9350968 Watkins A consortium of four metropolitan Birmingham colleges and universities is using a high field Fourier Transform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (FT-NMR) spectrometer to significantly impact and modernize its undergraduate chemistry curricula and laboratory programs and enhance the existing cooperative course offerings and joint undergraduate student/faculty research collaborations. The hands-on use of a shared routine, multinuclear NMR facility by chemistry undergraduates at Birmingham Southern College, Samford University, the University of Montevallo, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham is being strengthened by a consortium electronic linkage that permits interactive data processing and retrieval, spectral library searches, and efficient management of the shared FT-NMR facility. The FT-NMR is having a profound impact on organic, sophomore and senior inorganic, and physical chemistry, and instrumental analysis courses in the consortium. A special emphasis is being placed on providing high quality undergraduate research experiences for chemistry majors and NSF-AMP research interns.
