Electronic advancements of recent years have placed a challenge to undergraduate chemistry faculty to incorporate the use of modern chemical instrumentation into the undergraduate laboratories. To meet this challenge, undergraduate faculty members need to understand better the use and capabilities of modern instrumentation. This project addresses this need to update two-year college faculty in the area of chemical instrumentation. This project is a three-year effort which continues a successful Instrumentation Workshop currently funded by NSF. We have made modifications to the content of some of the workshops to respond to the changing needs of two-year college chemistry faculty. The existing coalition consists of East Coast (Northern Virginia Community College and George Mason University.), Midwest (Sinclair Community College and the University of Dayton), and West Coast (Shoreline Community College and Western Washington University). A one-week workshops will be offered during the summer. Instruction will focus on undergraduate general and organic chemistry, introduction to instrumental analysis and associate degree chemical technology course applications. The goal of this project is to train a total of 72 chemistry faculty from two-year colleges across the United States on the theory, techniques, and laboratory use of state-of-the-art chemical instrumentation. Two-year college chemistry faculty will select instruction in the following areas: Fourier-transform infrared, ultraviolet/visible diode array, gas chromatography/mass spectroscopies, vapor phase and high performance liquid chromatography, computerized data acquisition and treatment, multimedia approaches to chemical education, and environmental chemistry.
