On February 22, a group of UM Chemistry graduate students and post-docs traveled to Oberlin, OH to meet with the faculty at Oberlin College. As part of a large department, UM students looking towards academic careers have little exposure to the program logistics, departmental climate, and application process at smaller schools. For this reason, CSIE|UM sponsors seminars and site visits to uncover the variety colleges and universities available to teach at.

During their visit to Oberlin, UM students toured the facilities with the department chair, Professor Rebecca Whelan.On this tour, Prof. Whelan emphasized the importance of how lab spaces are designed to encourage collaborative project-based learning. UM students were then able to meet with tenured faculty about the benefits and limitations of PUI environments, interdisciplinary collaborations, and publication/funding demands during the tenuring process.

This discussion was followed by a QA session on the application and hiring process for small schools with recent tenure-track and visiting professors. The day concluded with an introduction to the academic support programs offered by Oberlin College with the program coordinator and how/why these programs were introduced to Oberlin. Throughout the day, UM students were able to meet with Oberlin College undergraduate students to discuss differences in their experiences between small and large school environments.

On three Fridays, Feb. 2, 9, & 16, 2018, CALC|UM + CSIE|UM hosted a workshop series, taught by Ren Wiscons, introducing UM Chemistry graduate students and post-docs to fundamental tools in Adobe Illustrator.

The first of the three-part series was geared towards equipping students with the initial experience necessary to use Adobe Illustrator for the preparation of diagrams, figures, and posters.

The second Adobe Illustrator Workshop, Preparing Figures for Publication, was offered on Feb. 9th and was focused on importing various file types into Illustrator to prepare and combine figures in a common program.

The final workshop, Visually Communicating Scientific Concepts, was offered on Feb. 16th. As part of this workshop, attendees worked with Ren to convert ideas from their own research topics into diagrams for presentations, posters, and publications.

A conversation with Dr Mary Kirchhoff (ACS)

On Friday, Nov. 17th, CSIE|UM hosted Dr. Mary Kirchhoff, from the American Chemical Society, where she currently serves as the Executive Vice President for Scientific Advancement and the Director of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute.  Dr. Kirchhoff also served as the Director of the ACS Education Division for 11 years previously. Before joining the ACS, Dr. Kirchhoff taught at Trinity College in Washington, DC for nine years where she enjoyed interacting directly with and teaching students.

Dr. Kirchhoff shared about the different positions she has held at the ACS and about the resources the ACS offers to graduate students, professors, and the scientific community.  These resources include the Petroleum Research Fund (PRF), a funding source for chemistry faculty, and the ACS Summer School on Green Chemistry, a week long intensive for graduate students and post-docs on sustainable futures for chemistry.  She also discussed the importance of science policy and the role the ACS plays in giving guidance to new rules and legislations in Washington.  Finally, Dr. Kirchhoff shared about initiatives of the ACS to increase chemistry experiments, demonstrations, and data in science museums as it is currently the one of the least represented field in most science museums.

On behalf on CSIE]UM, you are invited to a presentation and discussion by Dr. Mary Kirchhoff from the American Chemical Society.  She currently serves as the Executive Vice President for Scientific Advancement and the Director of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute.  Prior to her current role, Mary served as the Director of the ACS Education Division for 11 years.

Her general topic is “Communicating Chemistry” and she will discuss the positions she has held within the ACS and the resources available through the ACS focusing on chemistry education.

The event will be Friday, November 17th, from 12-1pm in CHEM 1706.  Lunch will be provided for those who register.

A Class Offering In Support of Graduate Student Writers (So Everyone)

Dr. Jimmy Brancho is a 2017 graduate from the U-M Chemistry Department. He has been a noteworthy writer for public science, and now works as a Lecturer III at the Sweetland Writing Center. The department is collaborating with Sweetland to offer a graduate level writing class.

Jimmy spent half the time introducing his own career story, and setting up the rationale for good writing — good communication.

The life of a graduate student is fraught with demands, and some of those demands are a little more unexpected than others. Many graduate students report feeling overwhelmed by the process of writing their research up for publication and/or preparing written documents for candidacy or thesis examinations. First of all, writing is hard. Second, undergraduate science education often does not adequately address practical academic writing. Third, the scientific research paper is a confusing genre that it takes time and effort to learn.

He presented an outline for WRITING 400: Academic Papers and Presentations in Natural Science, an upcoming course offering of specific interest to graduate students in chemistry.

The attending group contributed many ideas to help shape the new course, including addressing issues about writing for the public and the demands from integrating ESL writers into such a course.

The course will be offered for the first time in Winter 2018.

Student affect, achievement and retention in STEM

On October 13^th, Professor Jeff Raker, a chemistry education professor at the University of South Florida, gave a seminar as part of CSIE|UM covering his work aimed at investigating the relationship between student affect with achievement and retention in STEM.

Due to the complexity of affect, his seminar focused specifically on work by his group examining the correlation between self-efficacy during the semester and performance on exams. They tested the relationship between the two with a reciprocal causation model. This model showed a reciprocal relationship between self-efficacy and exam performance.

Additionally, exam performance was dependent upon the performance on the first exam, which matches the fact that the initial exam covers fundamental topics necessary for material covered throughout the semester. They also found that self-efficacy developed over time, in addition to being correlated to exam performance.

During Professor Raker’s visit he also met with students in chemistry education and other subdisciplines to discuss his work and path into the field of chemistry education.

On behalf of CSIE|UM, I would like to invite you to attend Dr. Jeff Raker’s seminar Affect in Postsecondary Chemistry Education which will focus his work measuring student affect and evaluating its impact on learning in organic chemistry courses.  Dr. Raker runs a chemistry education research group at the University of South Florida focusing on learning in upper-level courses, specifically organic chemistry, and characterizing chemistry education practices through survey work.

He received his Ph.D. in 2011 from his work with Dr. Marcy Towns at Purdue University and then did a post-doc at Iowa State University for until 2013.  Since then he has been an assistant professor in chemistry at the University South Florida.

The seminar will be Friday, October 13th from 12-1 pm followed by an open session for questions from 1-2 in Chem 1706.  Lunch will be provided.

If you are interested in attending the seminar, please RSVP at this link by the end of next Wednesday, Oct 11.

Thanks and we hope to see you there,

Solaire Finkenstaedt-Quinn, Ph. D.
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Chemistry
Sweetland Center for Writing

The Chemistry Graduate Student Professional Development Organizations, CSIE|UM (Chemical Science at the Interface of Education at UM) and CALC|UM (Chemistry Aligned with Life and Career at UM), hosted the 3^rd Annual Alumni Reception on Thursday, August 3rd from 12 noon to 6 pm, in advance of the Karle Symposium the following day.

The day began with an Alumni Panel from 12-1:30pm on the broad topic of “How Michigan Prepared You for the Future.” The panelists including Zachary Buchan – Research Chemist at Dow AgroScience, Betsy Brown-Tseng – Research Chemist at PPG, Sethu Pitchiaya – Research Investigator at UM Department of Pathology, and Beth Kubitskey – Associate Dean at EMU. The event drew more than 60 graduate students eager to ask questions of the alumni about their experiences and expertise. In response to how UM uniquely prepared them for their careers today, panelists discussed benefitting from the department’s state of the art research opportunities, the help from office and support staff, the collaborative environment, and the opportunities for outreach and presentation.

Then, from 2-4pm, a Mock Speed Interviewing Session was conducted for senior graduate students to interact with alumni in both academic and industrial jobs. The event allowed graduate students to get experience and feedback on their job interviewing skills from alumni, some of whom are the industrial recruiters they will be meeting with later in the semester. Alumni from academic positions at EMU and UM participated along with alumni from industrial positions at BMS, Merck, Dow, and PPG.

The Alumni Reception began at 4 pm in the Radical Room of the Chemistry building. Light hors d’oeuvres, delicious desserts, and various refreshments were provided to welcome the alumni to a reception to mix, mingle, and network with former lab members, advisors, and current graduate students. The alumni, graduate students, and professors involved had a wonderful time catching up and telling stories.

Preparation for the 4^th Annual Alumni Reception are underway.

August 3, 2017 – 3rd Annual Alumni Reception

A combined CSIE|UM and CALC|UM event will precede the Karle Symposium and will feature guests who are departmental alumni.

Panel 12:00-1:30 (includes lunch)
UM Alumni on How Michigan Prepared Them for the Future
Rm 1706 CHEM

Zachary Buchan – Research Chemist at Dow AgroScience
Betsy Brown-Tseng        – Research Chemist at PPG
Sethu Pitchiaya – Research Investigator at UM Department of Pathology
Beth Kubitskey – Associate Dean at EMU

Speed Interviewing Sessions
2-3 and 3-4 PM

Beth Kubitskey – EMU
Nicholas Babij – Dow
Mike Hay – BMS
Sethu Pitchiaya – UM
Jacqueline Hicks – Merck
Se Ryeon Lee – PPG
Betsy Brown-Tseng -PPG

Sign-up here for the lunch session and here for the interviewing session.