Rationale: Our students believe a sufficient understanding of chemistry and biochemistry will naturally occur by memorizing facts to pass exams. At some levels this is correct, but does little to instill an awareness of the outside world where these facts have made significant contributions to science. Despite the textbooks' attempts to interject worldly examples, the students often remain naive about the impact that chemistry and biochemistry has on them. This lack of appreciation and curiosity may be attributed to the non-reading habits of students. Nevertheless, our students will become more excited about science and remain in the School if we have achieved these teaching goals.

Rationale: The decline in the amount of time our students spend doing homework and their lack of good time management skills has been observed by our faculty for many years. As a consequence, the sum and quality of knowledge that our students receive is eroding. We envisioned introducing online graded homework with deadlines as a way to increase understanding of the subject. By linking the homework performance to their final grade, we hoped to raise our student’s knowledge base.

Rationale: The Environmental Science Major is in its third year and many students are opting for this major. As such, additional laboratory space will be needed to accommodate current and new faculty and their students conducting research.

Rationale: The Department has recently seen an upward trend in the number of biochemistry majors. As such, additional laboratory space will be needed to accommodate the students. In addition, the Department’s new biochemistry faculty member will, unlike his predecessor, conduct student-focused research on campus and research space is needed.