FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 22, 2000

WOOSTER, Ohio -- Cultivating curiosity should be the ultimate aim of educators, especially in the sciences, as colleges and universities look to meet the new challenges of the 21st century, College of Wooster President R. Stanton Hales told the opening session of the Council on Undergraduate Research's biennial conference Thursday.

Almost 600 science educators from around the country are participating in the three-day event which features workshops and lectures aimed at addressing numerous topics surrounding the role of undergraduate research in the educational process..

In his opening remarks, Hales referred to the words of Albert Einstein who expressed concern that the then-modern teaching techniques did more to dampen than to encourage creativity -- "this delicate little plant," as Einstein termed it. "What Einstein understood," Hales said, "was the true value and essential nature of curiosity. Children may not be naturally professional, or naturally methodical, but they are naturally curious. And we toy with that curiosity at our peril."

Referring specifically to Wooster's nationally-regarded Independent Study program in which every student participates one-to-one with a faculty mentor, Hales noted how this form of faculty-student collaboration "preserves curiosity as a vehicle."

At a time when many lament the state of science and technology education in the United States, Hales asked the assembled faculty members to ask themselves whether or not they have done all they can for their students to stimulate curiosity. He argued that in refining established educational practices, five principles should be kept in the fore: common sense without fads, consistency without contradictions, balance among educational techniques that work, enthusiasm, and altruism in which student's needs are put first.

"The future of our sciences, our young people, and our world is indeed ours to shape, if we but have the will," Hales concluded. "And in all that we do may we rededicate ourselves now and always to nurturing that delicate little plant..."