Report on Activities Addressing Program Review Recommendations
Department of Chemistry
October 10, 2006
The report outlines the response of the Chemistry Department to Program Review
recommendations made by the external reviewer, Dr. Carlos Gutierrez, the Dean of the
College of the Science, Dr. M. Meghan Miller, and the Associate Vice President for
Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Linda Beath. The sections of the report are headed as in the
External Reviewers report. The initials preceding the recommendation indicate the
initials of the person making the recommendation (LB, MM, or CG).
Overview (Vision and Road Map)
Recommendations:
LB, MM, CG: “It is recommended that the Department undertake a proactive planning
exercise where its faculty and staff come to a consensus as to what they want their
Department to become in the next five to ten years, how they want it to develop. They
need to establish goals and measurable objectives as milestones of progress.”
Department Response:
Based on these recommendations, the Chemistry Department dedicated a department
retreat to visioning for the future. We particularly noted CGs comment that “it is time for
the Department to become proactive in setting its course for development, rather than to
react to circumstances that befall it.” While we feel that we have been as proactive as
possible given the changes we have undergone as a University and a Department, we
decided that we could be more proactive on certain issues. On September 20, 2005 we
gathered to discuss our vision (see attached agenda). Each faculty member was asked to
write a personal vision for the department. These were read by the individuals and
discussed as a whole. The staff joined the retreat and shared their thoughts on the future
of our department.
Department faculty and staff agree that our department should be a place where students
can get an exceptional chemical sciences education that includes as much as possible one
on one student/faculty interactions. Therefore, we consider our strengths to include small
laboratory sections, a focus on undergraduate research opportunities, availability of
teaching experiences as TAs in our lab courses, and personable, approachable faculty.
Part of our vision discussion centered on whether or not we could feasibly continue to
support a broad-based education in the chemical sciences or whether we should focus on
an interdisciplinary aspect of chemistry such as environmental chemistry or materials
chemistry. We feel this discussion is particularly important for the future of our graduate
program. This discussion was inconclusive and will continue.
One of the issues facing us has been increasing student body with no additional tenuretrack faculty. Our responses had been to continue to add one student at a time to already
overloaded courses. We discussed student learning and the best way to approach the
problem of increasing enrollment while maintaining quality learning environments for
our students. Much of the discussion focused on upper division labs. In the end we
decided to cap enrollment in our courses. We also have proactively and aggressively
looked for funding to support faculty lines in the chemistry department. We were
awarded one faculty line from the Provost, supported by the Dean, based on our rationale
and high need. In May we submitted a proposal to the HECB for one of their High
Demand grants. This proposal included two faculty lines in Organic chemistry. We are
currently in the search process for these positions.
Although we have made significant strides toward meeting this recommendation, we still
have work to do. We discussed our vision collectively but we have not outlined specific
goals and objectives beyond what was already outlined in our self study document. We
will continue to work toward the goals indicated in the self study and to reach a point
were each of us can articulate our shared vision.
Faculty (Faculty Development and Sustainability)
Recommendations:
CG: “Establish a plan for hiring faculty that recognizes current departmental and
institutional realities and needs and projections into the next five to ten years to account
for its teaching, research, and service goals.”
CG: “The department and the University need to come to consensus as to the type of
educational experience it wants for its students, and professional circumstances it wants
for its faculty.”
MM: “In concert with an investment of faculty effort, the university needs to develop a
system that rewards such grants productivity.”
Department Response:
The Department Chair worked with the Associate Vice President for Undergraduate
Studies to prepare a HCEB High Demand grant to support the organic curriculum. The
proposal was funded and contains money for two tenure stream faculty lines. Search
processes for both positions are currently underway. These two faculty will teach in the
curriculum that we could not adequately support with our existing faculty. They will add
important undergraduate and graduate student research opportunities and enable the
department to spread the service duties further.
While these two positions will help get us closer to meeting the demand for classes, we
still need more tenure-track faculty. For the past several years we have had two-one year
non-tenure track positions teaching 45 contact hours. With these two new hires, those
teaching loads will be reduced to 36 contact hours each, leaving 18 contact hours that
need to be covered.
As noted in our self-study document, the Chemistry Department faculty are highly active
in all aspects of faculty work. In order to better plan for the future with buy-in from all
faculty we have implemented several planning processes. Each year the upcoming
faculty loads are collaboratively developed. We have developed a future sabbatical
schedule to acknowledge the importance of these experiences and to minimize the impact
on the department. The CBA outlines a process for potential weighting of workload to
more closely match a faculty members wishes and the department needs. Department
faculty recognize the potential of this process to reward highly productive (grantmanship
was specifically noted by the Dean) scholarship. We are more than willing to work with
the administration to “develop a system that rewards such grants productively”.
Department Administration
Recommendation:
CG: “The college may want to look into the possibility of a more senior faculty member
taking over the department chair position at next opportunity.”
Department Response:
The department faculty agree that senior faculty should take on this role but the current
makeup of the faculty makes this difficult. Dr. Kurtz, Associate Professor, has resumed
the chair position after returning from sabbatical. This situation will not change for the
next three years. Dr. Kurtz is tied for the second most senior person in the department in
terms of longevity and tied for third most senior in terms of years in rank. There are only
two Full Professors in the department. At the end of this Chair term there will be other
less senior faculty who may wish to try their skills at Chair. Making the chair position
more attractive (greater release, greater stipend) could help to entice more senior faculty;
however, departments are still limited by the staff on hand.
Staff
Recommendations:
CG: “The college may want to consider increasing the [Electronic Technician] .75
position to full-time.”
Department Response:
The person in the 0.75 position has expressed high satisfaction with his scheduled work
times. The Etech Steering Committee made up of two faculty from each department
served by the Etechs (biology, chemistry, geology) has discussed this possibility and
decided it is not in our best interest to pursue this at this time.
During the September 20, 2005 retreat to discuss the department vision, we identified the
need for a half-time computer technician to support all of our discipline specific needs as
being more important than increasing the Electronic Technician position to full-time.
This position is about to become a reality as the result of the HECB High Demand
Organic Chemistry grant. Also more pressing than increasing the existing position is
hiring a half-time stockroom assistant to complement our existing stockroom manager.
The increased offerings and enrollments in our laboratory courses mean we have late labs
up to four nights each week. The current staffing is not sufficient to provide the needed
stockroom support for these courses.
Additionally we discussed the potential need to make our Scientific Technician IV
position a 12-month instead of ten and the potential for additional secretarial support.
Although we understand the concern of the reviewer about keeping a person in a 0.75
percent position, all of the other staffing needs mentioned above may outweigh the
suggestion to increase the Engineering Technician I to a full-time position.
Undergraduate Program (Student and Curriculum)
Recommendations:
CG: “The Department and the College of the Science (COTS) need to have discussion
about what reasonable course enrollments may be for the various chemistry courses,
being sensitive to issues of faculty workload, and the quality of the educational
experience for students, to find reasonable solutions to the increased student enrollments
in chemistry courses.”
MM, CG: “The diversity of the students served does not mirror that of Central’s service
area.”
MM, CG: “To improve the utility of the catalog for undergraduate students, the
descriptions of the chemistry courses need to be greatly improved.”
Department Response:
In the spring of 2006 the tenure-track faculty had extensive discussions about how to best
serve our students and came to define “reasonable course enrollments” for each of our
courses. The numbers are more manageable than they have been in the past, and the
lecture capacities now match the space available in lab. Fall of 2006 was our first
implementation of these new class sizes, and they are being well received by faculty and
students.
With the addition of a physical/analytical chemist beginning Fall 2006, we were able to
exercise another solution to some of the increased enrollments by opening additional
sections of certain courses. These included both lecture and upper division labs.
The department Undergraduate Curriculum Committee met during Spring of 2006 to add
course descriptions to the catalog. This work included providing learner outcomes and
assessments for all courses in our undergraduate programs.
With respect to the minority student enrollment in our courses and programs, we mirror
the university numbers. We have had success in graduating minority chemistry majors
(e.g. Rebecca Guerrero, Daniel Sanchez). As noted in the self-study and by CG, we have
a faculty with significant diversity of experience in foreign countries. Some faculty have
worked in programs that seek diverse students for participation such as the STEP
program funded through NSF, Expanding Your Horizons (~65% minority), and GEAR-
UP. We also have reached out to regional community colleges through the Washington
College Chemistry Teachers Association and by offering organic chemistry via distance
education.
Graduate Program (Master’s Degree Program)
Recommendations:
CG: “The size of the graduate program is an issue that must be resolved in discussions
between the Department and the College Dean, and the Vice President for Graduate
Studies and Research. The department must first establish a consensus among its faculty
as to how large the graduate student numbers should be, and why.”
MM: “[the optimal size of the graduate program] should be addressed in the department
level planning initiative, and grounded in the current faculty staffing levels of the
department.”
CG: “The Department and University need to come to an understanding of what a
reasonable graduate stipend/salary level might be, both to be competitive with other
master of science programs in the state, and to provide a reasonable level of support so
that chemistry MS students can live in the greater Ellensburg area.”
CG: “A seminar series would certainly enhance the research tenor of the department.”
MM: “[A seminar series] addresses some key issues of sustainability of faculty
expertise…Initiating a program at a more modest frequency and building it as interest
takes hold could happen on a relatively short time frame.”
Department Response:
The department faculty overwhelmingly support a graduate program in chemistry. In our
visioning session we agreed that the size of the graduate program should be one to one
and a half students per research active faculty member (currently that would be 9-14
students). Although some researchers can mentor and financially support more than one
student, we though that this was a reasonable target on average.
The Department has been successful recently in recruiting externally; however, the
faculty recognize low graduate student stipends as a barrier to application to our program.
We continue to provide data to the Vice President for Graduate Studies to show that our
stipends are drastically lower than other comparable programs in the state and region.
Central’s current policy of offering the same stipend to all academic departments is not
realistic, and sincerely hampers our recruiting efforts. We plan to continue to work to get
differential stipends across campus.
We currently have a seminar series and a Seminar Coordinator. Since we have done a
search for a tenure-track faculty member just about every year for the last five years, we
have combined the seminar with research presentations as part if the interview process.
We also use the seminar time for our students to present their CHEM 388 posters and
CHEM 488 research talks. We also accept graduate school recruiters for seminars. We
had a more active and diverse seminar series when we had a grant that funded a small
stipend (~ 8 years ago).
Research
Recommendations:
CG: “The Department, College and University each need to plan to establish the role
that they want research to play at CWU for faculty and student development, and for the
institution to contribute to the creation of disciplinary knowledge. This includes
discussions of reasonable teaching loads for research-active faculty member, and how
these (reduced) teaching load will be paid for.”
CG: “The institution may wish to provide intensive grant writing workshops to its faculty,
including those with substantial grants experience.”
Department Response:
The CBA has allowed for the possibility of flexibility in assigning loads. The department
continues to work with the Dean to emphasize the need for faculty resources so that the
flexibility allowed is utilized as the CBA becomes a reality for faculty. Each faculty
member has completed an approved workload plan for the 06-07 academic year.
Although we were constrained this year to meeting FTES quotas with existing faculty, we
expect the addition of two more tenure-track faculty will aid in providing more flexibility
across all department faculty.
Chemistry faculty attend grant writing workshops when they are available. Fabry, Kurtz,
Johansen, Rivera, and Thomas have attended grant workshops since the review. Many of
these were part of a conference. The faculty require support for travel to have access to
these opportunities. University sponsored grant writing workshops specifically aligned to
science grant writing are the most useful.
Facilities (Analytical equipment and lab support)
Recommendations:
CG: “The College and University should be planning now for a maintenance plan so that
the building remains an asset far into the future.”
MM: “…external resources may meet some of this need and mechanisms for recovering
both direct and indirect costs should be implemented. In addition, a college or university
plan is needed.”
Department Response:
These recommendations are made more to the administration than to the department. The
department has been working with the administration to keep them abreast of the growing
need. Department faculty have taken advantage of any internal funding opportunities
including the CWU Essential Instructional/Research Equipment Grant Program. We
submitted four proposals in Spring 2005 (the last time the call for proposals was made),
two of which were funded.
The Department gets 35% of the indirect money on external grants. Our policy gives
80% of that money back to the principle investigator. The department portion of this
fund is used to purchase materials that allow faculty to seed a project for future grant
proposals or to tide them over between grants. These expenditures are often equipment
replacement and repairs. We also collect student fees for laboratory courses. These fees
cover small instrument replacement and repair. The need for a fund for major instrument
replacement and repair looms large and we will continue to work with the administration
to find sources of support. We are happy to work with the College or University to
develop a plan for funding these costs. In Spring 2006 the department developed a policy
titled “Instrument Repair and Maintenance Cost Responsibilities within the Chemistry
Department” (see attached).