Chemistry Task Force Meeting Minutes

February 22, 2002

2:00-3:45 p.m.

RVS 2221

In attendance: Debbie Sackett, Chris Uzomba, Al Dumbuya, Kathy Nabona, John Young, Ya-Ping Huang, Madan Mohan, Steve Kirschner, Matiur Rahman, Anita Thurwachter, Anne Goube, Fred Miller, Lew Barnett

CHEM 1405 textbooks. Textbooks by the following authors will be the ones we consider when choosing the lecture text book for CHEM 1405 for the fall of 2002. We will vote on the textbook at the next Task Force meeting, April 26^th.

Author	edition	publisher	issue date
Stoker	7th	Prentice Hall	2001
Zumdahl	4th	Houghton-Mifflin	2000
Peters and Cracolice	flex text (can be bound)	Brooks/Cole/Thompson	1997
Russo and Silver	1st	Addison, Wesley	2000
Bishop
Corwin	3rd	Prentice Hall	2001
Goldberg	3rd	McGraw-Hill	2001
Malone

Peggy Hale Croshaw Scholarship. We reviewed the criteria for students to apply for the Peggy Hale Croshaw Scholarship, found at http://www2.austin.cc.tx.us/foundatn/Scholarships/General/Crowshaw.htm. We decided to insert the work "science" between ACC and faculty in the first criteria. It will now read, "Written recommendation from one ACC science faculty member."

Anyone wishing to donate to this fund can write a check to: ACC Foundation - Peggy Hale Croshaw endowment. The foundation is located on the 5^th floor of HBC.

Secret degree requirements. Earlier in the semester, the full-time faculty voted by e-mail to have the following line added to the ACC catalog under the Associates degree requirements for chemistry: "Students receiving an Associates in Chemistry must make a minimum of a "C" in all required math and science courses, and have an overall GPA of 2.0." The issue was opened for further discussion and input from Adjunct faculty. There were no additional comments, so the issue with go to the Curriculum and Programs committee for review.

Budget initiatives. Faculty requested the following capital expenditure items to be included in next year's budget process.

IR - NRG

IR (new or repair) - RGC

ice machine - EVC

GC recorder - NRG

Upgrade GC software - RVS

spec 20s - RVS

explosion-proof refrigerators - all campuses

lap top computers - all campuses

vacuum oven - RGC

Safety issues. We discussed some of the items brought up in the HazCom program presented by the Risk Manager (Becky Cole) earlier that day.

Two changes to the Chemistry Department Safety Rules were agreed upon.

(1) Change emergency number in the rules to the new 222 number.

(2) Late policy to be added. "If student miss the pre-lab discussion for that day's lab, the instructor has the right to ban the student from doing the experiment that day."

Faculty evaluation update. The TFC had just discovered that day that there were two problems with the faculty input form on the web. (1) The system would time-out users after 75 minutes, but not give the user a warning. As a result, many faculty may have unknowingly entered data, that was not recorded in the database. (2) The TFC is not able to look access the Faculty Input Forms, as in the past. Faculty are now required to send a copy of the form to the TFC.

This year's evaluation committee will begin working on a standardized worksheet for uniform evaluations. The advantage is that faculty will be know in advance what is expected of them in terms of syllabi content, etc. This will be especially useful for new adjunct faculty.

Chronic lab absences. Because the lab grade makes up only 25% of the course grade, it is conceivable that a student can never attend lab and still pass a chemistry course. The possibility of making some number/percentage of labs mandatory in order to pass a chemistry course was discussed. This item will be on the next agenda for a vote.

Technical standards. The TFC investigated how we might allow a student to take chemistry at ACC without having to take the lab. This would be an important consideration for students who cannot be reasonably accommodated in the lab setting. As it stands right now, if they cannot take the lab, they cannot take the lecture either. Our options are limited. The only solution that seems possible is to offer a section of lecture only that would have a course number of say, CHEM 1305. This is a 3-credit course of Introduction to Chemistry lecture. If the time of the lecture were to overlap with the lecture time of a CHEM 1405 section, then no additional expense to the college would be accrued as a result of paying the lecturer. Such an option would require that CHEM 1305 be entered into the course catalog. The TF agreed to investigate this option.

Next TF meeting: April 19.