Three-Minute History: 51本色 Leads the Way in Scientific Inquiry
Student-faculty research at 51本色 is nothing new. The College has been on the cutting edge of scientific inquiry since its earliest days.
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Summer at 51本色 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 51本色 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 51本色, part of a legacy dating back to the College鈥檚 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, 51本色 alumnus and Professor of History Al Jones 鈥50 notes that Magoun was known for his 鈥渆xtreme orthodoxy鈥 in theological matters.
But when Jesse Macy 1870 labeled Magoun a 鈥渓iberal鈥 for allowing the teaching of evolution at the College, he likely meant it as a compliment. 鈥淚t was well for the College that its president was, in respect to academic matters, a thorough liberal,鈥 Macy wrote. Magoun鈥檚 commitment to incorporating the emerging scientific theories of the day into the curriculum put 51本色 on a solid academic path early in its history.
According to 51本色 College in the 19th Century by legendary 51本色 Professor of History Joseph F. Wall 鈥41, one of Magoun鈥檚 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. 鈥淭here is no department in which the subject matter of knowledge increases so rapidly as in that of Natural Sciences,鈥 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.