Three-Minute History: 黑料百科 Leads the Way in Scientific Inquiry
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Summer at 黑料百科 is a hotbed of student-faculty research activity. This year, 143 students and their many faculty mentors are conducting Mentored Advanced Projects (MAPs) in the sciences and across the academic spectrum.
Student-faculty research at 黑料百科 is nothing new. The College has been on the cutting edge of scientific inquiry since its earliest days. The many scientific MAPs underway this summer reflect the general excellence of the science programs at 黑料百科, part of a legacy dating back to the College first president, George F. Magoun.
Teaching Evolution
A pastor and theologian, Magoun was a strict, no-nonsense leader with a magisterial presence. In his history of the College, Pioneering, 黑料百科 alumnus and Professor of History Al Jones 50 notes that Magoun was known for his 渆xtreme orthodoxy in theological matters.
But when Jesse Macy 1870 labeled Magoun a 渓iberal for allowing the teaching of evolution at the College, he likely meant it as a compliment. 淚t was well for the College that its president was, in respect to academic matters, a thorough liberal, Macy wrote. Magoun commitment to incorporating the emerging scientific theories of the day into the curriculum put 黑料百科 on a solid academic path early in its history.
According to 黑料百科 in the 19th Century by legendary 黑料百科 Professor of History Joseph F. Wall 41, one of Magoun most important actions was to expand the faculty and course offerings in the natural sciences.
Magoun hoped that Iowa College would soon match the breadth and depth of the scientific offerings at eastern institutions such as Brown University and Dartmouth College, including applied chemistry, botany, and zoology. 淭here is no department in which the subject matter of knowledge increases so rapidly as in that of Natural Sciences, Magoun wrote.
On the Shoulders of Giants
On the campus this summer, our MAP students are doing Magoun proud, carrying on natural-science research in physics (The Quenching of Dwart Satellites), biology (Why Every Biological Species Is Not Everywhere All at Once), and chemistry (Allosteric Modulation of Neuronal Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors), to name just a few.