Meeting the state-of-the-practice in chemical instrumentation

CHED 1811

Alexander Grushow, grushow@rider.edu, Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry & Physics, Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Rd., Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
The focus of this talk will be two arguments we have used to obtain expensive chemical instrumentation for use exclusively by undergraduates. For many small institutions being able to train students on the use of chemical instrumentation is a very costly venture given the number of students a small program might have to use an expensive instrument. At larger institutions, costly instrumentation may be reserved for research purposes only, similarly depriving undergraduates of important experience and training. At our institution, we have used the argument that our students must be exposed to the state-of-the-practice in chemical instrumentation to appropriately prepare our students for advancement into the chemical workplace. We have been able acquire new NMR, LC/MS, UV/Vis and GC instrumentation from various sources using an appropriate balance of justification of what the instrumentation will provide our course programs and our research programs.