Current and Retired  Members of the ACU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry April 2012

The members of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry are who brought me to ACU. I feel indebted to them for the ways they have helped and served me over the years. I, in turn, try to serve the department in any way I can, whether it be in the more formal ways listed below or informal ways such as helping set up for meals or filling in teaching a class. To me, service is just part of being in a department.

Formal Departmental Service Roles

Departmental Schedules 2011 – Present

Starting Fall 2011, I began drafting the overall departmental schedule. This involves consulting with the department chair and others to decide what classes need to be taught, finding who has course load reductions, and what classes people would like and are best suited to teach. I also try to leave faculty consistent blocks of time to do research. Because I enjoy puzzles, I find this task mostly fun.

Graduate School Preparation 2004 – 2012

During my first year at ACU, I observed that the students in the sciences who were applying to graduate school did not have the support that our pre-health students have.  I think this is because we all assume since we went to graduate school, that they will just come ask us for help.  However this does not seem to be the case and the students who are not pre-health sometimes feel left out.  Seeing this, I decided to try to develop a pre-graduate school program.

I generally met with students once or twice a year to talk to them about the application process for graduate school and/or for summer internships.  I made a graduate school information sheet for students that have an application time line, information about writing an application essay, and GRE information.  I also arranged for students to have their personal statements read by someone from their field.

When Dr. Sarah Lee joined the department in January 2011 we began working on this together. We developed a list of questions to help students prepare for interviews. As my responsibilities grew at the University level, Dr. Lee has taken over this work.