a. Program Name – Department of Chemistry

b. Report prepared by – Bill Feighery, Chair

c. Who is the current assessment contact for your program? Bill Feighery

d. Should assessment information be sent to anyone else in your department? No

1. What are the program’s educational goals? (Please take goals directly from your program’s assessment plan, and highlight any changes made this year.)

A graduate in chemistry will:

1. demonstrate mastery of the fundamental principles of chemistry

2. demonstrate mastery of laboratory techniques and methods

3. have high-level cognitive skills of observation, analysis, and synthesis

4. demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving skills

5. have well developed written and oral communication skills

2. What assessment techniques did the program use? (Please take assessment techniques directly from your program’s assessment plan and highlight any changes made this year.)

1. Three direct measures:

1. Review of graduating students’ capstone work (C301) and overall curriculum records.
2. Standardized Exams (from the American Chemical Society)
3. Laboratory Practical Experiences and Exams

1. One indirect measure:

1. Graduate exit survey asking three questions:

a. How well did you achieve each of the departmental goals [using scale of exceeded expectations, met expectations, did not meet expectations].
b. What aspects of your education in this program helped with your learning and why were they helpful?
c. What might the program do differently that would help you learn more effectively, and why would these actions help?

3. What has your program done with assessment information this year? (i.e. communicated results to faculty, staff, alumni and students, made changes in the curriculum, made changes in the budget, added new courses. . .)

Again this past summer and fall semester, the faculty met to review our curriculum and courses.  For our capstone, the student/faculty mentor pairing has worked well.  The students received more feedback on both their oral and written presentations, and overall, performance in this class was improved.

To address the lack of elective options for our students, we tried to offer a one-credit elective courses on special topic – Applied Mathematics for Chemists – however, we had to cancel the class due to insufficient enrollment.  This Fall we will try a new elective (a regular three-credit elective) on “Environmental Chemistry”.  Right now, the enrollment for this course seems to be robust, so we are hopeful that it will hold.

Overall, based on in-class assessment, performance on standardized test, and our graduate survey, our students continue to perform well and are satisfied with our program.

4. After reflecting on assessment activities in your unit, as a result of assessment what are two issues you would like to address?

We are still discussing ways to tweak the program so that our students are not so “burned out”.  We have also tried to increase our contact with local industry (many of our students are employed locally) by inviting chemists in to give lectures and talk with our students.  This should improve our ability to place students in internships, which we hope to make a bigger part of our program.