There is an ever increasing need for scientists and scientifically informed citizens. Our ability to pursue technological and scientific advancement depends keenly on the quality of science education and the ability of science educators to cultivate the Eureka! factor among students. The need for scientists is crucial in a number of obvious areas. The success of the global marketplace is strongly dependent upon technological advances to facilitate communication. Many predict that biotechnology will revolutionize our health care system as impressively as technological discoveries have improved our communication. The ability to further our understanding and to control disease through biotechnology is dependent on the production of the next generation of talented, highly creative, molecular scientists. The next revolutionary advancement is undoubtedly the germ of an idea in a young persons mind.

The ability to meet this urgent challenge and produce a scientifically and technologically aware community rests heavily with small liberal arts and sciences institutions. Small colleges are the starting point for a disproportionate number of scholars, particularly scientists. This is due in part to the larger number of primarily undergraduate institutions and to the unique opportunities for intensive student-faculty interactions made possible by the smaller student-faculty ratio.

Undergraduate institutions need to attract to their faculty talented research scholars with a genuine passion for transmitting their love of science to others, in order to continue preparing students for careers in science. The mentors of tomorrow’s scientists must be more than merely educators, they must themselves be scientifically competent and impassioned. The most effective route to a student’s desire is to build upon the natural curiosities that are present in every child. To do this effectively, an educator must appreciate and awaken their own scientific curiosities through active inquiry and scientific discovery. The ability to inspire students as scientists at the undergraduate level is dependent on a genuine enthusiasm on the part of the faculty. Faculty who are active in research are enthusiastic about science generally and their particular area specifically. This enthusiasm is contagious.

There are currently two training paths that a newly degreed Ph.D. scientist, interested in an academic career at an undergraduate institution, may chose. The first is to apply directly for a tenure-track teaching position upon completion of the Ph.D. However, most graduate students have spent the bulk of their graduate years focusing on a research project and have a limited amount of significant teaching experience. They are pursuing a dream with very little actual validation that the dream is as compelling as they believe. The second path is to pursue a traditional post-doctoral fellowship, where the emphasis is again directed towards publishable research. Any teacher-scholar mentoring that occurs in this second path is serendipitous.

Very few national scientific programs are designed to encourage and assist a young research scholar to develop as an educator and effective student mentor. Although the scientific and non-scientific communities need scholarly, passionate scientists to teach at the undergraduate level, there are too few organized mechanisms for filling that need.

At Hobart & William Smith Colleges we are uniquely qualified to provide a solution to this dilemma. As a highly selective undergraduate liberal arts and sciences institution, we have welcomed the opportunity to provide a cooperative and mentoring environment for young faculty interested in academic careers at primarily undergraduate institutions. The Hobart & William Smith Teaching Scholars program, established in the Chemistry Department in 1998 with institutional funds, is designed to strengthen the teaching and research careers of young chemist-scholars who promise to make outstanding contributions to both research and education.

The Chemistry departments established commitment to education and independent body of scholarship with undergraduates served as a firm foundation upon which to build this program. The department possesses the necessary ingredients crucial to the success of a Teacher-Scholar program: senior faculty who are accomplished educators as well as scholars; vibrant, ongoing conversations regarding pedagogical methods; curriculum development; inclusion of undergraduates in cutting edge, peer-reviewed research; experience in obtaining external funding for research and educational initiatives; equipment and facilities capable of supporting innovative research and teaching methods; and a collegial, mentoring environment.

This is a unique Teacher-Scholar program that will serve as a national model for the encouragement of scientifically rigorous, enlivened undergraduate education. The HWS Teacher-Scholar will teach an undergraduate chemistry course in a cooperative/mentoring relationship with a senior faculty member and will be encouraged to conduct a research program with undergraduate majors. The research facilities available to support innovative projects with undergraduates includes GC-MS, FT-NMR, FT-IR, ICP-AES, HPLC, DSC, TGA and molecular modeling.