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Research Summary
The home of the core curriculum, a rigorous set of required general education liberal arts courses taken by all our students, Columbia University is a place where undergraduate teaching is extremely important. Yet as a major research institution with a particularly research active faculty in chemistry, Columbia is also in an excellent position to develop a chemistry curriculum of the highest professional quality while meeting the needs of non-science majors, pre-professional students in medical and engineering studies, and science majors. The faculty is also especially sensitive to the human dimensions of science and to matters that belong to the rich history of this department, this university, and to chemistry in America. In October 1998, we celebrated the centennial of the Department in the modern era, coinciding with the conferring of landmark status on Havemeyer Hall by the American Chemical Society.
Features of undergraduate studies in chemistry include intensive honors courses for first-year students in general and organic chemistry, computational chemistry and molecular modeling, and undergraduate research, an ongoing activity for as long as anyone can remember that all our chemistry and biochemistry majors participate in. Rabi Scholars in chemistry are supported for four years, including summers, allowing them to begin research at the earliest possible moment in their undergraduate careers.
The EDISON Project for Communicating Chemistry provides opportunities for students to work closely with faculty in developing new and innovative instructional software such as IR Tutor. It also provides unique opportunities for post-doctoral students interested in learning these skills and techniques while gaining teaching experience.
Recently, we presented at:
(1) Pittsburgh (Pittcon) Conference in Atlanta (March 1997): Theory and Practice of Modern Infrared Spectroscopy. DRIFT - An Interactive, Software-driven Introduction.
(2) ACS Meeting in San Francisco (April1997): VizCHEM-Visualizing Chemistry Beyond IR Tutor.
(3) ACS Meeting in San Francisco (April 1997): IntegratiON of Computational Chemistry, Molecular Modeling and Visualization in the Undergraduate Curriculum.
(4) ACS Meeting in Cancun, Mexico (November 1997): Instructional Software for Teaching and Learning - The Next Generation.
Available Software, Books, Manuals, and Reprints 1. IR Tutor: An Infrared Tutorial. 2. Chemistry: For Engineers and Scientists. 3. Lecture Outlines on Infrared and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. 4. Workshop Experiments in Infrared and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. 5. Novel Experiments and Modules for Lecture Demonstrations: Alfin Catalyst-initiated Polymerization of Butadiene. Polyacrylate Polymer Composite Materials. The Incandescent Electric Light Bulb. 6. Lessons from History... and Chemistry Lessons. 7. One Hundred Years of Chemistry at Columbia.
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