If you were a parent of a gifted child who was looking for colleges, you found out fairly quickly that opportunities to shine on a college campus are few and far between when that college has graduate programs in that field. In music, your child wouldn’t get the solo positions; those positions are taken by the graduate students. In theatre, your child would have to work backstage, because the on-stage opportunities go to the graduate students. I’m wondering why Sid Salter doesn’t know that is true in the research sciences, too. Open lab positions go to the graduate students in that field. When there is a graduate program, undergraduates have limited opportunities to work in the research labs. I don’t know why Sid would believe that the MSU researchers would have space for the high school students, when the undergraduates are already fighting for the openings that go to the graduate students fairly automatically.

When our MUW students go to summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs around the country, they come back with tales of how unprepared the other undergraduates from prestigious research institutions were for the activities the REU students would be doing in the research labs. “They hadn’t ever touched” this machine or that piece of lab equipment. The W students are always surprised to hear tales of Teaching Assistants (TAs) or Graduate Assistants (GAs). When research becomes the primary focus at an institution, teaching takes a back seat. At a large research institution, lecture classes are huge, and the questions are fielded by smaller TA or GA sessions. There is very little interaction with the professor of the course. The MUW undergraduate students get their research experience alongside their professors.

Our MUW research labs (and we have many: our labs research cystic fibrosis, gecko toe pads, yeast prions, breast cancer, to name just a few) are always looking for more research assistants, and welcome the MSMS students. It is possible for these students to become peer-reviewed published authors before they even go to college as part of the MUW SEA PHAGES program (which MSU doesn’t have, I mention). The expertise of the MUW researchers is undoubted, and, in addition, they are also excellent teachers and leaders. MSMS benefits from their relationship with the MUW Department of Sciences and Mathematics, which is a block away from the MSMS classroom building.

When it is obvious that MSMS students thrive on the MUW campus, why move them?

Bonnie Oppenheimer

Columbus