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Chemistry
Summary of Identified
Issues
The major issues that the chemistry discipline grappled with
during the IMPAC meetings were: modes of articulation for
organic chemistry; the feasibility of a one-semester course
encompassing general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry
targeted specifically for the pre-nursing curriculum; the
prospect for creating an alternative general education transfer
curriculum suited for the sciences and engineering.
Articulation of the first course in general
chemistry among the California community colleges and all
of the four-year institutions now works well. Students typically
receive full credit when transferring between the segments
of higher education in California for a completed one-year
sequence of general chemistry. Because of reasons important
to the local institutions (e.g. availability of laboratory
equipment and space, integration with other disciplinary offerings,
expertise of instructional personnel, and selection of course
materials such as textbook) it is impossible to dictate perfect
articulation of individual semesters or quarters across the
system of higher education in California. Students are advised
to complete the entire year’s sequence at a single institution,
and attempts to do otherwise may lead to repetition of some
topics or, perhaps more poignantly, complete omission of important
conceptual material, that may result in remedial requirements
and slowed progress to degree. The traditional one-semester
lower-division course in quantitative analysis, where offered,
also articulates well. Increasingly, however, this course
is disappearing from the curriculum offerings, commonly for
lack of student interest at the community colleges. Some community
colleges are able to maintain interest in this course and
in several local situations, it serves the community vibrantly,
but in large across the system, it is on the wane. The four-year
institutions have responded to the absence of lower-division
quantitative analysis by providing the material in upper-division
courses.
However, there is a considerably more difficult
issue with the year’s course in organic chemistry. This
course is sometimes a lower-division course, sometimes half
lower-division and half upper-division, and sometimes all
upper-division. The nature of the material, the evolution
of the complexity through the course, and the sophistication
and importance to modern chemistry easily justify its upper-division
designation. On the other hand, because of its centrality
to chemistry and to other sciences, it has undeniably become
the traditional subject material for the second year of study
of chemistry, which is traditionally regarded as part of the
lower division. The expense of the laboratory and modern instrumentation
purchase and maintenance become an issue for the quality of
the student laboratory experience. All of these factors compound
the problem of articulation between the community colleges
and the four-year campuses. There have evolved three basic
patterns of articulation of this course: 1) complete articulation
of the community college course with the course offered on
the four-year campus; 2) articulation with a non-majors course
on the four-year campus, or to a portion of the majors course,
with a bridging course offered at the four-year campus; 3)
articulation only on a student by student basis for those
students scoring acceptably on a diagnostic examination (characteristically
the American Chemical Society final examination in Organic
Chemistry for which there are national norms available). Each
of the patterns has been found workable in achieving articulation
for students between the four-year institutions and the community
colleges, but the system as a whole must work toward the day
when increasingly pattern 1) is successful.
Very spirited cross-disciplinary discussions
between nursing faculty and chemistry faculty have characterized
the regional and statewide IMPAC meetings centered on the
concept of a single-semester course targeting the pre-nursing
students that will cover those topics of importance to nursing
from general chemistry, organic chemistry, and biochemistry.
There is an existing course offered both on community college
campuses and four-year campuses that is a two-semester course
covering this breadth of material for students in allied health
fields. The nursing programs in California are under pressure
to produce more nurses for California’s health care system
and identified preparation in chemistry as a stumbling block
for smooth articulation of students between the associate’s
degree in nursing programs and the bachelor degree nursing
programs. The latter have generally required the equivalent
of the two-semester course described above, or more, whereas
the chemistry requirements for the associates degree programs
vary widely from no chemistry requirements beyond high school,
to the two-semester course. Students desiring to expand their
professional credentials were often finding themselves needing
to take remedial courses in chemistry when seeking to continue
their nursing studies in the bachelors programs, commonly
resulting in disappointment, discouragement, and possible
abandonment of pursuit. The associates degree programs are
under severe constraints on the total number of units required
for the degree so that an across the board additional requirement
of two-semesters of chemistry seems insupportable. Nursing
faculty posed the possibility of creation of a one-semester
course to accomplish their goals to the chemistry faculty.
Across the system there were a few campuses that had experience
with a one-semester course to achieve the goals of the nursing
faculty. Some of those campuses felt the course to be eminently
successful and others have regarded the course as something
of a problem child with a very checkered history. Those faculty
with experience with the two-semester course find it difficult
to foresee success of a one-semester course that covers that
breadth of material. A task force chaired by James Armstrong,
Chair of Chemistry at City College of San Francisco undertook
the job of developing curricular content of the desired course,
drawing upon the experience of those campuses that were already
teaching a similar course and upon additional input from faculty
in biology and nursing. The work was accomplished largely
over the Internet and capped by an extra evening session joint
meeting of nursing, chemistry, and biology faculty at the
statewide IMPAC meeting. The creation of this course content
is a unique achievement of the IMPAC project. There is no
other forum in which it could have occurred. The opportunity
for the cross-disciplinary meetings of nursing, chemistry,
and biology faculty and the statewide scope of representative
faculty permitted this achievement. The widespread implementation
of the course will depend on local faculty reconciling the
myriad additional problems that it may cause. The impact on
local resources, either negatively by withdrawing interest
in the two-semester course that serves other disciplines,
or by redirection of resources where the two variants will
both have adequate demand, the resolution of nursing faculty
to implement an explicit chemistry requirement, and the curricular
creation and approval procedures are all issues that will
need to be addressed on each individual campus and undoubtedly
multiple approaches to resolution of those issues can be foreseen.
Science faculty at four-year campuses regularly
advise transfer students who arrive on campus with their general
education requirements completed at the community colleges,
but who in the process of doing so, have neglected their lower
division preparation in the major. Such students necessarily
face a curriculum upon transfer that requires a minimum of
an additional year to repair and may be as severe as an additional
two years that are added on to the time to degree before they
are in a position to begin upper division work in the major
area. It is generally good advice to students to complete
their general education requirements, or much of them, during
their time at community colleges, but this should not be done
at the neglect of lower division preparation for a science
major. Chemistry faculty devoted much discussion time to the
possibility of trying to address this issue by the creation
of an alternative to the Intersegmental General Education
Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) that, while encouraging the completion
of general education requirements, would likewise ensure that
the lower division preparation for the major was likewise
completed. Taking a hint from the curricular planning of students
who spend their entire undergraduate careers on a single four-year
campus, the discussions lead to the idea of deferring perhaps
two courses of the IGETC curriculum to be completed on the
receiving campus, and detailing the essential lower division
work in mathematics and the sciences to be explicit courses
that ensure progress in the major. Chemistry faculty have
been participating in the cross-disciplinary discussions with
biology, computer science, engineering, geology, mathematics,
and physics faculties and the articulation officers to try
to develop an effective alternative. There arise in these
discussions two conflicting goals, one to detail the needed
lower division preparation expected for a student transferring
from a community college in these majors, the other to find
a common, least harmful, set of specifications to be grafted
into the IGETC pattern. The resolution of these alternative
goals is necessary for this effort to be successful. For an
alternative to IGETC to be successful, it must be at least
as simple as IGETC and presentable in a one-page format. A
rough construction meeting these objectives has been assembled
that can be refined with more discussion, at IMPAC and in
related forums, specifically the California Articulation Number
(CAN) System Board, the California Intersegmental Articulation
Council (CIAC), the Intersegmental Committee of Academic Senates
(ICAS) and the individual academic senates of the segments
of higher education in California. During the development
of this rough construction, the need for improved CAN course
descriptors has become apparent.
Identified Trends/Future
Directions
Increasingly community college district administrations are
recognizing the importance of modern instrumentation for instruction
in chemistry, particularly organic chemistry and providing
the necessary resources. As more community college chemistry
departments become equipped with the instrumentation to provide
their students with high quality laboratory instruction, the
four-year campuses must continue to reexamine their concerns
about articulation of organic chemistry courses offered at
the community colleges. For higher education to meet the needs
of the students of “Tidal Wave II,” full partnership
with the community colleges is required. Organic chemistry
is increasingly the nominal second-year course for chemistry
majors and the ability to complete the first two years of
the curriculum in the community colleges is important for
transfer students to be at the same point in their academic
studies as those students who started on the four-year campuses.
Comments from Statewide
Meetings and the General Field
From the Bay Region Meeting
Chemistry disciplinary discussions began with consideration
of the creation of a suggested parallel to the Intersegmental
General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) that would emphasize
completion of lower division major requirements for an Intersegmental
Science and Engineering Transfer Curriculum. Some initial
remarks questioned the utility of such a vehicle and suggested
instead the widespread publication of discipline specific
lower division curricula in the community college catalogs.
It was stated that community college counseling tends to emphasize
advice on the achievement of an AA degree with little or no
attention to curricula leading to a Bachelor’s degree.
An impediment to publishing such information in community
college catalogs may be the fear of substantial increase in
the catalog size.
A lengthy and fruitful exchange regarding
the issues of transfer of credit for community college organic
chemistry courses to the four-year campuses ensued. Three
models of articulation for this course are presented by the
four-year campuses across the state: 1) simple complete equivalence
between the community college course and the course on the
receiving campus; 2) articulation to a non-major’s course
or a portion of the major’s course with a bridging course
offered on the receiving campus; 3) articulation on a student
by student basis after the student demonstrates an achieved
competency in organic chemistry by passing a diagnostic examination,
such as the American Chemical Society final examination in
organic chemistry. Community college faculty expressed concern
that the latter model of articulation treats their students
with disproportionate suspicion in many cases. A portion of
the problem arises because of the designation of at least
some of the organic chemistry sequence as an upper division
course at the receiving campus. Community college faculty
asked about the program of study for students at the receiving
campuses and whether organic chemistry is, in fact, traditionally
taken by students in their second year. It was generally acknowledged
that, as quantitative analysis as a separate course in lower
division is waning in popularity and significance in the chemistry
curriculum, students commonly take organic chemistry in their
second year, and in that sense, it is appropriate for community
colleges to offer the entire organic sequence. The possibility
of four-year faculty devising a model course outline, perhaps
differentiating between topics and laboratory experiences
that were essential versus those that were ideal came forward.
It is possible that a revised CAN descriptor for organic chemistry
could be developed to serve this purpose. Some community college
faculty felt that it remained their responsibility to present
a course description of an organic chemistry course that they
can teach to the four-year campuses since they would be delivering
the instruction.
The role of quantitative analysis in the lower division curriculum
was discussed. While it is tending toward disappearance as
a separate course at many institutions, there was widely voiced
support for the importance of the practical laboratory experience
that it provides and its role in capping the student’s
intellectual development in the understanding of chemical
equilibrium, principles of measurement and sampling, and chemical
separations. These topics are of perhaps greater importance
for students pursuing studies in allied fields than for chemistry
major students as the latter will revisit these topics in
upper division coursework. Continuation of viable quantitative
chemistry courses in the community college curriculum is important
for continuation of these skills in many environmental and
forensic laboratories across the state.
Afternoon cross-disciplinary discussions
were divided between a session joint with the other physical
sciences and engineering and a session with nursing faculty.
The session with the other physical sciences discussed the
possibility of further development of an alternative to the
IGETC program that would be more suitable for science and
engineering majors. Valuable contributions to the discussion
were provided by the articulation officers present who were
able to provide considerable insight into the functioning
of the present IGETC, and limitations to which an alternative
would need to adhere. For significant further progress on
the development of an alternative to IGETC, a concrete proposal
needs to be drafted so that the detailed needs of the individual
disciplines can be incorporated. Discussions with nursing
faculty centered on their expressed need for a one-semester
course incorporating those elements of general chemistry,
organic chemistry, and biochemistry that are important for
nursing. The nursing faculty expressed the desire for the
creation of a California Articulation Number (CAN) descriptor
for such a course. Some chemistry faculty who were present
and have offered such a course for a few years expressed a
willingness to participate in drafting a descriptor for such
a course for consideration for adoption by the new CAN system.
From the Southern
Region Meeting
Discussion began with reaffirmation of the importance of completing
one-year course sequences at a single institution. Students
will have a more cohesive education if they complete the full
year sequence at a given institution. Individual campuses
inevitably choose slightly different sequencing of the material
for a myriad of locally relevant reasons.
Articulation of a completed sequence is therefore
considerably more successful than attempting to articulate
only partially completed sequences. A specific point of that
type in the general chemistry class is whether chemical equilibrium
is taught in the first or second semester. Increasingly the
topic is moving to the second semester. CSU San Marcos’s
sequencing of general, organic, organic, general in successive
semesters for two years for chemistry and biology students
continues to meet with success. The rearrangement from the
traditional general, general, organic, organic sequencing
of the first two year curriculum permits students more opportunity
to get their math skills up to the required level for the
very quantitative aspects of general chemistry which they
then do not meet until their fourth semester of study. San
Marcos does not have majors that want only general chemistry
so this sequence serves their students well. Use of ACS standardized
final exams in both general chemistry and organic chemistry
is common. These multiple choice style exams are significantly
different format from locally developed problem style exams,
but if students are forewarned about the changed format, they
adjust to it in stride. Community college faculty reported
that CSU San Diego handles equivalency for organic chemistry
courses for the chemistry majors on an individual student
basis rather than approving articulation of the course.
In discussion about counseling chemistry
majors, community college faculty reported that they encourage
their counseling staff to send chemistry majors to the chemistry
faculty for counseling. Rosemont College has implemented a
BS transfer curriculum that assists students in curricular
planning. The four-year campuses re-emphasized that the information
they need to determine course equivalency is often not included
in packets submitted for articulation requests. These include
detailed course syllabi, texts used, reading and problem assignments,
laboratory experiments performed and hours of laboratory per
week. A recommendation to CIAC for routine inclusion of this
information could speed academic review of the articulation
agreements.
Strong skepticism about the pedagogical wisdom
of attempting to package a single semester course covering
general chemistry, organic chemistry and biochemistry was
expressed. It appears to many that such a course would be
either superficial or brutal. It was pointed out that it only
makes sense for community colleges to offer such a course
if there is either local demand for it from their own nursing
program, or if the CSU campuses statewide nursing faculty
embrace it.
The afternoon cross-disciplinary discussions were in two sessions,
the first joint with other physical sciences and engineering
faculty, the second with nursing and biology faculty. The
first session centered on the possible creation of a parallel
to the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum
(IGETC) that might be termed the Inter-segmental Science and
Engineering Transfer Curriculum (ISETC). The goal would be
to encourage completion of some general education requirements
in a fashion to assure that those units were indeed furthering
the student’s progress in the major as well as satisfying
general education requirements. A straw-man core was distributed
for discussion and met with conceptual endorsement. The goal
would be to get agreement that a student who completed ISETC
would be required to complete no more than two additional
lower division general education requirements. The structure
of ISETC would be such that at least the central core of one
year of calculus, one year of general chemistry and one year
of physics with calculus would be assured. Students would
continue to be encouraged to complete additional major requirements,
but the targeted general education would assure a base upon
which further regular progress in the major might be assured.
From the Northern
Region Meeting
Discussion of the importance of students getting good advice
for planning their chemistry major curriculum was the opening
topic. It is important for chemistry faculty to indicate to
their counseling offices, their willingness to advise prospective
chemistry transfer chemistry majors on their curricula, if
appropriate, and to provide the counseling staff with correct
information regarding the transfer process for their courses.
Any misinformation that they find students perceiving should
be communicated to the counseling office.
An extended discussion about the desire of
nursing faculty for a one-semester course in general, organic,
and biochemistry ensued. CSU Chico chemistry faculty are working
with their nursing department to have the second semester
of their two-semester general, organic, and biochemistry be
the desired course. They are adjusting their prerequisites
for the course to being a good high school chemistry course
and using an advisory diagnostic examination to assist students
to assess their level of preparedness for the course. For
those students not doing well on the diagnostic, the first
semester course is available to them to hone their skills
before attempting the second semester. Other thoughts include
having the recovery course start a few weeks after the required
course so that students who tried too high with inadequate
preparation can be picked up in a suitable course without
their losing excessive curricular time.
The information needed for determination
of articulation of community college courses to four-year
institutions was a subject of general discussion. The more
information provided such as course syllabi, texts used, laboratory
experiments performed, instructor résumés, and
final examinations used, the more readily a course evaluation
can be completed. Community college instructors would appreciate
similar information originating from the four-year institutions,
so that they can adjust their courses to more closely match
those being offered at four-year institutions.
The afternoon cross-disciplinary meetings
were in two sessions, the first with other science and engineering
faculty, and the second with nursing and biology. The first
session centered on the possible development of an alternative
to the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum
(IGETC). There is much discontent with IGETC among engineering
schools, but they have a long-standing agreement on coursework
for articulation from community colleges. This may prove to
be an alternative model for what has developed in the discussion
for a science alternative to IGETC. The discussion with nursing
and biology focused on the nursing faculty’s interest
in a one-semester 4 or 5 unit course that would cover those
aspects of general, organic, and biochemistry that are of
importance in nursing.
From the Los
Angeles Metropolitan Region Meeting
Discussion began with a description of the various agencies
and organizations involved in facilitating transfer among
the segments of higher education in California and their interaction
with the IMPAC project.
The three models of articulation for organic
chemistry between the community colleges and the four-year
institutions were discussed. Those models being: 1) full articulation
of the courses between the institutions; 2) articulation of
the course to a receiving institution’s course for non-majors
or for a portion of the course with the receiving institution
providing a bridge course to complete the student’s background;
3) articulation only on a student by student basis upon demonstration
by the student of competency in organic chemistry through
passing a diagnostic examination, typically the American Chemical
Society final exam in organic chemistry. While the latter
model gives more uncertainty to the transferring student,
several community colleges have excellent working relations
with the 4-year institutions using that model and will commonly
administer the examination to their own students before the
student has transferred.
A preliminary discussion of the possible creation of an alternative
to the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum
(IGETC) for science students indicated broad based support
for such an alternative. The difficulties of creating a meaningful
one-semester 4-5 unit course covering topics of interest to
nursing from general, organic, and biochemistry were discussed.
Afternoon cross-disciplinary discussions
were in two sessions, the first with other science and engineering
faculty regarding a possible alternative to IGETC, and the
second with nursing and biology faculty to discuss the creation
of a course outline for a one-semester general, organic, and
biochemistry course for nursing.
Recommendations
for the Discipline
1. Continue vigorous participation in the IMPAC process.
2. Pursue the creation of an alternative vehicle for science
students similar in intent to the IGETC that serves other
disciplines so well.
3. Engage in resolving the local issues that may arise in
meeting the chemistry instructional needs of the nursing discipline.
4. Participate in the new CAN evaluation process as it evolves.
Recommendations for Support Courses (if discussed)
None
Topics for Further
Discussion
The faculty of the discipline of chemistry will need to pursue
the following issues.
1. Consider development of improved descriptors for the chemistry
courses that have CAN descriptors and help in the creation
of a new one for the one-semester GOB (generic, organic, biology)
course.
2. Continue the dialogue regarding articulation of organic
chemistry courses.
3. Participate in the refinement of the concept of an IGETC-like
agreement that will better serve the chemistry major.
4. Discuss the new teaching technologies available with the
Internet and how they can be best exploited in teaching chemistry.
5. Initiate cross-disciplinary discussions to review the general
chemistry and organic chemistry course content.
Recommendations Forwarded/to be forwarded to
CAN
Use the IMPAC project as a functional statewide faculty grouping
to assist in developing revised procedures for course review
and designation.
ASSIST
CIAC
Continue to participate in the IMPAC process. Help to refine
the fledgling alternative to IGETC so that science and engineering
transfer candidates may be better served.
Outreach presentations
made by members of this group:
Organization Date/Place Presenter’s Name Number Present
UC Davis College of Letters
and Sciences advisers UCD campus
April ,2002 William Fink 30
CIAC Annual conference
Sacramento, CA William Fink 100
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