SACSCOC Fifth Year Interim Report
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Assessment : 2011 - 2012 : Educational Programs :
Chemistry MS
Chemistry MS
3 Goals 3 Objectives 4 Indicators 4 Criteria 4 Findings 3 Actions
| GOAL: Develop Presentation Skills |
| Objective |
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Students completing CHM 5100 will, at least once during their tenure as graduate students, demonstrate the ability to make a research presentation. |
| Indicator |
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| During their tenure as graduate students, all students will present at least one departmental seminar. The faculty, through the peer-review evaluation rubric, will determine the presentation's acceptability. |
| Criterion |
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| All graduate students in chemistry are required to take CHM 5100 at least once during their tenure as graduate students. To pass CHM 5100, students are required to receive an acceptable peer-rating on a required research presentation. Within the course, each student evaluates all other student presentations. The rubric is the last page of the syllabus. |
| Finding |
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| Chemistry Seminar (CHEM 5100) was offered in the fall and spring semesters. In the Fall 2011 semester, all 11 of our graduate students were enrolled in the course and in the Spring 2012 semester, 6 of our 12 graduate students were enrolled in the course. The remaining 6 students had already taken the seminar course three times (the maximum number allowed). All of the students passed the required research presentation and also passed the course in the fall semester. In the spring semester one of the students did not make the required research presentation (he disappeared near the end of the semester and is no longer in the program) and failed the course. The other students passed both the research presentation and the course. |
Actions for Objective:
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| We have just worked through a downswing in our graduate enrollments. This leads to erratic enrollment in seminar (as witnessed by 11 students enrolled in the fall but just 6 in the spring). We will continue to monitor the situation and will attempt to make the peer feedback more meaningful for the presenters. |
| GOAL: Deliver A Curriculum With Appropriate Discipline Specific Knowledge |
| Objective |
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| Each student will demonstrate the ability to communicate knowledge of advanced chemistry. |
| Indicator |
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| All graduate students will demonstrate a mastery of chemical knowledge through an oral graduate comprehensive examination, administered by a faculty committee. The examination will consist of questions about the practical and theoretical basis for the students' research work. |
| Criterion |
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| Each student is expected to pass the oral comprehensive exam as determined by a consensus of the student's examining committee. |
| Finding |
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| In the past year, two students took their oral exams (during the spring 2012 semester). Both were evaluated by their respective examining committees and the consensus of each of the committees was that the students passed. In fact, in one case, the student was given a high pass. It is difficult to determine a cluster of weaknesses because of the small number of students being evaluated. In general, at the master's level, one student's weakness is another student's strength. |
Actions for Objective:
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| The nature of our graduate program is diverse. One of the two students that completed their degree this past spring was a biochemist working on luciferases. The other was an analytical chemist working on tellurium and selenium compounds. Since the comprehensive exam grows out of the thesis defense, the nature of the questions will necessarily be different under circumstances like these. We will continue to monitor the situation. |
| GOAL: Provide Original Research Opportunities For Graduate Students |
| Objective |
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| Each student will successfully prepare and defend a master's thesis on research performed under the direction of a chemistry faculty member. |
| Indicator |
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| Students will orally present their master's thesis work to the public and will defend their work through questions from the public and additional questions about the research project from their thesis committee. |
| Criterion |
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| Each student is expected to pass the thesis defense as determined by a consensus of the student's thesis committee. |
| Finding |
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| Two graduate students successfully defended their master's theses, as judged by their respective thesis committees, during the spring semester of 2012. |
| Indicator |
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| Each student is expected to complete a thesis describing the basis for the research, the experiments and results of those experiments, and a discussion of those results. The basis for the research and the discussion of the results must be supported by appropriate reference to the scientific literature. As part of the defense of the thesis, the thesis committee will evaluate the quality of scientific referencing in the manuscript. |
| Criterion |
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| At least 85% of theses presented to thesis committees will have the quality of scientific referencing evaluated as meeting expectations. |
| Finding |
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| Two students completed their master's thesis in the past calendar year (both during the spring 2012 term). Both of the committees found that the scientific references in the theses were of acceptable quality. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action |
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| With two students completing their theses in the past year, it is difficult to generalize. This is an area that we will continue to monitor. |
| Closing the Loop |
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We have been rebuilding the number of graduate students in our program. In chemistry, virtually all of our graduate students are supported by graduate assistantships (and this is generally true all around the U.S.). Consequently, in order to "grow" our program, we need to have increasing numbers of assistantships. We were fortunate to have more assistantships this year, and we had 11 teaching assistantships in the fall and spring semesters. Of course, graduate school is a temporary place for students, and two of these students graduated at the end of the spring term. Three more are expected to graduate at the end of this summer. One student had personal issues and left the program. Consequently, more than half of the 11 will not be with us in the coming fall semester--but new students are expected to replace them.
The two students that completed their degrees at the end of this spring semester are moving on to Ph.D. programs (at Rutgers and Auburn). We expect our program to continue to be successful. We produce students who, for the most part, move on to Ph.D. programs and are successful there. |