LSU Integrative Graduate Education Research Training

1. LSU Integrative Graduate Education Research Training Teaching Craft for Macromolecular Creativity

2. IGERT is… Integrative Graduate Education Research Training Why not TIGER instead???

3. 19 IGERT Awards for 2000Selected from 270 Proposals >100 Sites total: see http://www.igert.org

4. Other IGERT’s Span NSF’s Incredibly Wide Range of Science Interests • University of Wisconsin – Madison Human Dimensions of Social and Aquatic System Interactions • University of Washington Astrobiology: Life in and beyond Earth's Solar System • University of California—Santa Barbara Advanced Optical Materials

5. Characteristics of all IGERT’s • $3 Million/5 years • All $$$ to students • No $$$ for faculty • No $$$ for postdocs • Only 8% indirect • Requires that much & more in matching • Requires “creativity” to use funds efficiently • Requires very creative educational approach

6. LSU’s IGERTTeaching Craft for Macromolecular Creativity • The first IGERT in Macromolecules • An experiment in graduate education. • Departments: Biology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Physics, Textiles, Veterinary Medicine, Education

7. CMC - IGERT • Of course there is great research--but everyone has this! • Teaching Innovations • Apprentice/Artisan/Craftsperson Ladder • Hands First: integrate lecture, lab, demo, seminar, co-op experience • Ethics training plus community service • Faculty as researchers, not financiers of research • Faculty teams fund high-risk projects neither could do alone • Faculty work with students side-by-side • Integrated, multi-department, lab/lecture 4-course curriculum • Minigrants / Finishing School / Off-campus Advisors • Off-campus: MPI-Mainz, Turkey, Brazil, Japan

8. Selected Macromolecular Capabilities More: http://msg.lsu.edu/equip.html

9. And that’s just at LSU. We now have APTEC • Grambling: positron annihilation/free volume • LaTech: organized multilayers • McNeese: gas diffusion, anionic polymerization • Southeastern: GPC/LS/Vis • UL--Lafayette: rapid prototype & physical properties • UNO: fluorescence • Southern: composites testing • Tulane: rheology, thermal, scattering If it needs doing, and involves polymers, it can almost surely be done in Louisiana.

10. Work in a team Off-campus participant Four core technical courses Ethics/Community Service Yes you WILL attend seminar Reports to our statistician Lab books done right Take a bigger role in defining your project IGERT Students Do More

11. $15,000 NSF Stipend Plus Tuition Teach on top of that if you want Industrial co-ops Actual time working side-by-side with faculty Minithesis in 2 months Minigrants Pre-doc IGERT Students Get More! $30,000 -------- $27,500 --------

12. CMC-IGERT Faculty & Projects • 14 participants, all externally funded. • Others welcome! (Several added already) • $5 Million Annual Research. • NSF, NIH, DOD, etc. • Basic & applied research. • Good industrial & other off-campus contacts. • Biomedical to genomics to polyolefins, but all require common knowledge of large molecules. • Shared equipment. • Willing to work in teams.

13. Projects such as... OR INVENT YOUR OWN! HISTORY & ENGLISH MAJORS DO. Many more projects at: http://macro.lsu.edu/igert

14. Impressions from this educational experiment, some good and some troublesome

15. How it sometimes seems students want us to teach them. Leuven, Belgium

16. What we give them instead.

17. Polymer processing tour at ExxonMobil Chem 4010 = MS-I Class has doubled! This year’s tour was 24 students. STSC class. Teamwork meets its limits.

18. Science & Technology in Service to the Communityhttp://macro.lsu.edu/stsc

19. Ethics Training Backlash

20. STSC William Daly, polymer scientist and occasional professional consultant, lectures on: • property infringement • tax liability • when to tell a lawyer “no” • when a student sues us Students are a little blurry on why they have to hear lectures on legal aspects of sci-tech, but they enjoy this subject.

21. Sample Minigrants

22. Global Friendships & Portuguese CD’s Ties to regular track Ph.D. students and undergraduates Recruiting can be fun

23. Integrative Training: DIY Legacy Building

24. Integrative Training Visitor’s seminar Collaboration established SAXS trip to Brazil Analyze data for team exam All in one month

25. Integrative Training: Semester-long programming assignment aiding inter-group research

26. What I meant to say • The most fun I have had as professor. • Students seem to be having fun, too. • Flexible $$$ for an important experiment. • Revolutionary or weird? Neither! • Resonates with students and (some) faculty. We are happy to provide copies of the LSU pre-proposal, full proposal, reviewer comments, this presentation, etc.

27. Working lunch: filling out Milestone and Landmark reports Coordinator in Action Coordinator in Action Summer intern joining REU/Hughes poster session

28. Images from Brazil

29. Chillin’ with Stanford scientist while in Brazil

30. Virtual Infrastructure is Better than None at All

31. + + + + + IGERT students today

32. Interdisciplinary Technology (the other IT)

33. Another IT Example: Internet Scheduler

34. Web Seminar Sign-up With Negotiation & Length Adjustment

35. L U Stuff that gets integrated Seminars Research  ”Live” Problem Sets Visitors  Evaluation Program Learning  Teaching  Answer Keys People  Teams  Social interactions Research  Recruiting  Outreach Research  Curriculum Development  Student Leadership  Website Building  Meeting organization. Research  Evaluation  LSU Administration Involvement  Interdisciplinary Technology Development

36. Conclusions • Preliminarily, it seems: • Very strong students really prosper and do exercise creativity. • Weaker students sometimes wipe out—not sure if that’s a program fault or just student-advisor personality mismatches, not sure if the rate is higher than in traditional support programs. • Medium students who try hard will probably get more out of this program than through traditional training. • Faculty involvement: tied to $$$ and/or renewal. • Teams harder to construct than originally expected—partly, this is a timing issue. • Apprenticeship works, but hard to enforce.

37. Conclusions and questions • Core courses growing, steadily improving, steadily involving ex-students to shape it. • Flexibility to $$$ is the key. • Will students avail themselves to the pre-doc experience? If so, will that help their long-term career? • Will all the extracurricular activities—what might be called holistic training—interfere with technical depth? • This program is a nightmare to administrate, but many student-involved activities are creating “automatic good behavior” patterns—i.e., traditions. • There remain challenges to university infrastructure in order to do this right.