History: From 1986 to 2005

The Undergraduate Research Summer Institute (URSI) at Vassar evolved as an elegant solution to a practical problem. "We had students doing research in the summer even before I got here in 1977," recalls Robert Suter, professor of biology and associate dean of the faculty, "but every year we had to scramble for the money. What a pain! So MRC Greenwood [class of 1968, then a biology professor at Vassar] and I worked up this plan…"

The Greenwood-Suter plan called for new funding to support and eventually endow a Vassar version of a scientific research center. They envisioned scientists from all the disciplines engaged in their various inquiries, training and mentoring students, coming together for weekly seminars to discuss their work, and, at the end, presenting their results at a college-wide symposium. Summer research for undergraduates was not new, but the idea of creating a working scientific community on the campus of a liberal arts college—that was new.

The Scientist Shortage

A major piece of the rationale for URSI was the well-known 1985 Oberlin study ("The Future of Science at Liberal Arts Colleges"), coupled with the looming scientist shortage projected by the National Academy of Sciences Roundtable in the early ’80s. The Oberlin report concluded that the nation’s top liberal arts colleges (including Vassar, of course) produce proportionately more science PhDs than the top research universities. URSI was both Vassar’s response to the shortage and an amplification of what we had always done well—training articulate, creative, thinking scientists.

Both issues are still pertinent. In 2004, the National Science Board issued a report warning U.S. leaders that "American pre-eminence in science and technology is in jeopardy because the country is facing a shortage of scientists and engineers." ("National Science Panel Warns of Scientist Shortage," by David McAlary, May 8, 2004, www.digitaljournal.com ) According to NSB member Robert Richardson, since 1975 we’ve gone from third in the world to 17th in the percentage of college and university students pursuing degrees in science and engineering.

The Role of the Liberal Arts Colleges

In terms of sheer numbers, of course, the research universities and technical schools produce the bulk of science and engineering PhDs. But a recent analysis of the data by Thomas R. Cech, the 1989 Nobel laureate in chemistry, now the president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, corroborates the Oberlin conclusions and demonstrates that the liberal arts colleges "are about twice as productive as the average institution in training eventual PhDs." ("Science at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Better Education?" by Thomas R. Cech, Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Winter 1999) More importantly, however, Cech goes on to ask why the liberal arts colleges are so successful at training science students.

The conclusions he comes to are not surprising, but they are gratifying: the low student-faculty ratio, the commitment of the faculty to teaching, independent research undertaken with a faculty mentor, and "cross-training" in the humanities and the arts. "Scientists need the same skills as humanists to cut through misleading observations and arrive at a defensible interpretation," writes Cech, "and intellectual cross-training in the humanities exercises the relevant portions of the brain."

Science Literacy for the 21st Century

According to Suter, there’s another way to think about the contribution that Vassar (and schools like Vassar) makes. "Yes, we are helping to fill the pipeline with people who we hope will emerge later on as PhDs and MDs, and we particularly care about having underrepresented groups going through that pipeline—women, for example, and people of color. But the other question is what a person needs to know to be a good person out in the world. There are all sorts of scientific and environmental issues that people need to have intelligent opinions about—global warming, for example—and that means being able to understand the science as well as the ethics. So in terms of shaping our future, whether you are a scientist or a voter or a policy maker, if you’ve gone through something like URSI, you are far better equipped to work through these problems."