Date of Senate Approval 03/06/03

Statement of Faculty Senate Action:

APC Document 53:        Addition of a statement of computer competency to Chemistry degree programs

Replace on page 74, under the Major in Chemistry for the Bachelor of Science Degree, Concentration in Chemistry and Concentration in Biochemistry; and under the Major in Chemistry for the Bachelor of Arts Degree, Concentration in Chemistry, Concentration in Biochemistry, and Chemistry with Teacher Licensure

"III. Other departmental . . . . .competency in chemistry.",

with

"III. Other departmental requirements--Chemistry Department Comprehensive Examination and a grade of C or better in CHEM 416 and 417 to demonstrate practical, written, computer and oral competency in chemistry.

Impact Statement
This change does not impact the day-to-day function of the Chemistry Department or its student. CHEM 416 and 417 are already being taught and all students are already meeting the APC prescribed minimum computer competency. This change will not impact major, minor, or University requirements, the education Department's Licensure Programs, or other departments that require chemistry courses.

Rationale
Studying and doing chemistry requires instrumentation, much of which is computer assisted or driven. Some areas of chemistry also use computers to calculate transition state energies, thermodynamic and kinetic information, and molecular conformations. All of this usage is in addition to chemistry specific and general information storage, searching, and presentation. A variety of software packages are required for these applications and are used on computers ranging from simple PCs and MACs to UNIX based workstations and supercomputers. Because of the large dissimilarities between many of these programs, students learn about them in a number of different courses. Competency in each of these specific uses is evaluated within each course and then reevaluated in CHEM 416 and 417 when the student's research project requires the use of computers.

Specific competencies for graduates from the Department of Chemistry are evaluated for the following:

1. Drawing structures of molecules, especially organic structures, using appropriate software (ChemDraw is the industrial standard).

2. Preparing graphical presentation of data and conduct statistical analysis of the data (KaleidaGraph, or another graphical/analysis package).

3. Conducting elementary chemical computations for molecules (SpartanPro or a similar computational package).

4. Word processing laboratory reports (Microsoft Word or a similar software package).

5. Searching of scientific literature databases (SciFinder Scholar is becoming the industrial standard).

6. Presenting scientific seminars (Microsoft PowerPoint is the industrial standard).

7. Processing of mathematical equations (Mathematica, MathCad, etc.)