Chemistry Discipline Workshop

The 185th 2YC3 Conference and MnSCU CTL Chemistry Discipline Workshop was held at Rochester Community College on September 25 - 26, 2009.

I attended for a half day and had a grand time seeing the chemistry faculty from Century College - they were ALL there! There were also faculty from Anoka-Ramsey, Inver Hills (great to see colleague Judy again!), Minneapolis, MSU Mankato, Rochester, Saint Paul, and Winona. PLUS other 2 year and 4 year from the mid-west region. Kudos to the planners (Jason Jadin, Heather Sklenicka, and Teresa Brown) for the organization and sessions.

There were several sessions about teaching chemistry online. Attendees seemed open and accepting to this mode of teaching. There are different models of handling the lab - from labs on campus, kitchen labs, and simulation labs. Each has benefits - and in each case the faculty made sure that the student was gaining critical thinking skills. No matter the method of doing the lab, there would be no sloughing off for the students.

Rehka Ganagamur did a nice job of laying out the factors a college needs to consider when launching an undergraduate research program. The benefits to students are many but there are some challenges. One of them stems from the MSCF contract which does not have language about work load issues for faculty that supervise research done outside of the classroom. Deans and faculty have to work together to figure out a fair solution. It's a challenge but shouldn't stand in the way if a department is truly committed AND the dean is truly supportive. I would love to see this happen at Century.

I also went to session that reminded me of the National Science Digital Library. What a great resource!! I'm not going to try to describe - you just have to click on it and discover for yourself!

The sessions and conversations reminded me again of the importance of being supportive as a dean. Encourage your faculty to try new ideas, to share their successes, to attend workshops.