Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Program Planning Committee Report to the Provost
May 3, 2013
The department offers service courses for several departments and offers one lower division GE course
(Chem30A) that satisfies two areas in GE (B1 and B3) and one SJSU Studies course, Chem100W.
Students may also specialize in Biochemistry or Materials Science. Graduate course work and research experience lead to either the M.S. or M.A. Chemistry degree. These degrees permit specialization in analytical chemistry, biochemistry, inorganic, organic, radiochemistry, physical or polymer chemistry. Students interested in conducting or directing chemical research or in graduate work before starting a Ph.D. program consider the M.S. degree. The M.A. degree is intended specifically for teachers who wish to pursue an advanced degree for purposes of promotion or for individuals who have extensive research experience in industry.
Currently, the Department of Chemistry offers the following programs:
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B.A.-Chemistry
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B.A.-Chemistry, Preparation for Teaching
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B.S.-Chemistry
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B.S.-Chemistry, Concentration in Materials Science
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B.S.-Chemistry, Concentration in Biochemistry
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M.A.-Chemistry
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M.S.-Chemistry
Strengths of the Program
Teaching and Research Program: the Department mandates students receive major advising every semester either at the College of Science Advising Center for lower division undergraduates or with
Chemistry faculty advisors for upper division students. The Department purposefully keeps enrollment of the upper division courses low in order to allow students to work more closely and frequently with faculty. The Department provides multiple opportunities for students to actively pursue research with a faculty research advisor, present research at national meetings and coauthor publications Most of the articles and conference presentations include undergraduate and/or graduate students as coauthors
Committed and Distinguished Faculty: from 2006 to 2010, Department faculty secured over $11.5 million in external funding. Active grants listed from the SJSU Research Foundation for fall 2010, indicate that Chemistry faculty are the Principal Investigator on 32 active projects totaling $7,193,263.27 for budget totals
Collaborative Learning and STEM Students: optional extra-curricular learning opportunities are available to interested students through external funding secured by the Department faculty. Opportunities include summer, winter, and academic year Academic Excellence Workshops (AEW). All students who request a place in the workshops are admitted, and enrollment ranges from 300 to 400 students per semester. Students participating in Chem1A-Prep Workshop with a 70% attendance rate or above have a
90% passing rate in Chem1A compared to a 69% pass rate for students who do not attend or have poor
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workshop attendance. Without these workshops, student success rate in the degree program would decrease and student retention and graduation would suffer. All workshops are student-led, creating over
20 paid job opportunities for the Department’s stronger students and cultivating a cooperative learning environment among its students.
Challenges Facing the Program
Managing Teaching Load: The Department plans to engage more faculty in teaching high enrollment courses by rotating faculty periodically through these identified courses. This arrangement allows every faculty member to continue to teach in his/her specialty, faculty gain a better understanding of the curriculum so that general concepts can be more consciously reinforced in upper-level courses, students are exposed to a broad array of perspectives and teaching styles early in the curriculum, and the faculty are invested in the evolving content of the early curriculum.
Revision to Program: Not all T/TT faculty are available for full teaching loads due to sabbaticals, assigned time for major committee service, grant buyout, and/or other duties. Relying too heavily on non-
T/TT faculty for teaching disrupts the continuity of the progressive learning environment within the degree programs.
Hidden pre-requisites are being removed from the B.S. Chemistry, Concentration in Materials Science.
The B.S. Chemistry, Concentration in Biochemistry, the largest major in the department, is being reworked into a new degree: B.S. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology. The new degree will provide students with more elective choices to tailor the degree to their specific interests and career goals. This also provides a curriculum that better aligns with current trends in biochemistry and chemical biology. Providing additional electives will also provide more elective choices for the B.S. and B.A.
Chemistry degrees. These changes will allow students to progress through the degree more quickly, aligning with the University and College of Science goals of improving graduation rates.
Assessment
Three Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) were addressed at the undergraduate level. The first PLO focused on content knowledge, conceptual understanding, and problem-solving within key areas of chemistry and outcomes were assessed using the American Chemical Society (ACS) General Chemistry exam (Brief Version) as the final exam in Chem1A/B and the ACS Organic Chemistry Exam in
Chem112A/B. There are numerous advantages in using the ACS exams, including the ability to compare student outcomes to national averages, and it appears that SJSU students completing Chem1A/B fared well. No data were provided regarding student performance on the ACS Organic Chemistry exam and thus it is not clear how well PLOs were met in areas of chemistry covered in this exam. Beginning in
2008, chemistry knowledge at the end of the UG program was assessed using the Beta-version of the
Diagnostic for Undergraduate Chemistry Knowledge (DUCK; authors unknown) to evaluate students in one of the capstone courses. Although it is stated that the Department Curriculum Committee determined that the DUCK provides accurate and acceptable assessment of SLOs, the basis for that decision is unclear. Use of ACS-developed exams is promising. Faculty are encouraged to evaluate the usefulness of these tests in determining knowledge and competency in each area of chemistry identified in the PLO.
Variable assessment approaches were used for PLO2 (“to understand and apply the practice of safe laboratory work”). It appears that some students were required to pass a safety quiz, while others viewed a safety video. All students were required to complete a one-unit course on chemical safety (Chem120S), safety procedures were reviewed in lab classes, and one capstone course required the identification of safety issues. While safety was addressed at different points in the curriculum, it was unclear what level of knowledge and ability was needed to assure safety in the labs. Assessment of student learning could be strengthened using developmental assessments of student learning and ability to follow safety protocols.
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For example, universal administration of a safety quiz may be used prior to any lab experience to assure basic knowledge, instructor assessments and lab observations using rubrics could evaluate student safety practices across several important dimensions during lab-based work, and instructor evaluations rating a student’s ability to recognize safety issues and develop solutions could be utilized during capstone courses, research with faculty, or lab-based instruction.
Students’ ability to communicate science effectively, both orally and in writing (PLO3), was determined indirectly using student achievement of upper division standing, and a passing grade in Chem100W. A passing score on the WST was also used as an indicator of achievement; however, this test is not designed to evaluate oral and written communication specific to the sciences. The most useful measures of program outcomes reflect specific student knowledge or skills coupled with specific performance criteria.
While g rades represent the extent to which a student has successfully met the faculty member's requirements and expectations for a course, the many factors contributing to an assigned grade makes it almost impossible to make inferences about what a student knows or can do by only looking at the grades for a course (Rogers, 2003).
The program is in the process of expanding and evaluating assessment procedures and measures for each of five program learning outcomes. Rubrics are being used to assess term papers and performance in the
Preliminary Seminar.
Recommendations going forward include further development of the PLOs for both undergraduate and graduate programs. Each should be written as a specific measurable outcome. Additionally, a matrix aligning SLOs at the course level with PLOs should be developed for each degree program, such that each course learning outcome maps onto one or more program learning outcomes. It is also important that
PLOs align with the Department mission statement and is consistent with the University mission. Finally, extensive work is needed on measures used to assess each outcome. The Office of Assessment is available to help with all aspects of assessment and its integration into program planning and curriculum development efforts.
Next Steps
The final step in the program planning process is to develop an action plan and schedule a final meeting with Provost Junn (or her designee), AVP of Undergraduate Studies Jaehne, AVP of Graduate Studies and Research Stacks, Dean Parrish, and Department Chair Muller. The Chair may invite directors of programs within the department. The department should contact staff in the Office of Undergraduate
Studies to schedule the final meeting. The following topics for discussion are summarized from the reports:
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Improvement of facilities in accordance with current safety policies;
Research opportunities for both undergraduate and M.S. students that offer state-of-the-art instrumentation for teaching and research purposes;
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Finding ways to expand upper division teaching laboratories;
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Expanding the M.S. program and increasing the graduate teaching load, thus freeing up T/TT faculty
Recommendation
The Program Planning Committee recommends acceptance of the Program Plan. The Program Plan provided a thorough examination of the issues and explanation of plans for subsequent reviewers, the
PPC would also like to note that the department ensures they work with current data elements when submitting next report to dean, this report was submitted late which resulted in data being outdated. The next Program Plan for all programs in the department will be due to the College Dean Parrish in the spring 2016.
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Spring 2013 Program Planning Committee members:
Debra Caires (Chair)
Amy D’Andrade
Yasue Kodama Yanai
Anthony Raynsford
Alaka Rao
Dennis Jaehne
Sutee Sujitparapitaya
Julio Soto
Pam Stacks
Linda Main
Diana Wu
Mary Wilson
CC: Gilles Muller, Chair, Department of Chemistry
Michael Parrish, Dean, College of Science
Elaine Collins, Associate Dean, College of Science
Shannon Bros-Seemann, Chair, Curriculum and Research
Dennis Jaehne, AVP Undergraduate Studies
Pam Stacks, AVP Graduate Studies and Research
Michael Crump
Wenbin Wei
Jinny Rhee
Jeffrey Hummel
Lynda Heiden
Mary Calegari
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External Reviewer (Key Points)
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Faculty should continue to streamline the program, including reducing the number of different courses and the overall number of units in the major.
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The capstone course should more clearly provide a common experience for the major.
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The department should increase the number of tenure-track faculty, in order to sufficiently advise the master’s program and oversee undergraduate instruction.
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Tenured and tenure-track faculty should become more involved in teaching and innovation over the entire curriculum, especially in introductory courses.
 The department should increase support for students in the master’s program through fellowships, teaching opportunities and professional placement.
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The department should build on its distinguished record of providing research opportunities for undergraduate majors.
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Undergraduates would benefit from a more comprehensive advising process that would better connect them to the curriculum as well as to career options.
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The organic chemistry laboratory poses an immediate environmental, health and safety hazard that should be remediated as soon as possible.
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The stockrooms are understaffed; appropriately qualified personnel should be hired as soon as possible to fill this gap.
External Reviewer
Christina A. Bailey, Ph.D., Professor and Chair Emerita, Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Summary of Department’s Response
The Department of Chemistry revised its entire curriculum, discontinuing the B.S. Chemistry,
Concentration in Materials Science and the B.A. Chemistry, Preparation in Teaching. It has also reduced its undergraduate degree programs to 120 units.
A new tenure track faculty with expertise in Biochemistry has been hired, beginning in 2013-14.
The department is also in the process of hiring a Chemical Support Technician for the Satellite
Service Center facility (often referred as the stockroom).
The department is working on improving the safety conditions in the Department of Chemistry by redefining the safety guidelines for teaching and research laboratories and having installed properly functioning and ventilated hoods in the Organic Chemistry laboratories.
The department will be paying close attention to the external reviewer’s additional recommendations and focusing on improvements, including: improving facilities, particularly for
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Organic Chemistry; emphasizing student research opportunities; upgrading laboratory facilities to accommodate larger enrollment caps; strengthening the Master’s program and thereby also increasing teaching opportunities to students within that program.
Dean’s Report Summary
Dean Parrish commends the department for their continued effort in curriculum redesign and strategic planning, and concurs that there is a significant need in the department for teaching research/equipment and additional staff support. The issues discussed by the External Reviewer and agreed upon are:
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Given safety concerns, the Chemistry Department Safety Committee should continue to maintain and establish safety protocols for faculty and students;
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Establishing special session graduate instruction (certificates) for those wanting to retool for industry;
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Strategically plan how the department might add to faculty instead of replacing retiring faculty (selecting a different area of focus).
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