To provide exceptional opportunities for students to learn chemistry and biochemistry through classroom, laboratory, and research experiences. Students participating in our program will master content, develop critical thinking and communication skills that will prepare them for professional careers as scientists, educators, health professionals, and scientifically literate citizens.  

WWU has the following institutional learning goals for its students:

·        Written and oral communication

·        Quantitative and symbolic reasoning

·        Critical analysis and logical thinking

·        Literacy in the discourse of the program of study

Consistent with institutional goals, the chemistry department has developed the following goals for students who participate in our program.

Content Goals

1.      Our students will understand and apply fundamental chemical principles from traditional and emerging areas of chemistry and biochemistry.

2.      Our students will acquire in-depth knowledge from the major areas of chemistry (inorganic, organic, physical, and biochemistry) and be able to integrate and apply these principals to solve complex scientific problems.

3.      Our students will acquire laboratory skills necessary to answer questions of chemical and biochemical relevance.

Process Goals

1.      Our students will develop enhanced critical thinking skills.

2.      Our students will develop effective quantitative reasoning skills.

3.      Our students will effectively communicate scientific information in written and oral forms

4.      Our students will engage collaboratively and independently in the scientific process.

In order to determine if the chemistry department has been meeting its goals, we have put in place a variety of methods to assess our performance. These methods will be described below.

Chemistry Program Assessment

External Review and External Guidelines

The chemistry department’s undergraduate curriculum and curriculum evaluation is largely defined by recommendations of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Committee on Professional Training (CPT), which develops and disseminates guidelines for high-quality undergraduate education in chemistry. WWU’s chemistry department has continuously retained certification by this body for over forty years. In order to retain this certification, the department is required to undergo evaluation by the ACS-CPT every five years. The guidelines and evaluation procedures of the ACS-CPT therefore serve as the assessment plan for the undergraduate chemistry programs at WWU. These guidelines contain very specific recommendations about the courses, course content, and assessments that chemistry departments should have. These guidelines are currently undergoing revision by the ACS, but here is a link to those that are currently in effect: http://portal.acs.org/portal/fileFetch/C/CTP_005618/pdf/CTP_005618.pdf

Since our program is an ACS certified department, we can derive our common learning goals and objectives for our courses from the ACS guidelines. For example, the ACS specifies that laboratory work in chemistry should do the following:

• keep legible and complete experimental records;
• synthesize and characterize inorganic and organic compounds;
• perform accurate and precise quantitative measurements;
• use and understand modern instruments, particularly NMR, FT-IR, and UV-vis spectrometers; GC, GC-MS, and HPLC instruments for chemical separations spectrometers; and electrochemical instruments.
• interpret experimental results and draw reasonable conclusions;
• analyze data statistically and assess reliability of results;
• anticipate, recognize, and respond properly to hazards of chemical manipulations;
• design experiments;
• plan and execute experiments based on searching and using the literature;
• communicate effectively through oral and written reports; and
• work effectively in small groups and teams.

Note how these address content goal number 3 and all of the
Process Goals listed above. Other parts of our program address these and the remaining Content and Process and goals.

Classroom Assessment

Standardized Assessment

The chemistry faculty are aware of the ACS guidelines for the content and process skills that need to be covered in our course offerings. Additionally, the ACS has produced standardized exams for assessing student performance in the chemistry department at WWU compared to students at other institutions. Currently, the ACS organic chemistry standardized exam is used as a final exam in Chemistry 351, 352, and 353. Results of this exam are used to inform the faculty teaching those courses as well as prerequisite courses about whether they are effectively teaching the appropriate content at the appropriate level. In the event of unsatisfactory performance on these exams, we are prepared to make course corrections.

Non-standardized Assessment Techniques

Each of the following assessment techniques of students is employed in our program. As the chemistry and biochemistry courses employ these assessment techniques they use the results to inform their instruction. Our course offerings and the assessments in these courses are designed to support students developing ever-increasing sophistication in their understanding of chemistry.

• Exams-factual recall, data analysis and interpretation, short answer, and essay
• Quizzes- factual recall, data analysis and interpretation, short answer
• Research Presentations (articles, posters, and oral)
• Laboratory Reports
• Research papers from independent (group) laboratory experiments
• Oral presentations of literature work
• Laboratory notebooks
• Worksheets
• Problem sets
• Lab Exercises
• Data Analysis
• Peer review of student work
• Critical analysis of primary literature
• Research advisor feedback (oral and written)
• Teaching evaluations

Self-Assessing Program Quality

The chemistry department has created a survey to administer to students who have completed our undergraduate or masters program (different survey for each program). These surveys are designed to assess how well we have met: program objectives/goals, research experience, teaching experience (if applicable), physical environment, and departmental climate/environment. The data from these surveys will be used to make course and programmatic adjustments.

For many years we have been collecting data to track the success of our majors in enrolling in graduate and professional programs. We have made extensive use of this data in developing programs to better support students who plan on attaining further degrees.