineering disciplines, I know that my perceptions are widely shared.

GRC supported my interest in integrating results from the chemistry research enterprise into the undergraduate curriculum. From 1977, when I began my career as a faculty member, to the early 1990s, neither the content nor the pedagogical methods of introductory college chemistry courses changed much. In 1990 I started working with colleagues across the country to integrate solid-state chemistry into these courses. With support from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the National Science Foundation (NSF) we created a suite of instructional materials to accomplish this objective. The Solid State Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry conferences proved superb venues for introducing these instructional materials to other colleagues. GRC chairs graciously made time and space available during otherwise unscheduled afternoon sessions so that we could share the materials with our colleagues. We thereby obtained expert feedback that ultimately led to better products and enhanced the visibility of our effort.

In 1992 I had the good fortune to attend the first Science Education Conference. The participation of many leading scientists signified that the research enterprise was awakening to the need to update our science courses. This meeting was both invigorating and transformational: it brought together disparate communities and demonstrated that by continuously infusing science curricula with the fruits of research and technology, the educational enterprise would have the same vitality as the research enterprise. It was also fortunate that Angy Stacy of the University of California at Berkeley attended this meet-ing. The two of us concluded that we should try to organize a GRC like the Science Education Conference, but one that focused specifically on chemical education. The GRC board approved the proposal we submitted, and the Innovations in the Teaching of College Chemistry Conference was launched in January 1994. The backing of GRC and the involvement of many leading chemistry researchers gave the revitalization of the chemistry curriculum a credibility that would have been difficult to achieve otherwise. Furthermore, such backing enabled us to attract funding from the Dreyfus Foundation, the Research Corporation, and the NSF, which helped ensure the involvement of broad segments of the higher-education chemistry community, including two- and four-year institutions, as well as publishers and producers of instructional materials. This yeasty mixture of stakeholders in undergraduate education led to an exciting inaugural GRC.

Since joining NSF in 2002, I have worked with colleagues in the Division of Chemistry and across the foundation to advance the frontiers of discovery, integrate research and education, and broaden participation. The objectives of GRC make it a natural intellectual partner for the NSF: GRC provides a forum for cutting-edge research and education that engages an inclusive spectrum of participants spanning a variety of disciplines, institutions, demographic groups, professional development stages, and state and national borders. Our nation’s scientific enterprise has been greatly enriched by this synergy, and I wish the GRC continued success in its important work.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.