Department of Chemistry
University of Colorado
2010-2011 Outcomes Assessment report:
Department Overview:
The Department of Chemistry offers both the B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry. Students at the B.S.
level have the option of obtaining an American Chemical Society Certified degree. Previously, earning
the ACS degree certification involved taking just one additional class beyond the basic B.S. degree
requirements. Beginning in the 2010-2011 academic year, the ACS requirements changed and require
that students complete several courses beyond the normal BS curriculum to also receive ACS degree
certification. During the 2010-2011 academic year (including summer 2010) there were on average 114
students who were declared majors at the undergraduate level and 18 enrolled graduate students. A
total of 22 students were granted B.S. degrees (12 of these were ACS Certified) and 3 students were
granted M.S. degrees.
Undergraduate Program Outcomes:
Outcomes assessment for Chemistry majors is carried out at several points in the curriculum, using
different vehicles of assessment. The classes in which assessments are typically implemented are Honors
Organic Chemistry Laboratory II, Instrumental Chemistry Laboratory, Physical Chemistry II and Physical
Chemistry Laboratory. The department also typically assesses the outcomes from Organic Chemistry II
lecture. The Organic Chemistry II lecture has a mixed enrollment (majors and nonmajors), but is
generally the entry point for students into the upper division chemistry courses. These are all courses
that are required of every chemistry major (with the exception of a few transfer students). All of the
assessments are meant to determine some aspect of the degree to which our students, individually and
as a group, meet the identified Departmental outcomes goals:
1. Students can recognize and define a general chemical problem in any of several sub-disciplines
of chemistry and can design and carry out at least one significant experiment which addresses
the problem, competently reporting their experimental results in oral and written form,
adhering to proper chemical conventions.
2. Students possess an adequate knowledge base in several sub-disciplines of chemistry as
determined by the American Chemical Society.
3. Students can rely on this knowledge base to link more than one chemical principle to solve
problems both qualitatively and quantitatively.
The degree of attainment of goals one and three is assessed in the three laboratory classes. Our success
in achieving goal two is determined both through graded performance in the lecture classes and by
correlating these from time to time with performances on nationally standardized discipline-specific
exams prepared by the American Chemical Society. This year the projects were carried out and
evaluated in the Organic Chemistry and the Physical Chemistry Laboratory. The ACS exams were
required of all students in the Organic Chemistry II and Physical Chemistry. The means of assessment,
student results, faculty analyses and departmental responses to these assessments are described below.
Assessment through Laboratory Projects
Fall 2010, Honors Organic Chemistry II Laboratory (CHEM 3498, Prof. Doug Dyckes):
Seven students completed the Fall 2010 section of CHEM 3498. Six of these students were chemistry majors; one
was a biology major. The final set of grades was two A-, one B+, one B, one B-, one C+ and one C. Overall this was
the weakest average performance in several years. The small class size, and the fact that virtually all of these
students had delayed taking the class (four were in their final semester), make it difficult to generalize from the
overall performances, except, possibly, for one thing: we need to make a more concerted effort to get as many
students as possible to enroll in this class as soon as they are eligible. Many of these students were several
semesters removed from their last previous organic chemistry class.
Grading was based on five extended written reports (55% of grade), two oral presentations (a preliminary project
report to the class, and a final project report to the Department, 20% of grade), laboratory performance (15% of
grade), and participation in the recitation (10% of grade).
The heavy weighting on the written reports reflects one of the major aims of the course: that students should be
able to present and interpret heir research results in an understandable, defensible form, using proper English.
Each report is written in the format of the Journal of Organic Chemistry, the lead American Chemical Society
journal of this sub-discipline. A grading rubric for each report (increasingly stringent) was posted for the students
at least two weeks before the due date. The grade was reported as a set of scores, one for each of the areas
described in the rubric. Extensive comments on each area of weakness (and on areas of strength) were provided.
Students were given the option to rewrite and resubmit their first four reports, with the aim that this would help
them improve their writing skills. The grade for the resubmitted report was averaged with the original grade for
that report. The final report, which was based on the group research project, was not eligible for resubmission. The
average grade for the final report was 87/100 (range 77 to 96). This is well above the average for the first
submissions of the first four reports ( about than 81/100), confirming that writing skills for the class improved
significantly during the semester. These grades are on a par with previous semesters taught by this instructor,
indicating that satisfactory writing remains a successful outcome of the class. Anchor papers representing several
performance levels for the final reports are available.
The final seminar presentations of the class, made before an audience including more than half of the chemistry
faculty, represent the first opportunity for most of our majors to make an oral presentation of their work. The
students were required to give a brief group presentation of their progress, roughly half way through the research
project portion of the class. They were given a grade (5% of the final grade) and feedback on how to improve their
performances. At the final seminar they were subjected to vigorous questioning by the faculty, and by some of
their fellow students. Each group presentation, and the contribution of each individual, was graded by three
members of the faculty (one organic chemist, one biochemist and one analytical chemist) in addition to the course
instructor, all using the standard Department presentation grading rubric, which had been given to the students in
advance of their progress presentations. Each student’s final presentation grade was based on a simple average of
the four faculty grades. The average grade for the final presentations was 79/100 (range: 77 to 81). This was
several points lower than in previous semesters, with a narrower range. The highest scores were in the
organization, presentation time-frame and evaluation of the work completed. This indicates that the groups put a
major effort into preparing their presentations. The lowest scores were in placing the work presented in context
and in answering questions related to their conclusions. There are fewer occasions for the students in this class to
make oral presentations, and only one opportunity to be critiqued, and this may be the reason for lesser gains in
their presentational skills relative to their writing skills. An increase in informal class discussions (leading to more
confidence in speaking before peers) and in group problem solving (aiding the students in thinking on their feet)
may be warranted.
The final projects themselves were designed to foster the Department goal of enabling students to define a
chemical problem and to design, carry out and report experiments addressing the solution of that problem. This
course represents the first real research experience for most chemistry majors, and in this case the definition of
the problem is partly defined. To wit: each student group (three or four students, selected by lot) is asked to
synthesize a set of related molecules. The exact set is left for the group to choose, and the means of synthesis
must also be selected by the group. Only restrictions on starting materials, certain methods deemed too
dangerous, and a group budget are provided as boundary conditions. Once the synthesis is complete, the students
must design an experiment that measures and compares the chemical properties of the related molecules that
they have synthesized. Again, only the general property, for example the rate of decomposition in the presence of
a strong base, is defined for the group. They must choose the specific reaction type, the reaction conditions, and
the means of measuring the reaction outcome. In this process, most of the goals of problem definition and
solution presented above are encountered by the students. As in the past the experience stimulating, and felt they
had learned a great deal.
Spring 2011 Honors Organic Chemistry II Laboratory (CHEM 3498, Prof. Scott Reed):
The Honors Organic Chemistry II Laboratory provides one point of assessment for the department, and
is specifically used to determining whether our students are meeting the goals of Outcome 3, stated
below:
“Outcome 3: Students can recognize and define a general chemical problem in any of several subdisciplines of chemistry and can design and carry out at least one significant experiment which
addresses the problem, competently reporting their experimental results in oral and written form,
adhering to proper chemical conventions.”
The Honors Organic Chemistry II Laboratory course is required of all Chemistry majors. In the spring of
2011 a total of six students enrolled in the Honors Organic Chemistry II Laboratory. All were chemistry
majors. Five students completed the class.
A substantial portion of their grades was based on assessment of the students final project reports and
presentations at the end of the semester. The students were assigned to two groups to complete
research projects. Each group was given a brief problem to solve that involved both synthesis and the
measurement of a reaction property. Each group was required to present their results twice within the
class and finally as a seminar to which the Department as a whole. In addition, each student had to write
an individual final paper that presented the entire project and evaluated the results. This report was
written in the style of The Journal of Organic Chemistry.
The students were provided with a rubric for evaluation of seminars in advance of both the in-class and
final presentations. They were informed that the criteria in the rubric would be those upon which the
presentations would be graded. The groups were thus able to structure and practice their seminars well
in advance. Eight faculty members from the Department of Chemistry viewed and scored the final
presentations.
Results of the presentations:
The individual grades of the evaluators correlated well for all students. The scores of all of the students
were averaged in each category to obtain group and class averages. On the individual level, three of the
students received consistently high scores on their presentations skills. Two students had mixed scores
but still averaged in the proficient range. The final two students were perceived as being minimally
proficient in their presentation skills.
Results of the written reports:
Each student turned in a separate final report on the group project. Only the experimental section of
this report could be written collaboratively. The breakdown of the grades for written reports was
roughly parallel to the oral presentations with two exceptions. One student from the lowest (oral) score
set and one from the middle group both did consistently better on their written grades. A language
barrier likely contributed to the discrepancy between their written and oral abilities.
Results of the class overall:
This group of students, as judged by the instructor, was average in laboratory technique and in the
ability to carry out laboratory procedures successfully. A few of the students were very proficient in
their oral and written presentation skills and overall raised the level of the group work. All of the
students worked well in the group projects, with no major conflicts arising. The class appears to be
meeting Objective 3, although weaker students are able to complete the course without a very solid
technical writing ability. This instructor plans to clarify the grading rubric used for assessing the
technical writing abilities of students in the future.
Fall 2010 Physical Chemistry Laboratory (CHEM 4518, Prof. Mark Anderson):
During the fall 2010 semester, the physical chemistry laboratory had 23 students enrolled, distributed
between 3 sections. The students were randomly divided into groups of 2 or 3 to work together on the
experiments. The students completed the exercises and recorded their experimental data, observations
and a detailed discussion of their results in a laboratory notebook. The notebooks were graded using a
rubric designed for the course that was provided to the students at the beginning of the semester.
Experiments conducted during this semester of the course focused on thermodynamic and kinetic
aspects of chemical systems.
Because of the number of students and the availability of instrumentation/equipment in the laboratory,
the course is structured so that 6 experiments are conducted by each group of students. Students have
2 weeks to complete their analysis and write-up of their experimental results. Conducting an
independent research project, as is done in the Honors Organic Chemistry laboratory, is difficult in this
course because of the lack of equipment. During the fall of 2010, students spent two weeks conducting
the heat of combustion experiment – the first week calibrating the measurement, and the second week
measuring the heat of combustion of some structurally related molecules. The students then wrote a
report in ACS journal format in which they identified trends in their data and discussed the role of
molecular structure in determining the heat of combustion of compounds. The reports were written by
the groups with each student contributing to the report. Students were graded as a group on the
manuscript. This process addressed Objectives 1 and 3 – specifically addressing the ability of students to
link chemical principles.
The student manuscripts ranged (from the instructors rating) from very good (72/80 and 71/80 pts) to
below expectations (34/80 and 44/80 pts). The lowest scores in the class were from students who (1)
English was not their first language, or (2) had not yet taken the Honors Organic Chemistry laboratory.
The average score was 57.3 points with a standard deviation of 12.3 pts. The numerical scores were
based on the students’ logical structuring of scientific arguments; and the ability of the students’ to
communicate in a written document what they did in the laboratory, the ability to place the work in the
context of the historical literature, and the significance of the experiments. An average score of 57.3
(~71%) indicates that the average manuscript was acceptable but not outstanding. Only two students
were evaluated to be highly proficient, and 7 were above proficiency (out of 22 who completed the
course), 5 were below proficient, and the remaining students were proficient. This result was surprising
because the students should have written a manuscript previously in the Honors Organic Laboratory and
we anticipated a larger fraction of the students to be above proficient (and no one at below proficient);
however, as is the case in other courses, students often take courses out of sequence and don’t meet
the prerequisites. Because some fraction of the students don’t meet the prerequisites, they were
unprepared for the detail and depth that was being asked of them when writing a scientific manuscript.
The manuscript portion of this course has been conducted, with minor changes, for 3 semesters now.
The results have been mixed. There is a strong correlation between students who have completed the
Honors Organic Chemistry II laboratory prior to enrolling in this course (which is the normal sequence)
and the success in completing the manuscript well. The issue of sequencing courses will be addressed as
the department restructures the course advising beginning in 2011.
Assessment through Standardized Examination
Organic Chemistry II (CHEM 3421, Prof. Vanessa Fishback)
14 students finished Chem 3421 during the summer 2010 term and took the American Chemical Society
(ACS) standardized organic chemistry exam 2008 edition as their final exam. The ACS organic chemistry
exam covers both semesters of organic chemistry and is an excellent gage of student comprehension
and skills in the subject. The average score was 50th percentile with a median of 42nd percentile. One
student scored at the 90th percentile or higher.
During the spring 2011 semester 109 students completed organic chemistry II. 79 students were in a
morning section. Of these 40 took the ACS standardized organic chemistry exam 2004 edition with an
average of 63rd percentile and a median of 64th percentile. 11 students scored at the 90th percentile or
higher. 39 students took the ACS 2008 edition exam. The average and median was 52nd percentile
indicating that there could be a difficulty discrepancy between the two exams. The evening section of 30
completing students contained a higher portion of post-baccalaureate pre-professional health students
than the day section resulting in an 81st percentile average score on the ACS 2004 organic chemistry
exam with 14 students scoring at the 90th or higher percentile.
Our students consistently score on average higher than the national average indicating the robustness
of our instructional program in organic chemistry.
Physical Chemistry Lecture (CHEM 4511, 4521, Prof. Hai Lin):
The ACS Physical Chemistry exam has been administered to students as the final exam in the Physical
Chemistry course. Following what we did for 2010, we used the 2006 Combined Semesters Exam for
2011. We used the same set of 60 problems as last year, which were randomly picked from the total 120
problems. The 60 problems spread in four sections that the lecture had covered: Thermodynamics (20),
Quantum Theory (30), Kinetics (5), and Statistical Thermodynamics (5), where the number of problems
in each section is given in the parentheses. The students had two hours to complete the exam, as
instructed by the ACS exam guideline.
The mean and median raw scores for the 2010-2011 class of 26 students were 34.5 and 35, somewhat
lower than those for the 2009-10 class of 21 students (37.0 and 36.0, respectively). Because the national
norm is not available, we used in the present analysis the 2006 Comprehensive Exam norm as reference,
for which the mean and median are 32.03 and 31.1, respectively.
The average percentile for the 2010-2011 class of 26 students were 61st, which is lower than that for the
2009-10 class of 21 students (68th). This was close to the outcome in previous years, where the 2001
Comprehensive Exam was used. The fractions of students above 50th were 73%, above 75th 27%, and
above 90th 12%. While those data are slightly worse than those of 2009-2010 class, they were again
similar to what we have seen in previous years. See the following Table for more details.
Academic year Mean
Fraction of Students Above Given Percentiles
year(# students) avg. Percentile
>50th
>75th
>90th
nd
Using 2001 Comprehensive Exam (Mean Percentile about 52 )
2001-02 (14)
48th
43%
29%
0%
2002-03 (12)
49th
33%
33%
25%
th
2003-04 (18)
48
44%
22%
0%
2005-06 (11)
71st
64%
55%
18%
2006-07 (16)
69th
56%
50%
31%
st
2007-08 (21)
61
57%
33%
19%
2008-09 (18)
70th
78%
56%
28%
Cumulative (110)
58th
55%
40%
17%
Using Adapted 2006 Combined Semesters Exam (Mean Percentile about 52nd)
2009-10 (21)
68th
81%
38%
24%
st
2010-11 (26)
61
73%
27%
12%
Cumulative (47)
65th
77%
32%
18%
The Physical Chemistry ACS exam has been used as the sole final exam in our Physical Chemistry II class
for 7 of the last 8 years. In this case both semesters of the class are taught by the same instructor each
year. Virtually all of the students completing the Physical Chemistry II in any year have also taken
Physical Chemistry I the previous semester. Students know from the outset of the semester that the ACS
exam will be used as their final exam.
The results on this national examination indicate that UCD chemistry majors are performing at a level
that exceeds the national average.
Results and feedback loop of the undergraduate program assessment
The results of these assessments have led us to identify two major areas for improvement: curriculum
and facilities.
The Honors Organic Laboratory curriculum and the nature of the final project have been developed over
nearly a decade. The laboratory class is designed to be taken concurrently with the Honors Organic
lecture. Unfortunately, restrictions on laboratory space have made it impossible to offer the class to all
of the students taking the lecture class each spring. This factor changes the nature of learning in the
laboratory class, which has been designed to include a large complement of “just in time” learning, in
advance of the formal presentation of many lecture topics. We are changing the emphasis of the course
because many students do not take the laboratory at the same time as the lecture; rather, they take it
after completion of the lecture class instead. More time should be spent on the use of the chemical
literature and project design, and less on de novo laboratory learning experiences. It will be interesting
to see, as we do this, whether there are significant shifts in the type of performances of students both in
the laboratory and in the lecture classes.
The department must do a better job of emphasizing the sequencing of the course curriculum to
students, and at rigorously applying course prerequisites. This became clear this year based on the
difficulty that many students who did not meet course prerequisites had with courses they were
enrolled in. This will be a point of emphasis with department advising, and we will emphasize to faculty
the need to check that students meet the prerequisites for courses. As a result of this, the department
has reorganized its advising – adding additional faculty as student advisors. We also have discussed, but
have not yet implemented, the requirement that students speak with an advisor before they are
allowed to register for courses. The department decided to collect one additional year of data to
determine if this step is necessary, or if the last year was anomalous.
The Physical Chemistry Laboratory curriculum has been affected by increasing enrollment and the
pressures this places on the Instrumentation being used in the course. This has been alleviated
somewhat by increasing the number of sections of the laboratory offered (3 sections). Students cannot
complete each of the preliminary experimental modules simultaneously, so the work was staggered.
This means that the lecture component of the course is not in sequence with the experiment that each
of the students in the course are conducting.
All laboratory classes were affected by aspects of Department facilities that go beyond laboratory
availability. The Honors Organic Laboratory and Physical Chemistry laboratory requires the use of the
Department’s NMR spectrometer on a regular basis. Now that we have moved into the new Science
building and we have an NMR instrument dedicated to the teaching laboratories, this problem
(identified previously, and one of the outcomes from previous assessment feedback loops was to try to
obtain an instrument dedicated to teaching. This was accomplished through donation) has been solved;
however, these are complex instruments that need regular maintenance. During the fall 2010, the
Physical Chemistry laboratory, for example, had to simply provide data to students because the NMR
instrument was not functioning at the time these experiments were scheduled. The department now
has a 50%-time instrumentation specialist who devotes significant portions of this time on instrument
repair and set-up (as opposed to faculty doing this, as was done up until January 2011). Students must
still undergo extensive training to use the instrument (identified as a problem previously). The
department hires an upper division student to serve this role. This solves the training problem;
however, it requires that a new person be identified and hired annually.
The advanced laboratory courses have dedicated, local instrumentation in their physical space;
however, much of this equipment is aging and there simply is not enough redundancy of individual
instruments to allow multiple groups of students to conduct the same experiments simultaneously.
These laboratories have been able to upgrade instruments through the CLAS equipment grant program;
but, this local grant program is not growing as fast as enrollment in these courses and the department’s
teaching instrumentation is lagging behind the needs based on student enrollment. We will need to
identify alternate methods for upgrading and maintaining the teaching instrumentation. Contacts
between department faculty and local technology companies have resulted in some major
instrumentation being donated to the department (e.g. the 300 MHz NMR that is dedicated to
teaching). We need to continue to leverage these connections to upgrade our instrumentation. We
also must be more aggressive in pursuing federal grant programs for instrumentation. Acquiring new
instrumentation will allow the department to introduce new experiments to the upper division
laboratories. To this end, the department hired (to begin in the Fall of 2011) a full-time upper-division
laboratory instructor. This instructor will allow the department to update the experiments.
Despite these limitations, these laboratory courses gave the students independent problem solving
experiences that addressed outcomes goals 1 and 3. Overall students demonstrated an ability to
recognize general chemistry problems and design experiments that addressed an important question.
The experiences also had students relate concepts in different areas of chemistry, and to use the
chemical literature to relate their experiments to work conducted by others. Student proficiency was
determined by evaluation of written and oral presentations, and was found to be overall proficient. We
believe that the learning gains of students, however, will be greater with better (and appropriate)
student preparation that is based on students meeting the defined course prerequisites. We also
believe that broader emphasis on scientific writing in the curriculum will better prepare students for
these upper division laboratories. To this end, the department implemented Honors General Chemistry
laboratory sections during 2010-2011. These sections have greater expectations of the students, and
introduce them to a more vigorous problem solving, and more in-depth writing than was previously
expected of students in lower division courses.
Student feedback from senior exit interviews over the last 3 years shows that students appreciate the
open-ended problem solving, research projects associated with the Honors Organic laboratory. Faculty
frustrations, however, with the success of the student projects and the quality of the presentations
suggests that changes should be implemented to the curriculum. Some changes, discussed above, are
beginning to be implemented – namely disconnecting the lecture from the laboratory since not all
students take the courses simultaneous. Another change, discussed by the department during AY 20092010 that was implemented during AY 2010-2011, was to create a Honors General Chemistry lecture
and laboratory sequence. These courses are taught at a higher level than the normal sections, and will
require permission to be enrolled in (based on departmental requirements). Beginning in fall of 2011,
the department will also begin teaching Honors sections of organic I lecture. We anticipate that, given
the open-ended and higher level laboratory exercises that students are exposed to in the honors general
chemistry laboratory, the student performance in the Honors Organic II laboratory and upper division
laboratories will improve. We hope that this will help students (1) connect what they are learning in
more meaningful ways, (2) give them experience thinking as scientist and explaining their thought
process; and (3) prepare them better to have greater success in the Honors Organic laboratory and
other upper division laboratory research project/presentation.
With the implementation of honors Organic I and II during 2011-2012, the department no longer
requires chemistry majors to take the Honors sections (recognizing that not all of our majors are strong
enough academically to succeed in an honors section). This adds new curriculum pressures to the
“regular” sections of organic as we strive to meet the needs of chemistry majors and students majoring
in a life-science. In addition, enrollment in organic chemistry lecture sections has increased dramatically
over the last 5 years. The faculty of the department has developed a plan to create Honors, majors, and
non-majors sections of organic chemistry lecture to meet these diverse needs. To implement this plan
several actions must occur: (1) additional faculty must be hired, and (2) the enrollment caps of the
organic chemistry courses must be set at a reasonable number (80). The need for lower enrollment
sections is supported by student performance on standardized exams. While scores on the ACS organic
chemistry exam averaged over all the sections are near the national average, scores in the smaller
enrollment sections exceeds the national average. We believe that this is due to the greater attention
that the smaller lecture can spend on reaction mechanisms and on assessing individual understanding of
organic chemistry by short answer and written exams, quizzes, and homework. Large (130+ lecture
sections) do not have the lecture support (e.g. TA) to assign routine homework, nor to give written
exams. It is through the written exam and homework that students can develop their understanding of
how organic chemical interact and combine during chemical reactions. Decreasing the size of lectures
will facilitate the department moving back to a more interactive lecture setting. The plan submitted by
the faculty to implement the different Organic Chemistry tracks (Honors, Majors, and nonmajors) will be
implemented beginning in fall 2012 (assuming the department is able to hire new faculty).
Additional feedback from student exit interviews suggests that students would like a more robust
biochemistry curriculum. To this end, the department has appointed an ad hoc committee to develop a
curriculum for a biochemistry option. If the department is able to add additional faculty with a
scholarship interest in biochemistry, the plan is to begin the role out this new option during the fall
semester of 2012.
As the department
Graduate Program Outcomes
The Master’s program in chemistry has a friendly admissions policy; that is, it recommends but does not
require the GRE. The total enrollment in the program typically varies between 20 and 30 students,
many of whom are local and part-time. There are two options for obtaining a Master’s degree: Plan I,
the thesis option; and Plan II, the course work emphasis option.
The most recent significant changes in the program took effect in January 2007, with the institution of
four core courses in analytical, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry. Thesis students are required
to complete at least three of the core courses and earn a total of at least 30 credits for their Master’s
degree. The students in the course work emphasis are required to complete all four of the core courses
and earn a total of at least 33 credits for their degree. These changes were made to assure that all
students completing the Master’s degree would have a broad background in the basic areas of
chemistry. The program is designed so that full-time students could finish in two years, but our parttime students take longer, some up to five years. During 2010-2011, only 3 students graduated with a
MS in chemistry, and all 3 completed the course-work option.
Graduate Program Outcomes goals:
Outcome 1: Students possess an understanding of the basic concepts of the fundamental areas of
chemistry (physical, analytical, inorganic, and organic) significantly beyond their baseline knowledge*
and possess an extended understanding of one or more of these subdisciplines.
Outcome 2: Students can effectively carry out a research project assimilating knowledge along the way,
effectively report their experimental results in oral and written form, adhering to proper chemical
conventions and develop the ability to use this knowledge to address new scientific questions
Background Assessment
The program requires diagnostic tests of all students entering from other universities, using the
American Chemical Society standardized exams in inorganic, organic, physical, and analytical chemistry.
This addresses outcomes goal 1. UC Denver BS-MS students and recent graduates (i.e., those who
graduated within one year from the time of admission) are exempt from an exam provided that they
obtained B or better grades in the upper-divisional undergraduate courses in the exam area.
Students can take each exam twice and must score at the 33rd percentile level or higher to qualify.
Passing the qualifying exam in any area qualifies students to take graduate courses in that area.
Students who fail a qualifying exam are required to take an upper-divisional undergraduate course in
the area and pass the course with a B or better grade in order to qualify. The following table
summarizes the passing rates on the diagnostic exams or remedial courses taken by students who
entered the program from other universities during the past 3 years (see above):
1st Attempt
at Exam
2nd Attempt
at Exam
Remedial
Course
28%
65%
62%
The passing rate is defined as the number of exams/courses passed as a percentage of the total number
of exams/courses taken. Although the passing bar is set relatively low at the 33rd percentile, the passing
rate for the first attempt at an exam is low. This indicates that many students were not well prepared
when they entered the program. Nonetheless, the rates improve considerably when students get to
attempt an exam a second time or take a remedial undergraduate course.
Among the least prepared are certain international students. Because the program does not require the
GRE and may even waive the TOEFL, it is hard to evaluate the backgrounds of those students in English
and chemistry. In the future, we will likely install additional requirements for international applicants
even though this may drive away some potential graduate students.
Performance Assessment
The program requires a minimum grade of B– to pass any core course, and a minimum grade of C to
pass any other graduate course. In addition, students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better
in graduate coursework; or they will be placed on academic probation.
CHEM 5111, Advanced Analytical Chemistry (Prof. Yong Liu)
Advanced Analytical Chemistry (CHEM 5111) is an extension of an undergraduate course in instrumental
analysis that focuses on more advanced methods. Unlike typical approach to the teaching of
undergraduate instrumental analysis, which focuses on instrumentation and instrument design, in this
graduate course we concentrate on the subject from the point of view of instrumental methods of
chemical analysis. The course provides a survey of practices and techniques in chemical analysis of
spectroscopy, separation, mass spectrometry and microscopy. The course briefly reviews theoretical
background of each instrumental method and general principles of instrumentation. The course
emphasizes the utility and actual applications of each method discussed. The course also briefly
discusses the interpretation of instrument output. In addition, this course addresses instrumental
techniques usually not covered in a typical undergraduate course in instrumental analysis such as
photoluminescence and surface characterization techniques. The major objectives of the course include
that after taking the course students have an idea of what the various instrumental methods are capable
of doing and how to select the right tool to solve a problem or make a measurement and develop skills
of searching for and reading literature, thinking critically, and organizing and presenting results.
Assessment was based on the combination of in-class participation discussion (25%), mid-term exam
(25%), final exam (25%) and term paper writing (25%), where the relative weight of each approach was
given in parentheses. The exams were largely composed of short answer questions, which required the
students to have comprehensive understanding of course materials. The term paper provided the
students an opportunity to demonstrate that the key course objective had been met. The students can
select any topic related to their research projects or to other areas of personal interest (provided there
is a clear link with the class materials). The final grades of the 13 students enrolled include 6 As (A and A), 6 Bs (B+, B, and B-) and 1 C.
The performance showed the majority of the students had good understanding of course material and
were able to provide critical evaluation of research papers and present results effectively. Though
overall course objectives were seemingly met, there were two students struggling in the exams and
failing to provide acceptable term papers. The problems probably resulted from their insufficient
knowledge in instrumental analysis at undergraduate level and lack of training of reading and writing
scientific papers
Results and feedback loop of the graduate program assessment
As the department prepares to go through the third cycle of the graduate courses (beginning fall 2011),
the effectiveness of the changed curriculum is becoming clearer. It is clear that the greater emphasis in
all the graduate core courses on communicating has been a positive outcome. Even though many
students struggle to reach the standard that is expected, written and oral communication is improving.
Because courses are offered every other year, there will always be a mix of advanced students and
beginning students in each course. We have not yet, but will in the future, conduct the assessment by
comparing the outcomes of these 2 groups of students within the same course as a way of determining
the overall effectiveness of this emphasis throughout the core graduate chemistry curriculum.
A chemical literature course has been designed, but has not yet been submitted through the curriculum
approval process. As suggested above, this course may be a necessary addition to the curriculum to
meet the goals of objective 2. A challenge with this is finding the time and resources to teach an
additional graduate course on a regular schedule given the small numbers of students in our graduate
program. In addition, the department does not offer enough graduate courses at regular intervals to
meet the needs of the students. In a typical semester, the department will only offer 1 graduate course.
The department periodically supplements this one course with a special topics course – but these
typically have a very low enrollment and are always in danger of not meeting the enrollment
requirements to run during the semester. In addition to the literature course, the department has
discussed offering 1-credit courses (designed to last 5 weeks) as a way of increasing our graduate
offerings. A pilot course is being offered during the summer of 2011 to determine the effectiveness of
such courses.
This will be a point of discussion for AY 2011-2012 and will be part of our feedback process (e.g.
evaluating the effectiveness of 1-credit courses as a way of expanding our graduate curriculum).
Our graduate program has been of a service nature for the most part, accommodating students who
want further education and making them better. For that matter, it has been successful. 2010-2011 is a
typical year in that only 3 students graduated with a MS in chemistry, and all three completed the
course-work option. While providing a service to local students, the course-work option does not
contribute significantly to the research agenda of the department.
For the program to raise its research profile in terms of publishing more papers in referred journals and
attracting more external funding, and being a more attractive destination for full-time graduate students
there is a need to provide better financial support. Right now the program does not offer tuition waver
or competitive TA/RA stipends that one finds in a standard Ph.D. program in chemistry. The major form
of financial aid available to our graduate students is teaching assistantship. We would like to establish
that a full-time graduate student will be guaranteed 5 sections to teach over the course of the year (e.g.,
2 sections each term, plus one in the summer; or 3 sections in the fall and 2 in the spring; etc.). If this is
the case, then a $17000 TA stipend is reasonable, and if we could figure out a way to pay for tuition,
then the financial aid package would be much better than it is now.