Editor's Notes
Greetings Chemistry!
We are already halfway through the semester and the change of seasons has been quite visible these last few weeks! I took an opportunity to walk the areas surrounding the Chemistry Building and snapped some photos that really exude the vibrancy of autumn here at University Park campus. It is a reminder of how lucky we are to witness the gradual and beautiful changes of nature throughout the year.
This edition of the newsletter includes a message from the Department Head, an alum interview, department happenings, a message from the GSA, and Jackie Bortiatynski's Teaching Corner. If you wish to have a story shared in a future newsletter, please contact me at chemcommunications@psu.edu.
Kathryn Harlow, Communications Coordinator
A Message From The Department Head
Little Communities
Dear Chemistry Colleagues,
We pride our department on not having formal divisions between research areas. This distinction is long standing and dates back to before I joined the department 25 years ago. While we have not erected fences between our research areas, we have built little communities within the department. One of the most successful has been that of our world-renowned bioinorganic community. These researchers are located proximal to each other, on the 3rd and 2nd floors of our building.
As I’ve had the privilege of leading the department over the last four and a half years, I’ve taken inspiration from this team and tried to replicate its community building in our different areas. We’ve been fortunate to enhance our computational community, materials community, and organic community. As much as possible, we have located these individuals proximal to one another to enhance interaction. I truly believe that the synergy of these groups will be transformative. I lean on the senior members of each group to support and lead their junior members, and to assist the younger members in all aspects of their jobs-research, teaching, and service.
I’ve extended this notion of little communities to my own research group, wherein senior students mentor younger ones and lead by example. Jackie Bortiatynski and Dan Sykes have promoted learning communities to our undergraduates as well. This has enhanced the sense of belonging amongst our majors, which has led to high performance in the classroom and research labs. Recently, Dan Sykes told me that the number of chemistry majors has nearly doubled over the last few years; no doubt because of these efforts. Finally, I see community building within our staff in the formal and chance meetings I witness on a daily basis.
Connections are essential to our success as a department and to our very well-being. I’ve been promoting informal monthly lunches to build communities. Today, we had a brown bag lunch with faculty and it was the highlight of my day. I can’t remember the last time that a bunch of us gathered without an agenda. We laughed and caught up on each other's activities, and of course we started talking science. The open style of the interactions was altogether refreshing. It is essential that we create a department that feels like home, where we all belong. This is our secret power as a department and I am confident it will lead to great things that none of us can even manage today.
Best Regards,
Phil Bevilacqua
Department Happenings
Undergraduate Recognitions
Congratulations to Kueyoung Kim and Ryan Lai for winning first and second prizes in the Physical Sciences division of the Eberly College of Science Undergraduate Fall Poster Session!
Kueyoung Kim is a second year chemistry student currently doing research in the Zarzar Lab. He presented a poster titled "Using shear stress to drive Diels-Alder cycloaddition".
Ryan Lai is a fourth year chemistry student currently doing research in the Kuo Lab. His poster was titled "Bronsted Basic Auxiliary Enables Synthesis of Aza-Quaternary Centers".
A Message from the Graduate Student Association (GSA)
On behalf of Vice-President Kara Pytko:
Hello everyone! It’s been an amazing month and I’m here to share some things we have accomplished. In the month of October, we have hosted many tailgates where we provided delicious grilled food and fun games, held an outreach event at the Schlow Library, had several students participate in Lion Lectures, hosted a movie night to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, engaged in a Zoom panel discussion with GSK scientists on careers and research, hosted an Industry Career Panel + Individual Breakout Session with Panelists from MRSEC, and more!
Please mark your calendars for our 2023 Graduate Chemistry Open Houses:
Saturday, February 18th - 9:00am- 12:00pm (virtual) with faculty appointments the following week.
Friday, March 3rd & Saturday, March 4th - Time TBD, (in-person) at the Scholar Hotel.
Follow us on Instagram (psuchemgsa), Twitter (@ChemGSA_PSU), Facebook (PSU Chemistry GSA) and LinkedIn (Penn State Chemistry Alumni) for more updates.
GSA Executive Board 2022-2023: Ryan Szukalo, President | Kara Pytko, Vice President | Theresa Buckley, Secretary | Maddy Helm, Treasurer | Mary Kate Caucci, Professional Development Chair | Haley Young, Outreach Chair | Olivia Peduzzi, External Liaison
The Teaching Corner with Jackie
Exploring the transition between high school and college STEM courses.
This month I would like to highlight a recent seminar hosted by the Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE). Through a collaborative effort with the Department of Biology, CESE was able to co-host Michelle Smith, Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University for a two-day visit. I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to meet Michelle because I have been a long-time consumer and translator of her educational research. Michelle’s work includes studies on how students learn biology, STEM faculty development, and most recently how students transition from high school to university level STEM courses.
Michelle’s talk for the CESE community was titled “Exploring the transition between high school and college STEM courses: What are students' perspectives and how do faculty approach instruction?” The research questions she addresses in this talk include: 1.) What predictions and concerns do students have about how-in-class time will be used in their introductory college STEM courses? 2.) How do instructors utilize the first day of class to set up the learning environment in these courses? 3.) Are students perceiving the messages that instructors share, and if so, how does this influence their attitudes in a course?
It is no secret my work in teaching First-Year Seminar has led me to think about all these questions. I feel in many ways that gaining knowledge on how students make the transition to our first-year courses has been the missing link for many of us. We want to support our first-year first semester students, but sometimes we are boxing in the dark when it comes to understanding the experience. In Michelle’s talk she shared what she and her collaborators have captured from students what they are thinking and doing. She also shared research-based practices that we can use on the first day of class to begin building community, trust, and rapport with our students. If you missed the talk, I wanted to share this information with you, and if you attended the talk but may want to see it again, here is the link to the recording. The things we do and say on the first day of class have a tremendous impact on the building of relationships with our students. I hope you find Michelle’s work helpful. I have included a short bibliography of her research articles that I think are most relevant for all of us as we all strive to increase our teaching effectiveness:
Smith MK, Wood WB, Krauter K, Knight JK. “Combining peer discussion with instructor explanation increases student learning from in-class concept questions.” CBE-Life Sciences Education. 2011 Spring; 10(1):55-63. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.10-08-0101
Smith MK, Jones FHM, Gilbert SL, Wieman C. “The Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS): a new instrument to characterize university STEM classroom practices.” CBE-Life Sciences Education. 2013 Winter, 12(4):618-627. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.13-08-0154
Freeman S, Eddy SL, McDonough M, Smith MK, Okoroafor N, Jordt H, Wenderoth MP. “Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2014 11(23):8410-8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111
Meaders C, Lane AK, Morozov AI, Shuman JK, Toth E, Stains M, Stetzer MR, Vinson E, Couch BA, Smith MK. “Undergraduate student concerns in introductory STEM courses: What they are, how they change, and what influences them.” Journal for STEM Education Research. 2020 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41979-020-00031-1
Meaders C, Smith MK, Boester T, Bracy A, Couch BA, Drake AG, Farooq S, Khoda B, Kinsland C, Lane AK, Lindahl SE, Livingston WH, Maliwal A, McCormick A, Morozov AI, Newell-Caito JL, Ruskin KJ, Sarvary MA, Stains M, St. Juliana JR, Thomas SR, van Es C, Vinson EL, Vitousek MN, Stetzer MR. “What questions are on the minds of STEM undergraduate students and how can they be addressed?” Frontiers in Education. 2021 https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2021.639338
Lane AK, Meaders C, Shuman JK, Stetzer MR, Vinson E, Couch BA, Smith MK, Stains M. “Making a first impression: Exploring what instructors do and say on the first day of introductory STEM courses.” CBE-Life Sciences Education. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.20-05-0098
Meaders C, Senn LG, Couch BA, Lane AK, Stains M, Stetzer MR, Vinson E, Smith MK. “Am I getting through? Surveying students on what messages they recall from the first day of STEM classes.” International Journal of STEM Education. 2021 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00306-y
Take care,
Jackie