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Chemistry Curriculum

The Chemistry Department, with the financial help of the National Science Foundation, is implementing a brand new chemistry curriculum that will prepare students to learn and practice science in a modern world in which disciplinary boundaries are removed and collaboration and integration of disciplines is essential.  The new chemistry major will allow students to study a broad range of chemistry while concentrating on specific tracks, such as environmental chemistry, chemical biology, and others. We have received approval of our new curriculum from graduate, medical, DO and PT schools.  Here are some of the innovative features of our new curriculum.

• Integration of the five subdisciplines of chemistry:  After an introductory course in chemical structure and properties, students will take foundation level courses that will show how chemical structure can be used to explain organic, inorganic and biochemical reactions, and how the chemicals and their reactions can be quantitated and modeled mathematically
• A new model for chemistry labs: Students will take a series of labs, starting in their first semester of their first year, in which they learn important techniques and skills in separation, analysis, synthesis, and modeling of chemicals processes.  They will then apply these skills in a junior level, project-based Integrated Lab, preparing them for senior year research.  The labs, in contrast to our old curriculum, are taken as separate courses for credit.  Here is summary of why we choose this new approach.
• A problem-based pedagogy:  Instead of the using lectures (in which students are passive recipients of information, we make extensive use of newer and research-supported active teaching methods, including Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) done in groups.  Here is a summary of why we chose these new  pedagogies. 
• Expanded use of advanced instrumentation: Students, starting in their first year, use the same sophisticated instruments (NMR, IR, UV/Vis , MS spectrometers) and chemical separation methods (low pressure chromatograhy, GC, HPLC) starting in their first year as employees in industry and in graduate schools.
• Expanded student choice of tracks and in-depth courses:  We will offer a series half-semester courses from which students can pick, allowing them to be exposed to a greater diversity and depth of modern chemistry.  Students will chose a track  (such as environmental chemistry, chemical biology, material chemistry) as their specialty areaawithin chemistry which will prepare them for graduate and health-care professional schools, high school teaching, and employment.

Here is a figure that shows how the content of our old and standard curriculum maps onto our new curriculum.