Research in chemistry
with undergraduates is commonplace today,
including in many liberal arts colleges. This educational opportunity
for undergraduates goes back to the late 1800s, exemplified by William
Albert Noyes at Rose Polytechnic, and was honed to an almost graduate-level
experience by Percy Lavon Julian at DePauw University in the early
1930s. The connection between Noyes and Julian is discussed in this
report. The article traces the origins of scholarly research performed
by undergraduate students by Noyes at an institution that is now called
the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. This model was then replicated
and substantially expanded at DePauw University by Noyes’s
former colleague, William Martin Blanchard. Through sheer happenstance
and a series of unfortunate incidents, Julian found himself entrusted
with the task of running the undergraduate chemistry research program
at DePauw in 1932. Julian’s exceptional ability to mentor undergraduate
students and to accomplish significant advances in synthetic organic
chemical methodologies was highly successful despite the challenging
circumstances of racial division, limited financial resources at DePauw
during the Great Depression, and job uncertainty (as Julian was being
paid by “soft money”). These experiences were undoubtedly
formative in shaping Julian’s career as a prominent scholar,
inventor, and entrepreneur, and to his eventual legacy as one of the
most inspirational chemical researchers in history. Julian’s
mentees at DePauw would also go on to have notable careers in the
chemical sciences and allied scientific and academic disciplines.