Debbie Sackett, Self-Study Chair

Kathy Nabona, Full-Time Faculty

John Young, Full-Time Faculty

Al Dumbuya, Full-Time Faculty

Donna Lyon, Adjunct Faculty

Chemistry is a core course to most science and health/science disciplines. The Chemistry Department has offered classes to more than 5000 students each year over the last 5 years and has opened more than 250 sections per year for the last 5 years. The specifics are listed in Table 1.

The drop in enrollment in the last two years is due more to a of lack flexibility in section offerings and staffing changes than a lack of students attempting to enroll. Students like predictability with respect to staffing. They expect to see certain instructors teaching sections at a certain time. With the changes in the staffing procedures of the last couple of years, the predictability is gone and enrollment has decreased.

Because chemistry is a requirement for so many other disciplines, especially health/science-related fields, there are few chemistry majors that graduate with degrees in chemistry. A total of 6 students graduated with A.A. degrees in chemistry in FY 97 and 98. An analysis of the number and percent graduates transferring within one year is impractical given the small population of chemistry majors.

The costs per contact hour (provided by OIE) are within college norms compared to other programs and disciplines with lab classes. As reported later, however, the Chemistry Department is lacking in some of the basic instruments needed for adequate instruction. Table 2 shows that the Chemistry Department has not had an increase in its supply budget for the last 3 years, in spite of the fact that costs of equipment and chemicals is on the rise. There was no budget increase given to account for the opening of the Eastview lab. We are also operating under the burden of not having a supply bid list, which was previously supplied by the purchasing department. Many of our supplies are purchased at catalog prices that are on average 35% greater than the cost of bid items.

In FY 1998 the Chemistry Department significantly overspent its budget. This was due to the fact that each campus had more than one signature authority for purchase requisitions. There was also an uncomfortable transition between paper purchase orders and online ordering via Datatel. This problem was remedied in FY 1999 when the Task Force Chair was made sole signature authority on purchases.

Data summarizing course completion rates for the various chemistry courses is shown in the Tables 3-6 below. Mastery of the course applies to students making a C or above in the course. Non-Mastery refers to students with a D, F or W. The other category includes audits, incomplete grades, and credit/no credit evaluations.

In general, the percent non-mastery in Introduction to Chemistry and General Chemistry I is much higher than the other courses. The primary reason for this, we feel, is the lack of adequate prerequisites for these courses. Until the 1999-2000 catalog came out, there was no math prerequisite in place for Introduction to Chemistry. This course has a heavy emphasis on math and students taking the course need a minimum number of math skills. It is our hope that retention rates for this course will increase as the new prerequisite (Intermediate Algebra) takes effect.

In General Chemistry I, the math prerequisite of Intermediate Algebra did not change. The main cause of the high non-mastery rate has to do with the prerequisite of 1 year of high school chemistry. The quality of the high school experience (over which we have no control) is widely varied and often not adequate preparation for college courses. Also, there is no time limit on when the high school class had to be taken. Students who have taken high school chemistry 20 years ago may feel they are qualified for General Chemistry I when, in fact, they are not. The solution to this problem lies in more careful advising of the students and possibly a pretest to be given to all students entering General Chemistry I. Another factor is age and maturity of the students. The transition from high school to college takes some time and discipline to adjust.

The rate of non-mastery for chemistry students (45.9%) is much higher than the ACC norm of 29.5%. Also, the 38.0% rate of withdrawal for chemistry is higher than that the 20.5% for the college. These statistics are attributable to the causes discussed above.

The students who do complete our chemistry courses are on a competitive level with other college students, as evidenced in Tables 7-9 below.

Texas A and M University (TAMU) has been tracking transfer student performances compared to native students. This information is listed in the table below for General Chemistry II, Organic Chemistry I and Organic Chemistry II.

While the number of ACC students transferring to TAMU is too small to be of real significance, it appears that the average GPA of these students is the same or better than other transfer students. Compared to native TAMU students, the GPA of ACC students is slightly lower. We need to hear from other transfer institutions for a more valid analysis.

Tables 10 and 11 summarize section counts of the chemistry courses offered at the various campuses and a summary of section counts by time of day. These summaries were derived from data collected for the summer of 98 through the spring of 99.

As can be seen from this data, we are able to successfully offer chemistry courses at many locations throughout the day. This is confirmed by a reasonably high number of closed sections illustrated in Table 12. Weekend offerings are fewer because of the lack of technical lab assistance on the weekends and lack of demand.

Table 13 shows the number of sections killed over the same time period. Riverside is responsible for the bulk of these killed classes. During this period, the college was making a transition from scheduling by Department Chairs, to Provosts, to Task Force Chairs. For several semesters, lab and lecture times were incompatible and students could not find good matches. Registration at RVS is expected to increase now that the schedule has been corrected fully.

The biggest loss to the Chemistry Department was sections of General Chemistry II. There has been evidence of a lack of General Chemistry II classes in the last two semesters as revealed by early and high registration numbers. The Task Force is making the necessary adjustments.

Chemistry courses will be offered at Eastview and Pinnacle beginning in the Spring of 2000.

Course texts are up to date; the Task Force reviews them annually. We do not have departmental syllabi because we do not want to infringe on the creativity and instructional delivery of our faculty. Our learning objectives for each course are yet to be fully developed or approved by the Task Force. Instructor syllabi are reviewed annually by the Task Force and Assistant Deans. Due to the nature of the discipline, chemistry faculty rely heavily on problem-solving and critical thinking in our courses. Student evaluations show the chemistry department is within normal college standards.

All chemistry faculty meet SACS requirements and are approved by the Task Force. All eligible candidates are interviewed. Chemistry has a low full-time to part-time ratio, although it is mirrored in the college’s ratio as a whole. More full-time faculty are needed to decrease our reliance on adjunct faculty. The number of faculty members is not adequate, due to a lack of adjunct faculty. Our turnover rate for adjunct faculty has been quite high in the past few years. Many adjunct are not willing to travel all over the city to teach classes at different campuses. They cannot afford the financial uncertainty that comes with being "slotted" by an Assistant Dean who does not know them. They are unwilling to deal with the inconvenience of ever dwindling office space and lack of an on-campus authority in their discipline. An adjunct faculty member should not, by definition of the job, rely on teaching at ACC as their sole income. The fact of the matter is that many adjunct faculty members do. This is because many of them teach daytime classes. They are not likely, as persons with Masters and Ph.D.s, to find nighttime employment.

The basic instructional equipment for chemistry is deficient. Resources vary widely from campus to campus. Northridge, for example does not have a functioning infrared spectrophotometer. This piece of equipment is an essential part of the learning experience for organic chemistry students. Fixing the instrument is prohibitively expensive. A service call (work not included) will cost more than $800. The budget for the chemistry department does not include enough money for service contracts.

Funding for purchase/repair of large equipment is irregular and unpredictable. The Chemistry Department has expressed a willingness to save money over a period of a few years to buy replacement equipment and fix old equipment. However, excess funds are taken away every year so that no one is able to support big projects.

One solution is for the college to fund service contracts for all equipment. Another solution is to allow purchase of "used" equipment.

The extent to which technology impacts instruction could be improved upon. We do not have the funds to maintain our essential equipment, much less invest in state-of-the-art equipment. Some standard equipment is being added to classrooms, but not everyone is capable of using it. Campus-based assistance would be more effective than college-wide workshops.

Another component of the technology issue is space. The college has supported purchase of new computers for student use within the last couple of years. However, on many campuses, the computers still sit in boxes because we have no where to set them up.

All of our lab facilities need some degree of repair. The labs at RGC are in desperate need of immediate attention. Poor ventilation at this location presents a hazard to students and an even greater hazard to staff and faculty who work in the rooms constantly. Included at the end of this report is an assessment of ACC laboratory facilities. In this report, all needed renovations/repairs, immediate and long-term, are listed.

Chemistry courses do not readily lend themselves to distance learning. Chemistry has a lab component that requires the students to be on campus once a week as it is. Our high attrition rate (discussed in Student Achievement) suggests that more traditional type classes are still the best option.

Catalog contents are current, but new changes are sometimes very slow to appear. For instance, about five years ago, the Task Force voted to strengthen the math requirements for chemistry. The hope was to improve our retention. The changes finally appeared in the catalog this year.

Students taking courses in chemistry are representative of those in the college as a whole.

 The chemistry department strives to include a diverse faculty.

Each summer the Riverside Campus holds a Summer Youth Academy. This is a two-week program in which teenagers, recruited primarily from the Montopolis area, get to attend "classes" at the ACC campus. Chemistry participates in this program by holding a lab class. Students come to a lab and are lead through experiments, for example, in making soap, and testing acid-base properties of various household chemicals using red cabbage juice. The program has been very popular and has exposed many youth, who may not have the chance otherwise, to the community college experience.

In general, the student evaluation for chemistry reflects the scores for the college as a whole.

There was not time this year to prepare a survey for evaluation of transfer institutions.

The courses that generally transfer to other institutions are CHEM 1411 (General Chemistry I), CHEM 1412 (General Chemistry II), CHEM 2423 (Organic Chemistry I) and CHEM 2425 (Organic Chemistry II). CHEM 1405 (Introduction to Chemistry) is less likely to transfer because it is not a Core Curriculum course.

We have transfer articulation agreements with 27 colleges and universities around Texas. The specific institutions with which we have agreements can be found at the following web site:

http://www2.austincc.edu/acadprog/transfer/equiv.htm#University_Course_Transfer

The Chemistry Department was not able to collect any data for the last Institutional Effectiveness Measures. Parts of the Institutional Effectiveness Measures are shown below. A more complete list of past measures can be found in the section of current Institutional Effectiveness Measures. The past measures required us to follow the success of our transfer students at other institutions. We have not developed a method for tracking students leaving the college. We have modified these past measures so that we can make future assessments.

1. Students exiting from Austin Community College's CHM 1614 course will succeed in the sequential course. At ACC the next course in the sequence is CHM 1634. The expected outcome is that 70% of these students would remain in the next course and receive a grade of C or better.

Partial Assessment Procedure: This plan would include tracking of students at other universities and assess their success in the next course in the sequence after ACC's CHM 1614.

2. Students exiting from Austin Community College's CHM 1634 course will succeed in the sequential course. At ACC the next course in the sequence is CHM 1644. The expected outcome is that 70% of these students would remain in the next course and receive a grade of C or better.

Partial Assessment Procedure: This plan would include tracking ACC students that went to other universities to complete the sequence.

3. Students exiting from Austin Community College's CHM 1644 course will succeed in the sequential course. At ACC the next course in the sequence is CHM 2614. The expected outcome is that 70% of these students would remain in the next course and receive a grade of C or better.