Somewhere close to a third of all American chemists of all degree ranks are engaged in some kind of polymer activity right now as part of their professional assignment.  This may involve some aspects of plastics, fibers, rubber, coatings, or adhesives.  Their position may involve research, engineering, sales, etc.  Yet only a tiny fraction of these people have had any formal training in polymer science and engineering!  Some, amazing enough, seem not to be aware that it is a regular academic topic in a growing number of colleges and universities!Ideally, all departments should have, and perhaps require, a course in polymer chemistry.  An alternate solution would be to have the subject matter introduced gradually, in a natural manner, along with other topic examples.  Such examples might include for organic chemistry, when studying synthesizing esters, how about an example for polyesters?  (They make great sweaters, for example.)  Same for polyamides, which includes Nylon.  When showing reactions of double bonds, how about showing polyethylene starting with ethylene and also polystyrene as examples?  A brief discussion of molecular weights might follow, which usually run something like 50,000-100,000 g/mol, depending on the polymer and exact concentrations of reactants.  We have noted with significant satisfaction that undergraduate authors have increased their coverage of polymer topics from about 10% to about 70% of such undergraduate organic chemistry textbooks.  We laud this progress, and know it will result in better trained professionals in the future.  Yet, much more needs to be done.  A 5% inclusion of polymer examples in these undergraduate chemistry books would be a goal.  Please note that what is not wanted is a token chapter on polymers at the end of the book!  Assuming this is done, however, another problem must be solved:  Educating professors about polymers so they can teach a bit of the subject, and not skip over the polymer topics!It should be noted that a fair fraction of universities are now offering something in the way of polymer courses to undergraduates, but liberal arts colleges, with reduced faculty numbers, usually offer nothing.On a broader subject, it is of interest to observe how U.S. universities and colleges wound up with such a complete separation of polymers from ordinary chemistry, far more than Europe, for example.  This results, in significant measure, by industry seeing the utility of research done in Europe, started manufacturing polymeric goods.  Now, we must rectify this problem.

Inclusion of polymer concepts in organic and other undergraduate chemistry books

244th National Meeting (2012)

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