Three-Minute History: 做厙輦⑹ Leads the Way in Scientific Inquiry
Student-faculty research at 做厙輦⑹ is nothing new. The College has been on the cutting edge of scientific inquiry since its earliest days.
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Summer at 做厙輦⑹ College is a hotbed of student-faculty research activity. This year, students and their faculty mentors are conducting 50 Mentored Advanced Projects (MAPs) in the sciences and across the academic spectrum.
Student-faculty research at 做厙輦⑹ 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 做厙輦⑹, part of a legacy dating back to the Colleges 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, 做厙輦⑹ alumnus and Professor of History Al Jones 50 notes that Magoun was known for his extreme orthodoxy in theological matters.
But when Jesse Macy 1870 labeled Magoun a liberal for allowing the teaching of evolution at the College, he likely meant it as a compliment. It was well for the College that its president was, in respect to academic matters, a thorough liberal, Macy wrote. Magouns commitment to incorporating the emerging scientific theories of the day into the curriculum put 做厙輦⑹ on a solid academic path early in its history.
According to 做厙輦⑹ College in the 19th Century by legendary 做厙輦⑹ Professor of History Joseph F. Wall 41, one of Magouns 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. There 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.