It's All in a Long Day's Work

Eric Grotewold--Keeping Them Aloft

At nine a.m. on a Friday morning, a group of serious young scientists began to congregate in Erich Grotewold's seminar room in the Biotech Center. They were soon followed by Grotewold himself, an associate professor of plant biology, bearing a large bag of bagels and cream cheese.

Grotewold, one of the college's most respected and heavily-funded researchers, is about to engage in an activity he deeply believes in: providing undergraduate research experience that goes beyond the classroom and beyond the lab.

Every Friday morning before his graduate students, postdocs and research associates gather for their weekly seminar, a group of undergraduates have the opportunity to start to understand the theory behind the experiments that they carry out in the lab.

Grotewold believes that, "Classroom education is insufficient to provide students with the knowledge necessary to fully appreciate the research experience. This is my effort at trying to fill the gap between the theory and the practice."

Today, it is Antje Feller's turn. Feller is an undergraduate from Germany, who has been doing a research project in Grotewold's lab for six months. She is nearing the end of her stay and will soon return to Germany to write her thesis and undergo an oral examination on the work she has done on the regulation of flavonoid biosynthetic genes in maize. Today, she will be explaining the bases behind the yeast two hybrid system, a powerful method to investigate protein-protein interactions.

Being a good teacher is akin to being a good air traffic controller: Grotewold spots the trajectories of problems and deflects them with tough questioning and suggestions.

This is not only very good practice, but a crucial part of the learning process. To be able to present research findings to a group of one's peers is not ordinarily an option available to undergraduate students.

Feller will have 20 minutes for her presentation, followed by questions from her audience. As Grotewold spots small inconsistencies in her explanation, he points them out and questions her carefully. It is an invaluable learning experience, not only for Feller, but for the other undergraduates in the room, who also have questions and ideas about her work.

Grotewold, whose research areas include regulation of gene expression; function and evolution of Myb proteins; and plant metabolic engineering is patient but persistent. He stops her several times, making her examine and rethink what she is saying.

Being a good teacher is akin to being a good air traffic controller: Grotewold spots the trajectories of problems and deflects them with thorough questioning and suggestions. His attention seems to be everywhere at once, using Feller's project as a springboard for questions for the other students, keeping everyone alert, learning, aloft, and on course.