Assistant Professor of Chemistry Andrew Kennedy has a microscope in his Dana Chemistry office that he cherishes but never uses.
It鈥檚 a gold-plated Bausch and Lomb compound microscope once owned by his great-grandfather, T. Francis Kennedy, and since passed down to him.
A prominent early-20th century physician in Rhode Island, Frank Kennedy, among other good deeds, once joined a Red Cross medical response team to the great Halifax Explosion in Nova Scotia in 1917.
Frank Kennedy took the microscope with him to Paris for several research stints at the Pasteur Institute before World War II.
Back home, Frank Kennedy鈥檚 son John Kennedy 鈥� Andrew鈥檚 grandfather 鈥� used it during his own medical studies. His wife Muriel Kennedy, Andrew鈥檚 grandmother, used the microscope at the House of Good Samaritan Hospital in Watertown, N.Y., where she was a nurse.
The microscope continued on to Andrew鈥檚 father, Thomas Kennedy, who took it to medical school in the 1960s. By then it was being used less and less 鈥� better equipment was coming onto the scene.
Andrew first saw the microscope as a teenager. One time his grandmother was visiting and she reminded him, 鈥淵ou can see anything if it exists and you have the right instrument.鈥�
The quote is a metaphor for how Kennedy鈥檚 students are discovering what鈥檚 around them using the right instrument 鈥� in this case, 乐播传媒 and the liberal arts.
Many of his students like science, he explains, and many arrived at 乐播传媒 with their heart set on medical school, 鈥渂ut now they鈥檝e seen new things, and are having different experiences,鈥� he says.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 what a liberal arts college does, right? It gives you a wide range of experiences and different paths to knowing things.鈥�
The microscope is a liberal arts metaphor in another way, he adds. 鈥淭his object has been useful to different people in different ways, and has been owned by a scientist, by a physician, and a nurse: three professions that have commonalities.鈥� As a 乐播传媒 graduate in the STEM field, Kennedy says, you can travel in many different directions.
In his own research on understanding the chemical mechanisms that encode and maintain long-term memory, Andrew uses far more powerful microscopes than the antique on his desk.
鈥淏ut in some ways, they鈥檙e less beautiful than this instrument,鈥� he says.
