The precursor of the biennial conferences was an International Conference on Education in Chemistry held at Snowmass-at-Aspen, Colorado, in 1970. Attendance was by invitation, and the report of the conference was published in considerable detail in this Journal (1). Inspired by the success of this meeting, DivCHED sponsored another one, open to all, at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, in August 1972. Although this meeting became the prototype for those that followed, it was an event far different from the Clemson conference. At Mount Holyoke, all 450 attendees crowded into a lecture hall, and much of the intellectual activity generated by the meeting occurred in that room during five plenary sessions. The conference report (2) lists only 64 scheduled presentations, and there was ample time for lively discussion and perceptive commentary. Five unscheduled small group sessions arose spontaneously. In short, in structure and spirit, the meeting was similar to a Gordon Conference. Because of the relatively small number of attendees, the emphasis on plenary sessions, and the free exchange of ideas on a limited number of topics, the Holyoke Conference was a shared experience for all participants. Nevertheless, Henry Bent, the chair of the General Conference Committee and program chair, complained of the "'misery of success'unexpectedly many participants, papers, spouses, and children" (3).

Over the intervening quarter century, that "misery of success" has become an embarrassment of riches. In Clemson there were 1600 participating chemical educators, 300 accompanying persons, 906 papers, 79 workshops, and 35 plant trips and other diversions. The plenary speakers proved a lively lot. Marye Anne Fox keynoted the conference with her lecture on "Visualization in the Teaching of Lower Division Chemistry"; Ron Perkins wowed us by demonstrating that there is "Far More than Meets the Eye" in a chemical demonstration; Darleane Hoffman, named a recipient of the National Medal of Science this past May, conducted an atom-at-a-time tour of the "Chemistry of the Heaviest Elements"; Brasted Award lecturer Alex Johnstone coupled educational research with a Scot's canny common sense as he admonished us to consider our students and how they learn (4); and Peter Gibson provided a breathtaking full-colored view of and through stained glass. If Gibson was inspiring, Nobel laureate Kary Mullis was by turns irritating, provocative, outrageous, and funny. He probably succeeded in stimulating and/or offending all his listeners.

The range of symposium and paper topics at the 14th Biennial reveals an astoundingly rich and diverse discipline. The fact that instructional technology has become a significant part of chemical education was evident in the many papers on the use of multimedia and computers. In spite of this interest, the crowded Chem Demo Extravaganzas and the popular sessions on laboratory innovations indicated that chemistry is still an experimental science and that most chemistry teachers (and, one hopes, their students) are enraptured by phenomena. It was also clear that presenters and attendees are experimenting in pedagogy by using discovery, student-centered, and hands-on instructional strategies. Guiding and often leading these innovations are educational researchers who participated in symposia on assessment, learning theory, and related subjects. Sessions were held on teaching the various subdisciplines of chemistry and on the use of special topics including archeological chemistry, forensic science, and biotechnology. A symposium on industrial/academic partnerships proved particularly popular, as did the sessions on teaching chemistry to large lecture sections.

Of course, not everything at a biennial is new: a number of papers delivered in 1972 also advocated phasing out lectures and replacing them with student-centered instruction, and there were entire sessions devoted to environmental chemistry and chemistry for nonscientists. On the other hand, transformations of society (and the Society) have resulted in some significant changes in biennial programming. At Mount Holyoke, high school chemistry was represented only by a spontaneously organized session, and few if any pre-college teachers attended the conference. Many of the recommendations of this informal group have long since been adopted by ACS and the DivCHED. One result of these initiatives is the fact that elementary, middle, and high school teachers were well represented at Clemson. Although there were a number of symposia addressing the particular concerns of these groups, many sessions were characterized by a close integration of presenters and participants from across the entire chronological instructional spectrum. The fact that there was not a women's caucus at Clemson must be taken as a positive sign. To be sure, not all the issues raised by the women chemists at the Mount Holyoke meeting have been resolved, but there has been progress in promoting the careers of women and in valuing and rewarding their professional contributions.

The content of chemistry remains an area that has unfortunately been neglected at many biennial conferences. The 14th Biennial was noteworthy because of 12 excellent lectures, largely by Clemson faculty, on cutting-edge research. The quality of these presentations was very high, though the attendance was often disappointingly low.

One of the greatest areas of growth has been in workshops: computers, molecular modeling, simulations, demonstrations, and laboratory projects were heavily featured at the 14th. Other workshops concentrated on ACS-sponsored projects: ChemCom, Chemistry in Context, ChemSource, and FACETS.

From this overview, it should be obvious that the 14th Biennial provided something for everyone and too much for anyone. General Chair DeWitt Stone, Program Chair Mary Virginia Orna, and their colleagues did an outstanding job of organization and planning. But the richness of the program they generated was a source of frustration to many participants. It was difficult to choose among the competing options. Moreover, the huge number of papers meant a lack of focus. Some described the conference as a mini- (or not-so-mini-) ACS national meeting. Each of the 1600 participants experienced a different conference. Diversity of the attendees was a positive indication of the growing democratization of the biennials and the profession, but the cost was coherence and common cause.

I am not advocating that we return to the comfortable camaraderie of 1972, even if we could. Nor do I propose limiting the number of attendees, though we are reaching the point where the physical demands on a host institution are daunting. But I do suggest that in planning future conferences, as in planning future chemistry courses, less may be more. One way of trimming the program without restricting attendance would be to limit presenters to one paper and/or to increase the use of the poster format. At Clemson, there were many multiple presenters, some of whom repeated versions of the same paper. We all have a responsibility to our discipline and to our colleagues to resist the temptation to recycle papers that have already been presented or published. And some of us who have repeatedly had our say would be well advised to turn the podium over to younger chemists and teachers.

In retrospect, the theme of the 14th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, "The Challenge of Change", was particularly apt. The Chinese characters representing chemistry, hua-xue, mean "the study of change". That is what our discipline is all about. In the past, chemistry education typically changed more slowly than chemistry itself. That is not the case today, as the 14th Biennial admirably illustrated. The conference was about kinetics, not equilibrium. It was made manifestly clear that the reaction called chemical education is not first order or unimolecular. Collisions and interactions between and among faculty and students are essential. Researchers are studying the mechanism of the learning reaction, and new reaction pathways have been discoveredthey are called modules, case studies, issues and applications, the need to know, student-centered activities, and the lecture-less classroom. Technology in the form of computers, multimedia, CD ROM, the Internet, and the Web can lower the activation energy barrier. The products of this reaction are men and women who are critical thinkers, problem solvers with conceptual understanding who can balance risks and benefits as well as equations. The catalyst that makes it happen is called a teacher.

The tradition of the Biennial Conferences is an honorable and a distinguished one. The 15th edition will be August 9-13, 1998, at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (see box below). General Chair Reg Friesen has already demonstrated his superb organizational skills by hosting a number of ChemEd conferences and the 10th International Conference on Chemical Education in 1989. The program is in the capable hands of Anna Wilson, former Program Chair of DivCHED. Like chemistry and its teaching, the biennial conferences have changed over the past 25 years. That is as it should be. I look forward to 1998, confident that Waterloo will be the site of another great victory.

Literature Cited

1. Preliminary Report: International Conference on Education in Chemistry; J. Chem. Educ. 1971, 48, 3-38.

2. Report of the Mt. Holyoke Conference: Education in Chemistry '72; J. Chem. Educ. 1973, 50, 3-45.

3. Bent, H. J. Chem. Educ. 1973, 50, 5.

4. Johnstone, A. H. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 262-268.