On Jan. 12, a bleak commentary in Nature online suggested a funding bubble in the sciences is about to collapse with dire results for science students. “When the economic storm struck in 2008, the ride came to an abrupt end,” wrote Colin Macilwain, a contributing correspondent at Nature.
“As Western governments attempt to maintain investment in science as a route to innovation and industrial development, they are undermining support for students and the quality of their education,” Macilwain said.
“Students are not customers of a university; they are its very soul,” Macilwain wrote. “The idea that research will prosper while teaching and learning decay is a dangerous fallacy.”
Two days later, in the Jan. 14, 2011, issue of Science, Sarah C.R. Elgin, PhD, the Viktor Hamburger Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, and 12 colleagues took issue with Macilwain’s fundamental premise.
Elgin — a professor of biology and of education in Arts & Sciences and of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of genetics in the School of Medicine — and her colleagues don’t believe teaching takes place at the expense of research or research at the expense of teaching.
She and her Science co-authors write that “excellence in scientific research and teaching need not be mutually exclusive but are instead intertwined and can interact synergistically to increase the effectiveness of both.”
The authors are biomedical research scientists who receive support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to create “new programs that more effectively engage students in learning science.” So, they admit that their situations are more favorable than most.
Elgin comments as well that Washington University has the resources to fund programs out of the reach of state colleges, even in this time of financial hardship.
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