Acquisition of a Transmission Electron Microscope for Research and Research Training in the Liberal Arts College Environment

三一学院（Hartford CT）的五个自然科学部门和项目联合申请美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的配套资金，用于购买透射电子显微镜（TEM）和辅助设备，以便将其用于学院的教师研究、本科生研究培训和教师/学生合作研究。作为一个高度选择性的，世俗的，文科院校，三一学院保持了一个长期的承诺，无论是高质量的本科教育和教师研究。三一学院的实验室设施非常出色，其科学教师在研究和学术方面的生产力很高。然而，直到去年，该学院还完全没有电子显微镜设备。学院利用自身资源，购置并安装了一台扫描电子显微镜（SEM）和一台原子力显微镜（AFM），并为TEM设施选址和设计了空间。学院已将收购TEM作为首要任务，并要求国家科学基金会提供援助，以使收购成为现实。在校园设立TEM有很多好处。它将(1)为现有教师提供研究所需的重要工具；(2)大幅增加三位一体本科生的科研机会；(3)允许开发提供电磁技术培训的高级课程；(4)允许将电磁技术纳入涉及研究方法的几个现有实验课程；(5)帮助学院招聘理科教师，填补未来几年将出现空缺的几个关键职位。它还应该有助于学院招收自然科学和工程专业的本科生。目前，由生物学、工程学、神经科学、化学和物理学五个系/项目的九名科学教员进行的调查研究需要TEM的能力。每位教师都希望开发涉及TEM的学生/教师合作研究项目。此外，获得TEM技术将允许开发两门新的研究型课程（“电子显微镜”和“晶体学和透射电子显微镜原理”），并为至少十门高级科学课程增加新的实验室练习。大多数三一学院理科专业的学生选择从事科学研究或卫生专业。因此，EM技术的引入将对学院吸引和培养学生的能力产生重大影响，这些学生将成为下个世纪的研究科学家和医学专业人员。三一学院承诺提供50%的配套资金。

Five natural science departments and programs at Trinity College (Hartford CT) join to request matching funds from the NSF to purchase a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and ancillary equipment, in order to incorporate their use into faculty research, undergraduate research training, and collaborative faculty/student research at the college. As a highly-selective, secular, liberal-arts institution, Trinity College maintains a long-standing commitment both to quality undergraduate education and to faculty research. Trinity's laboratory facilities are excellent, and its science faculty is highly productive in research and scholarship. Nevertheless, until last year the college entirely lacked electron microscope facilities. Drawing on its own resmurces, the college has now procured and installed both a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and an atomic force microscope (AFM), and has located and designed space for a TEM facility. The college has made acquisition of the TEM a top priority, and requests NSF assistance in order to make this acquisition a reality. The presence of a TEM on campus will have a multitude of benefits. It will (1) provide an important instrument needed in research by existing faculty; (2) substantially increase the opportunities for research by Trinity undergraduates; (3) permit development of upper-level courses that provide training in EM techniques; (4) allow incorporation of EM technology into several existing laboratory courses that deal with research methods; and (S) help the college recruit science faculty for several key positions that will become vacant during the next few years. It should also help the college in recruitment of undergraduates to programs in the natural sciences and engineering. TEM capabilities are needed for investigative research currently being conducted by nine members of the science faculty in five departments/ programs: Biolog y, Engineering, Neuroscience, Chemistry, and Physics. Each of these faculty members would expect to develop collaborative student/ faculty research projects involving TEM. In addition, acquisition of TEM technology will permit development of two new research-oriented courses ("Electron Microscopy" and "Principles of Crystallography and Transmission Electron Microscopy") and the addition of new laboratory exercises for at least ten upper-level science courses. Most students majoring in the sciences at Trinity choose careers in scientific research or the health professions. Consequently, introduction of EM technology will have a substantial impact on the college's ability to attract and train students who will be research scientists and medical professionals well into the next century. Trinity College is committed to providing 50% matching funds.