Department Service
Our department has been so successful in implementing an assessment plan that our chair is regularly invited to make assessment presentations at other universities.
The department supports its faculty members who are very involved in serving others. Examples include participation in "Chemagination Day" and "Reaching for the Stars" programs for children, setting up experiments for the Alliance for Minority Participation Program (AMP), travelling to the community colleges to help under-represented ethnic students transfer to CSUS, holding office hours in the Science Educational Equity office, assisting in research at the Sacramento Heart Association (a local physicians group) making presentations to elementary, middle, and high schools. In addition, faculty members have spent hours helping students apply to health professional schools, coordinating student organizations such as the Multicultural Organization of Science Students and the Pre-Health Professional Student Organization.
Our faculty have been very active in the Science Olympiad held at CSUS every spring. Our "Wine Appreciation and Its Chemistry" course has filled for each of the past 22 years, primarily by wine experts and neophytes from the community. Near the end of each fall semester, the students pick grapes in the Napa valley and make several gallons of quite good wine.
We also provide support to our Chemistry club that has received national honors from the American Chemical Society. Students do a variety of outreach activities, including hands-on activities for children at Sunrise Mall during National Chemistry Week, presentations at SCATS (Schools and Colleges for Advancing the Teaching of Science) meetings, hands on activities for elementary schools, demonstrations at River City Days, and helped with undergraduate activities which enhance students' ability to provide service to the community.
