When Haverford College biologist Philip Meneely needs to troubleshoot an experiment, he turns to his research colleagues: the undergraduates working in his lab. At Haverford and other small schools, professors and students work side by side, sharing disappointment and success alike. "There's a rare kind of closeness at a small school," Meneely says.

For research-minded students, small schools can offer an intensely satisfying lab life. Meheret Birru is a case in point. After considering several big and small schools, she settled on Kenyon College in Ohio. Now a junior, Birru has spent much of her time there in one lab, researching the expression of virulent E. coligenes. "The experience has been second to none," she says. "At big research universities, there can be a real disconnect between students and professors, with graduate students doing the teaching and mentoring. Here, that middleman doesn't exist, and we get so much attention from faculty."

But small schools also face unique challenges in providing undergraduates with rich research experience. Labs that rely heavily on transient undergraduates often feel a sharper loss when one student graduates and another rolls in. The constant flux of students means researchers are forever in transition, trying to design short-term projects and teach lab recruits the necessary techniques. Small schools also have fewer labs, leaving some students without a spot at the bench.

So at these schools, faculty members are learning to think out of the box—literally. At Earlham College in Indiana, for instance, biology students have left campus for the past three summers to work in the labs of alumni at nearby drug giant Eli Lilly and Company. Another Earlham alumnus, immunologist Carter Van Waes, has welcomed interns into his lab at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

At Williams College in Massachusetts, even the youngest students can get involved. The school encourages all students to try research before they've settled on a major. For instance, Steven Zottoli, a biologist at Williams, brings freshmen and sophomores to the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for programs that provide a hands-on introduction to science. Some students get on track for a science major early, possibly heading toward a science career, but others do not. "From my perspective, scientific research is truly in the liberal arts tradition," Zottoli says. "All students should try it." Even students who do not choose a science career, he adds, benefit from trying something new.

Perhaps the biggest payoff for undergraduates who study science at small schools is the chance to find out just what they are capable of accomplishing. At Haverford, Meneely says, some waltz in with confidence from day one—but others discover themselves along the way. "As a mentor, the real reward is knowing you've had an impact on a student who might not have prospered in a different environment," Meneely says. "Sure, some students go on to become well-known scientists. But some are simply satisfied with their short time in the lab. They've accomplished things they didn't dream they had in them."

—KB

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
January 2001, pages 30-33.
©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute