Last Update: January 6, 2009
This document contains general information on how I run my classes. Course-specific information was handed out at the first class meeting, and a copy of this handout is available for each course through the links given below.
As posted, by appointment or whenever my door is open.
Necessary Equipment and Supplies
Please see the individual course syllabi for required and recommended textbooks, laboratory notebook and safety equipment.
Laboratory Notebook A laboratory notebook is required for all laboratory courses and for courses with a laboratory component. See the course-specific syllabus for more details on what is required for a particular class, or follow this link for general information on the laboratory notebook. Note that a regular spiral-bound notebooks are unacceptable as laboratory notebooks!
Safety Equipment All students in laboratory courses must purchase safety goggles that meet the ANSI Z87 or Z87.1 safety standard. Safety goggles and proper attire are to be worn at all times in the laboratory. Proper attire includes closed shoes, long pants and a shirt that provides upper body coverage equivalent to that of a T-shirt. Shorts, sandals/clogs, and any shirt that does not cover the upper arms or midriff are not to be worn to lab. Inappropriately attired people will not be allowed in lab and will not be allowed to make up the missed time. Please see the ChemLab safety page for more information on laboratory safety.
Calculator A hand-held, non-programmable scientific calculator (i. e., it can perform logarithms, scientific notation and exponentials) is required. In general, if the display is less than 2 cm high, the calculator is acceptable. Graphing calculators are usually okay, too, but anything that can store large amounts of data (either numerically or as text) are not. If you are in doubt, ask. Be sure that you can enter numbers in scientific notation, raise numbers to powers (not the same as scientific notation), take roots, and take the logarithms and the antilogarithms (both base 10 and natural) of numbers. Bring your calculator to all class meetings. No loaner calculators will be available!
Computers You are expected to have general computer skills with a working knowledge of a web browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer and the like), a word processing package (e. g., Word) and a spreadsheet programs (e. g., Excel). Excel will be introduced during the first weeks of CHEM 120, and reviewed in CHEM 121. For classes above the 100-level, it is expected that you will know these programs and selected other programs available on the University's computers (i. e., Mathematica in physical chemistry).
Cell phones, pagers and any other type of messaging devices are not to be brought to class or laboratory. Laptops and PDAs are acceptable in laboratory (except during lab quizzes), but are not to be used in lecture. Accommodating devices for students with disabilities are exempt. However, I ask that any student who has such devices see me before bringing them to class.
Course Requirements
Expectations I expect excellence from myself and from my students. This means work hard, no shortcuts and no excuses.
Students with Disabilities Any student who has a disability that may prevent him/her from fully demonstrating his/her abilities must contact me personally as soon as possible so that we may discuss any necessary accommodations to ensure full participation and facilitate the educational opportunity. If you have a documented learning or other disability, you must contact Disability Services in the Student Affairs Office immediately to assure that your needs are met. I have personal experience with the challenges faced by people with learning and physical disabilities and will work diligently to help you, but I must be notified through official channels before I can make any accomodations. I routinely monitor student performance for signs of undiagnosed learning disabilities and will talk with students with whom I have concerns.
Attendance You are required to attend all regularly scheduled lectures and the laboratory section to which you are assigned. Attendance will not be taken during lectures, but will be taken in laboratory. However, I do notice when people are absent, present but in no condition to participate in class, or simply move to a different seat in the room. Choosing not to attend class will put your grade for the course in jeopardy and can have a negative effect on students whose grade is below a letter grade cut-off (vide supra).
Exams For 100-level courses my exams are usually one-hour, in-class exams that are worth 100 points each. In these courses the lowest exam grade is usually dropped. In upper-level courses, the exams may be any combination of take-home and in-class exams, with all exams counting toward the final grade. An in-class exam will consist of no more than about 20% short-answer questions (multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blanks, etc.) and longer “word problems”, where you will need to explain something in writing, or work a problem. Take-home exams have no short-answer questions. The best students will find the exams challenging; unprepared students will find the exams impossible. See the individual course syllabi for more details. Examples of old exams, when available, are posted on individual class web pages.
Quizzes Weekly quizzes (each worth 10 points) are given in the 100-level courses and may be given in upper-level courses. The quiz problems will be taken primarily from the chapter under discussion, but they may include older material and there may be essay questions. Problems may be assigned beforehand and included as part of the quiz. If more than ten quizzes are given, then only the ten highest quizzes will count toward the course grade. If less than ten quizzes are given, the lowest quiz score will be dropped. When old quizzes are available they will be posted on the class web page. The course-specific information page will give more details on scheduling, topic coverage and quiz format for a particular course.
Final Exam When a multiple-choice American Chemical Society (ACS) standardized exam is used as the final exam for a course, the final exam grade will be the percentile score plus 100 for a maximum score of 200. If an ACS exam is not available, I will prepare (at my discretion) a comprehensive final that I will grade as a regular exam, except that the point total will be 200. In some courses I may have a take-home final or project that takes the place of an in-class final exam. Please refer to your course's web page for more information on which format will be used in your course.
Laboratory The laboratory grade will be based on your laboratory notebook, your results, and as appropriate, formal laboratory reports and laboratory quizzes. For classes in which the laboratory is integrated with a lecture (CHEM 100, CHEM 120, CHEM 121 and CHEM 475) the laboratory portion will be some fraction of the total grade (usually 20%). The grading scheme for the laboratory portion of a particular course is given on its web page.
Miscellaneous Exercises Out-of-class assignments (a. k. a. homework) may be made at various times during the semester. These are usually graded out of 100 points, but how they figure into a final course grade depends on the course; see your course syllabus for more information.
Homework It is expected that you will work the end-of-chapter problems in the text (most textbooks provide answers to half of the end-of-chapter questions in the back and work them out more fully in a study guide or solutions manual). Quizzes will be based on these problems, but I generally do not collect or grade these problems. You are responsible for doing this work outside of class and then asking questions about it. See the Homework Section of your class's web page for more assistance on making the most of your homework.
Make-ups No make-up exams, quizzes or laboratories will be given without a valid reason and my pre-approval. If you cannot take a regularly-scheduled exam or quiz, or must miss lab for a valid reason, you must see me in advance so that arrangements may be made. Valid reasons include traveling with university-sponsored organizations, illness and death in the family. Persons traveling with a university-sponsored organization must bring me the form that is provided to each participant. If a sudden, unexpected event causes you to miss an exam, quiz or lab, contact the Student Affairs Office and they will contact me. Under these circumstances you should also leave me an e-mail or voice mail message, or arrange for a friend to inform me personally. Upon your return to campus you must talk with me about the missed assignments.
Promptness "Early is on time, on time is late and late is unacceptable." No athlete would show up at game time and expect to just start playing. Athletes come early to warm up and mentally prepare themselves for the game; you must have the same work ethic. I do not generally take attendance in lecture, but I do notice who is chronically late, and that can have a negative affect on the grade of someone at a cut-off (vide supra). In addition, most class announcements are given at the start of class, and some may not be repeated or posted on the class web page. Missing an important announcement can be detrimental to your grade. I do take attendance in laboratory and will penalize the tardy. The information given at the start of laboratory is too important to your safety for you to miss, and therefore a significant penalty is assessed on people who are late.
Late Penalties Late assignments will be penalized 20% of the point total for the assignment per calendar day. Materials more than five days late will receive a grade of zero. But if you are having problems, please come to see me; we can work something out.
Extra Credit Extra credit/bonus assignments may be made to the class as a whole at the instructor’s discretion. However, in general there are ample opportunities for a student to earn points and so extra credit is not needed. No individual extra credit opportunities will be available.
Time Commitment The average student will spend at least 2 hours per week per hour spent in class on a chemistry course outside of the regular class meeting times. This means that for CHEM 120 and CHEM 121, which have four hours of lecture and three hours of laboratory per week, a student will work 14 hours per week outside of class. You will need to spend more time if your chemistry and/or math background is weak, or if you want to get the highest grade that you possibly can. For upper-level courses your time commitment may approach 30 hours per week, again depending on the strength of your background and what grade you want to receive. Remember that you are a professional student, and a professional routinely works 60+ hours per week.
Is it going to be on the Test? You are responsible for all material presented in lecture, in the text and in laboratory (unless otherwise announced). After CHEM 120, I expect you to know everything covered in previous courses, and thus everything is fair game on exams in advanced courses.
Special Consideration I am a reasonable and understanding person and will endeavor, so far as in my power lies, to accommodate a student with a special request, such as taking a quiz early/late. However, I do have my limits. For example, do not expect to take a quiz late when you ask to do so in class on the day of the quiz (obviously, I would be okay if you were suddenly taken ill). Before you consider asking for special treatment you should be aware that it has been my experience that students who continuously ask to take quizzes at another time or turn in assignments late are in trouble. If you find yourself asking for special treatment over and over again, please come in and talk with me so that we can work something out.
In general, quizzes are about 15%, exams 30%, the final 20%, the laboratory 25% and the miscellaneous assignments 10% of the final grade. This is, however, subject to change (see course specifics for the percentages in your class).
If there are 1000 points possible in the semester, and assuming an average of 700 points and a standard deviation (s) of 100, the grading scheme shown below will be used to determine the final letter grade for the course. If the actual average is significantly different than 700, the grading scale may be adjusted at the instructor’s discretion. The cut-off for a particular grade will never be raised, only lowered. If it is numerically easier to make the points for a course not total 1000. In that case, I will simply multiply the grading scale by a constant (see your course's syllabus for the actual grading scale used in your class).
| Grade | Total Points Earned | Cut-off |
| A | > 900 | average + 2s |
| B | 800 – 899 | average + s |
| C | 700 – 799 | average |
| D | 600 – 699 | average - s |
| F | < 600 |
A student whose grade is below a cut-off by 20 points (with a 1000 points total) or less will be considered for the next higher grade. The criteria for promotion include final exam score, a student’s class participation (includes promptness), a general increase in quiz and/or exam grades over the semester, laboratory citizenship, and attitude (in that order). This 20-point criterion may decrease, if the grade cut-offs were lowered.
I generally reserve the A grade for exemplary students who have distinguished themselves by their knowledge and understanding of the material, their diligence in the course, and their all-around excellence. It is an honor to earn an A and I expect students to earn it. You should note that I have no statistical obligation to give more than 10% of the class an A, but that I will give an A to everyone who earns it or to no one if nobody earns it. For my CHEM 120/121 classes the average scores have been in the 780-820 range, which means most students earn a B or a C (usually more Bs than Cs). For upper-level classes I expect the average to be higher and that the majority of students will earn an A or a B. However, do not assume that just because you are in an upper-level class (or any class) that you are guaranteed a certain grade. I use the entire grading scale and will assign grades based on what you have earned.
You are encouraged to work with other students in the class and to talk about the material. However, each student must do their own work on all exams, quizzes and in their laboratory notebooks, while laboratory reports that are written as a group are expected to have equal contributions from all group members. Failure to abide by these guidelines constitutes academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to using crib notes, using old laboratory data or reports, falsification of data, turning in another’s work as your own or using another’s words or work without attribution (e. g., copying the procedure directly from the laboratory manual or putting someone's name on a laboratory report without them contributing to writing the report). The punishment for academic dishonesty will be at my discretion and may range from a grade of zero for the work in question to an F in the course, or other punishment according the University’s guidelines.
Federal Education Records Protection Act (FERPA)
In accordance with FERPA, I do not post grades or send grades over the internet. I am happy to discuss your grade with you, and how you think you're doing in class; just stop by or make an appointment. FEPRA also requires that no graded materials be returned to students in bulk, without a student's permission. A waiver form for this purpose was included in the materials handed out at the first class meeting. Unless you indicated that it is okay for me to return graded papers to you in a stack with everyone else's, I will return all of your graded materials to you personally. If you want to change how I return your papers to you, just print out a copy of the form, make the appropriate changes and give it to me.