Red flag? I don't see no red flag

I challenge UC's call. Credit: PFT

You may have heard about this New York Times story by Amy Harmon about Jason Lieb, the University of Chicago molecular biology professor who resigned after the university administration made conclusions about his behavior at an off-campus retreat (this is a longer post, so the rest is after the jump.) 

...The professor, Jason Lieb, 43, made unwelcome sexual advances to several female graduate students at an off-campus retreat of the molecular biosciences division, according to a university investigation letter obtained by The New York Times, and engaged in sexual activity with a student who was “incapacitated due to alcohol and therefore could not consent.” 

Dr. Lieb, who has received millions of dollars in federal grants over the last decade, did not respond to requests for comment.

“In light of the severity and pervasiveness of Professor Lieb’s conduct, and the broad, negative impact the conduct has had on the educational and work environment of students, faculty and staff, I recommend that the university terminate Professor Lieb’s academic appointment,” reads the letter, signed by Sarah Wake, assistant provost and director of the office for equal opportunity programs. 

Dr. Lieb stepped down last month before any action was taken....

Why not more industrial training?

In the comments on Tuesday's post about the Organometallics roundtable, there was a fair bit of pushback about the industrial panelists' call for better preparation of graduate students for industrial careers.

Anon 201202280732a:

This is quite frustrating. If "industry" really cared about the skill set of their employees, they would train them themselves. Just like they used to do many years ago. My grandfather was an engineer at GE, but he received his degree in English. GE felt it was a priority and an investment to bring his skill set up to snuff to achieve the goals of GE. 

Friend of the blog Matt Hartings: 

So, what industry needs to decide is: WHAT IS IT THAT THEY REALLY WANTED PEOPLE TO BE TRAINED IN? I know there is no single answer for this. But, what does industry want? Do they just want people, trained in a specific discipline, who are proven problem solvers? Do they want people who are well versed in lots of different techniques? Do they want people who have been trained in economies of scale? In recruiting new hires, WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING FOR?  

If recruiters and industry leaders could be a little more clear on this problem, I think that most faculty would be willing to help their students become ready for their future career. And, I also think that more graduate students would be willing to push for the right kinds of experience to satisfy what "industry wants". But until there is something more explicit, this is NOT going to happen. If industry is just sitting back and cherry picking new graduates looking for experience in "Solid phase synthesis of lithium-based materials that perform at under 300K with expertise in XPS, AFM, SEM, TEM, etc, etc, etc" what they are showing that they really want is for a larger pool of applicants and a larger pool of graduate students and graduate student projects to pick from. We've already discussed what a bad idea this is.  

What is it that industry wants and expects???

For the most part, I think the call for better preparation can be answered by the students themselves. As @UnstableIsotope pointed out, they need to expose themselves to more industrial examples by reading the working literature (C&EN, J. Med. Chem., Org. Process. Res. Dev., other relevant industrially oriented journals.) They need to attempt to turn "unknown unknowns" (things they did not know that they did not know) into "known unknowns" (things that they know that they're not exposed enough to, but are aware of the field and its concerns.) Forbearance from the professor for absences from the laboratory to go and do an industrial internship would also be helpful, I would think. I am curious as to how many professors would allow a graduate student to use an industrial internship and the relevant projects for a portion of their dissertation; while I'm sure most wouldn't have issues, I am sure that some would vehemently object.

To respond on Anon0732a, there was a time when General Electric (and its shareholders) would allow for long-term thinking, e.g. beyond a 2-3 year time horizon. It seems that if you're a major corporation now, you don't think much beyond next year's earnings numbers. (I also assume that GE did not have a major research university infrastructure to draw trained engineers from, so they HAD to do it themselves.) I can do Anon0732a one better and show the example of Kettering University, once the General Motors Engineering and Management Institute. (I remember getting a brochure from them when I was applying to college.) It was set up in 1926 to train employees for just GM -- where's the pharma/chemical version of that?

Ultimately, I think our academic interlocutors are right, in that there is some attempt at cost-shifting here. I don't doubt Wuxi Apptec has an in-house training institute. Is it time for collaborative institutes to train the US industrial chemists of the future? 

Organometallics panel discussion: industry vs. academia, why no #chemjobs?

Organometallics recently published a panel discussion between an impressive panel of professors and industrial experts; they talked about the state of organometallic chemistry in 2011. Esteemed friend of the blog See Arr Oh is covering the research oriented sections at Just Like Cooking today as well. Go on over there and read it.

What should we teach? Industrial chemists versus academics: The panel discussed a number of different questions, most of which were academic in nature ("Are there any nominations for an "organometallic molecule of the year" for 2011?"). One of them seemed to generate more discussion between the different panel members. The editor of Organometallics asked about Whitesides and Deutsch's editorial (where they state that chemical academia is need of more innovation). This led to a (for this panel) heated discussion between Dr. Joachim Ritter of DuPont and Prof. James Mayer at the University of Washington, among others. A condensed version is below:

Joachim Ritter: [SNIP] What is involved in not just making 100 mg or a gram of a material, but 100 million pounds, and what are the implications? Challenges in the industrial world include space−time yields, purification methods, catalyst recovery and lifetime, solvent usage, etc. These topics sound straightforward, but when you’re actually working in industry developing new processes with broadly trained junior chemists coming straight out of top schools, sometimes you see that very talented chemists have a hard time connecting to these challenges. So I do feel there is something to be done in education. In addition to an in-depth drive toward the newest cutting edge developments in science, there needs to be a perspective of today’s problems in the context of chemistry.