Editor's Notes
Greetings Chemistry!
Happy New Year! With a new semester underway, the Penn State Department of Chemistry has already been very busy. Numerous faculty and students have been nominated or received various awards and honors. Research is in full swing with grants received and groups highlighted. Visiting speakers from many different universities are lined up for seminars. Our department is fully staffed. The department instagram account has officially reached over 1,000 followers. We are off to a great start this new year!
This month marks 1 year since I began my role as Chemistry's Communication Coordinator. I've had the great opportunity to meet and speak with so many of our department members, as well as other college individuals, and our impressive alumni over the last year. I've thoroughly enjoyed being able to help communicate the accomplishments and research within our chemistry community. I look forward to working even more with you all over the next year!
This edition of the newsletter includes the Freedman Group Lab Profile, recent department happenings, a message from the Department Head and 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
Embracing Joy
Dear Chemistry Colleagues,
New Year’s has never been my favorite time of year. Each year I try to come up with resolutions. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it is to improve myself or maybe to give some purpose to my life. This year I came up with three rather uninspired choices: don’t waste food, don’t take things personally, and do a sit-up without anyone holding my feet. Indeed, I have been working on all three. I read that the single most-important and easiest thing we can do to save the environment is to not waste food. Throwing away food wastes precious resources and leads to production of methane--the ultimate greenhouse gas. Not taking things personally is something I’ve been working on my whole life. I’ve been told that 99% of it isn’t personal, and I’ve truly gotten better at this. And it always gets under my skin when I can’t do the (many) sit-ups without anchoring my feet at my Saturday morning bootcamp class. So, I thought this was a nice, albeit rather mundane, set of resolutions. Then I started reading articles about Pelé, the brilliant Brazilian soccer player who recently passed away.
I attended a small high school that didn’t have football, so soccer was our thing. I remember watching Pelé play on TV, noting his skill including his famous bicycle kicks. Brazil and Paris Saint-Germain superstar Neymar said “Pelé transformed football into art”, and I couldn’t agree more. But what really stuck with me, and what I was reminded of most in reading the articles about Pelé, was his pure childlike joy in playing soccer. Writers say Pelé was so good that he could simply play with joy. Richard Williams, in comparing Pelé to Maradona and other famous soccer players wrote, “What Pelé radiated was simpler – and made a more instant appeal to the eye and the heart: it was the quality of joy.” Rob Hughes wrote, “He exudes, in many ways, the joy that we sometimes despair of sustaining in rising generations.” And Rory Smith wrote of Pelé’s “inventiveness, expertise and the sheer joy that were the hallmarks of a player who was cherished as much for how he did things as for what he did.”
So I changed my New Year’s Resolutions. Yes, I am still trying to waste less food (I ate the last bit of chili for lunch today), I’m trying to not take things personally, and I’m working on that free sit-up. But my real goal is to be more joyous. I think that would be good for all of us: to remember that we are privileged to be in this department and to come to work to take on challenges that nourish us. For this we should be joyful!
Best Wishes,
Phil Bevilacqua
Department Happenings
Faculty Awards, Fellowships & Honors
Joe Houck receives the 2022 C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching.
This award recognizes Houck's passion for student learning and his contributions to creating an engaging and valuable education experience. Instituted in 1972 and named in honor of Clarence Noll, Dean of the College from 1965 to 1971, the award is the highest honor for undergraduate teaching in the Eberly College of Science. Congrats!
Faculty Awards, Fellowships & Honors
Ed O’Brien named a Kavli Fellow.
O'Brien, Professor of Chemistry and of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences, will participate in the 33rd US Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium in March in Irvine, California.
This symposium series is the Academy’s premiere activity for distinguished young scientists. Attendees are selected by a committee of National Academy members from among young researchers who have already made recognized contributions to science, including recipients of major national fellowships and awards and who have been identified as future leaders in science. Congrats!
On Behalf of the Chemistry Climate and Diversity Committee
Chemistry's Amy Solinski and Ryan Lai nominated for the 2022 Dean's Climate and Diversity Award.
These nominations recognize their outstanding contributions to our community.
Amy Solinski is a postdoctoral fellow in the Booker lab. She is involved in several DEI initiatives for the Department of Chemistry and the Eberly College of Science, including our department's celebration of Women's History Month. Her community-building efforts during her PhD studies were also recognized previously by a Younger Chemists Committee Leadership Development Award.
Ryan Lai is a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in Chemistry. He is currently a member of the Kuo lab. His many contributions to the department include serving as the president of the Nittany Chemical Society and impactful work as a learning assistant for First-Year Seminar in Chemistry.
A Message from the Graduate Student Association (GSA)
On behalf of Vice-President Kara Pytko:
Welcome Back! The GSA recently hosted a trivia night at the Graduate Hotel downtown State College. The winners received a gift card for the local business of their choice. You can check out all our upcoming outreach events below:
With the Chemistry Open Houses (both virtual and in-person) upon us, the GSA encourages graduate students and post-docs to welcome prospective students to Penn State and interact with them as much as possible! We are very excited for another successful recruiting season!
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
Teaching Corner with Jackie
Group Work
It is hard to believe that we have completed Week 3 of the semester. I hope everyone is doing well.
Many of us ask our students to work in groups. We feel strongly that collaboration is a great way to support learning. It can promote discussion and help students reflect on their own understanding. In support of preparing students for these group activities, many of us have been very thoughtful in the way we assign groups and specific roles for the group members to help promote interactions. One thing I had not considered as part of the preparation process was to address the importance of helping my students develop a sense of trust and rapport with their group members. If you think about what we ask groups of students to do in our classes (often including solving problems that are new to them), then we should not be surprised when they do not function in a productive manner. If we step back and put ourselves in their shoes, we too would likely be uncomfortable sharing ideas we are unsure of with people we do not know or trust.
The question becomes: How do we build trust between students and create a sense of connection with the group members? In recent years, I have turned to two sources of literature to guide me in beginning this process. Susan Russell’s Moral Moments curriculum has taught me the importance of having a course social agreement and regular check-ins with my students. The social agreement is agreed upon by everyone in the class and sets the boundaries for all interactions. The Moral Moments curriculum also taught me that I need to be intentional in creating opportunities for my students to find a point of connection outside of the course material. The check-ins are short questions for them to respond to, and I allow everyone to see the collective answers. This process allows students to see that there are others with similar thoughts, problems, and achievements. My second recourse comes from the Student Experience Project. I have learned from this resource that sending messages of social belonging can help students feel included in a community and it helps to normalize the challenges faced when engaging in class activities.
After putting these strategies to into practice, I also encourage my students to think about the attributes (qualities) they bring to any group interaction. After all, we want our students to work together rather than having one or two people lead while the others follow. I have discovered it is important to help students reflect on their attributes in order to realize that not everyone values the same qualities. Recently, an international student shared an activity with me that she had done in the Netherlands as part of class focused on increasing group effectiveness. She introduced me to the Ofman Core Quality Quadrant. It was created by Daniel Ofman who is a people behavior expert and management consultant in the Netherlands. His quadrant tool can help people identify qualities and how their interactions, if not recognized, can lead to group disfunction. After doing some research, I found some example activities using this quadrant and created one of my own for my students in First Year Seminar, PSU 016.
Here is an example of how I have used the core qualities quadrant with my class: First, I ask my students to think about a core (valued) quality they have that would be beneficial for them to display when they are doing work in their project group (e.g. organized). Then I ask them to think about how that same quality could be taken to its extreme. Ofman calls this the pitfall (e.g. perfectionist). In the next step, I ask students to think about the positive opposite of the pitfall quality (e.g. detail oriented). This is called the challenge. The pitfall and challenge qualities should be complementary; achieving a balance between the two could be a good goal. Finally, I ask my students to consider the direct opposite of their chosen core quality. This is what Ofman calls the allergy (e.g. free thinking). The allergy is a quality that drives you crazy when you work with others who exhibit it. I ask the students to think about what it would be like to work in their group with someone who values this allergy quality. The students then discuss the interplay of these qualities and look at the proposed connectivity Ofman shares in his quadrant model, especially the relationship between the core and the allergy behaviors. Asking students to reflect on these relationships can be very helpful in getting them to be aware of their own behaviors and how they impact others. I also ask them to think about the differences we have in valuing behavioral qualities through a lens of diversity. I ask them to consider how we can use our spectrum of qualities to bring new ideas to life.
I hope these ideas have spark some new activities you may want to try with your students to help develop a sense of trust, rapport, and respect when working in groups. If so, let’s share! I would love to talk about other methods you may have to help students build trust, make connections, and work effectively together as a group or team.
Take care,
Jackie Bortiatynski