2008 Assessment Report for the 
Graduate Program in Chemistry at
Cleveland State University

INTRODUCTION	

The Chemistry Graduate Program has many components.  Students may pursue both the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, on either a full- or part-time basis.  The M.S. degree consists of the traditional master’s degree, but a non-traditional “course work” M.S. degree is also offered.  The course work master’s degree greatly benefits those students pursuing the degree on a part-time basis.  The Department offers the Ph.D. degree in Clinical-Bioanalytical Chemistry.  This is a joint program with the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic.  Ph.D. students also have the opportunity to pursue certification in Clinical Chemistry or a specialization in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, which greatly enhance the student’s skills, knowledge, and employability. 

Faculty Demographics
There are 14 tenure track faculty in the Department representing five areas of chemistry: Analytical (Bayachou, Guo, Turner, Xu); Clinical (Anderson, Kalafatis, Wei, Zhou); Inorganic (Duraj); Organic (Masnovi, Sun); and Physical (Ball, Gogonea, Ng).  Twenty-nine researchers from the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic hold Cleveland Clinic faculty appointments. The Department also has 16 adjunct faculty and nine part-time lecturers, and one postdoctoral fellow.  

The chemistry faculty continues the partnerships described in assessment reports of previous years.  The Clinical Chemistry program has a history of extensive collaboration with the Pathology Departments at The Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center and other local hospitals, as well as new collaborations that have been forged with doctors from Case Western Reserve University, Barberton Citizens Hospital, and the DDC Clinic for Special Needs Children in Middlefield, Ohio.  Other partnerships outside the scope of clinical chemistry include cooperative projects with scientists at the NASA Glenn Research Center, the Ohio Aerospace Institute, MetroHealth RammelKampCenter for Research, MetroHealth Medical Center, and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.   

Student Demographics 
There were 73 admitted students in the chemistry graduate program during the 2007-2008 academic year.  Of these, 54 are in the Ph.D. program and 18 are in the M.S. program.  Further, 14 of these students are pursuing certification in Clinical Chemistry and 6 are pursuing specialization in Cellular and Molecular Medicine.  Of the 54 Ph.D. students, 9 were performing research at the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic.
 
During the Fall Semester 2007 graduate program application cycle, the Chemistry Graduate Committee considered 68 applications for admission, 34 for admission to the Ph.D. Program and 34 for admission to the M.S. program   

Eleven of these applicants were denied admission due to not meeting admission requirements and an additional 11 never completed their application files.  Of the remaining 46 applicants 22 accepted the admission offers and 22 did not.   For the Ph.D. program, 8 teaching assistants were admitted, 1 research assistant and 1 GAANN Fellow.  

For the current (Fall 2008) application cycle we received 62 applications, 25 for the Ph.D. program and 37 for the M.S. program.  Twenty-one students were offered admission to the Ph.D. program and 29 to the M.S. program.  Seven of the Ph.D. admission offers involved financial support and thus far, four of them have accepted.  One of these will be a GAANN Fellow.  Four of the M.S. program admission offers have been accepted.  Data will not be available until Fall Semester as to which students will actually enroll.  The majority of the M.S. program applications are from international students and it is our experience that few international students enroll unless financial support is awarded.

Seven students received the Ph.D. degree during the period May 2007-May 2008.  All of these students were employed or entering postdoctoral positions upon graduation.  In addition, the M.S. degree was awarded to nine students. 

GOALS

Program Goals

Goal #1	Students attain a fundamental understanding of all areas of modern chemistry and a sophisticated
	knowledge and understanding of a specialized area of modern chemistry.

Goal #2	Students attain a deep understanding of the design and execution of experimental and/or theoretical working in the area of specialization

Goal #3	Students attain a professional-level ability to communicate in chemistry and especially in the
	area of specialization.

Development and Evolution

The Department of Chemistry has benefited from a number of program reviews during the past decade.  These include: internal programs reviews in 1991, 1998 and 2004; a program review of the chemistry doctoral program conducted by the Ohio Board of Regents in 1995.  Program modifications were made based on recommendations from each of these reviews.  

Program goals relating to assessment were developed in direct response to these program reviews and the university assessment mandate.  For the Chemistry Graduate Program, the Graduate Program Director, the Director of Clinical Chemistry and the Chemistry Graduate Committee have been responsible for creating, developing, and implementing Assessment Program Goals, while demographic and supporting information has been supplied by departmental support staff.
Changing departmental administration in the above-named key areas of graduate program assessment, has naturally led to continued analysis and refinement of the department’s assessment goals.    

In academic year 2002-2003, the Graduate Program Director was Dr. Lily Ng.  She chaired the Chemistry Graduate Committee at that time and that committee laid the groundwork for assessment of the graduate program in chemistry.  They developed and created the assessment goals and concrete outcome measures.  

Dr. Michael Kalafatis was the Graduate Program Director in academic year 2003-2004, and that Chemistry Graduate Committee determined that in order to interpret outcome measures as set by the 2003 team, a structure for data collection needed to be created.  As described in the 2004 Chemistry Graduate Program Assessment Report, FINDINGS section, the academic year 2003-2004 was spent in developing a more workable procedure for data collection, establishment of a Graduate Student Profile and Timeline System to track each graduate student from the time he/she enters the program through the terminal degree, and possibly post-graduate career data. Initial data collection resulted in getting students back “on track” in their student careers.  

Dr. Yan Xu became the Graduate Program Director beginning January 2005.  This graduate program administration for 2005-2008 continues to build upon the work of the previous administrations and has focused and improved on the key issues listed below.  

Issue 1.   Review the graduate curriculum and implemented major curricular revisions in both the courses and offerings. 

2005 Focus: 	A significant accomplishment of this year’s Chemistry Graduate Committee was to assess the graduate curriculum.   Based on students’ needs and enrollment statistics, the course offerings were restructured and the credit hour requirements were changed from 22 to 28 credit hours.  The Graduate Program Director revised the course offering strategy to better reflect the curricular needs of the students, and to also coordinate better with the expectations of the Timeline.  Fewer course offerings each semester addressed declining enrollments and course cancellations.  

The course CHM 600/700 Chemistry Teaching , for chemistry graduate teaching assistants, had not been offered for a number of years.  It has  been restructured and now is required for all Teaching Assistants in the Fall and Spring Semesters. 

2006 Update:	Graduate Curricula for the M.S. degree in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Chemistry was revised.  Plans for each degree were created to clearly delineate the structure of each degree program.

2007 Update:	Course offerings continued to be fine tuned.  Several new courses/course sequences were added.  One of these, CHM 690/790, Annual Research Report, was designated to be utilized as a primary assessment tool specifically designed for the Outcomes listed in Goal  #2.  The biochemistry course offering was reorganized and expanded.  The new course CHM 403/503 Biochemistry II was added.  Other courses that were added are:  CHM 507 Environmental Toxicology, CHM 541, Pharmacology I, CHM 542, Pharmacology II, CHM 551 Medicinal Chemistry I, and CHM 552 Medicinal Chemistry II.   

2008 Update: 	The course Annual Research Report (CHM 690/790) was offered for the first time Spring Semester 2008.  Twenty-five students enrolled.  Each student was required to submit an “Annual Research Report” form (attached) including a brief description of their Ph.D. project.  A few students received a grade of Incomplete (“I”) and will complete the requirements during the Summer 2008 semester.  The remaining students successfully completed the course.    Although only the first time offered, it is clear that the course will be very beneficial in terms of accountability (to both student and advisor) and the feedback generated from the process.

Issue 2.  Continue data collection for the Doctoral Student Profile and Timeline.  

2005 Focus: 	The Student Profile and Timeline have been further developed.  A spreadsheet for data collection was created and data collection is on-going.  Efforts thus far have provided us easier access to demographics and have also helped us identify each student’s position on the Timeline.  Thus far, there is better ability to enforce program requirements, which in turn allow more efficient advising and mentoring of the students.  

2006 Update:	Appendix II is the Overview of the Chemistry Graduate Program which clearly defines the Student Timeline to graduation.  It also contains the Annual Progress Report which will be implemented for the Fall 2006 Academic Year. This year we continued our efforts to move each student along to his/her proper place in the career Timeline.  This was a very successful endeavor as all of our students are now “on track” for the various phases of the program.  This success is also evident by the more than 50% increase in program graduates over the previous cycle. 

2007 Update:	We continue to fine-tune program management to place and move students along the Career Timeline.  This year we instituted a policy of a five year limit for financial support to Teaching Assistants.  A one year extension is possible, should the situation warrant.  In addition, we have implemented stricter controls by imposing registration holds for students who should be taking the Ph.D. Candidacy Exam (CHM 891).   Eighteen of twenty-one students have taken the Candidacy Exam this past academic year.  The remaining three will take the exam over the upcoming summer semester.  

2008 Update:	All of the students are now on track with regards to the Ph.D. Candidacy Examination (CHM 891).  The candidacy examination is the successful presentation of the student’s doctoral research proposal.  Completion of this examination signifies that the student has achieved an important milestone in their graduate program career by becoming a doctoral candidate.  To encourage compliance and reward successful completion of the examination, we implemented an annual stipend increase of $1,500 upon completion of the examination.  This strategy has been very successful.

		We find that the data collection and attention to detail to keep the students on track and moving along the career timeline has greatly increased the overall workload of graduate program management.  
	
Issue 3.  Streamline program management  

2005 Focus:	It was determined that a computer database-type system was crucial to long-term assessment. It was decided that time needed to be invested now to develop a system whereby many types of student/faculty/program data could be collected and efficiently analyzed.  It was considered that database software could be written specifically for our department’s graduate (and undergraduate) assessment programs.  Such software would have the added benefit of assisting in preparation of many types of reports and program reviews.  To this end we are pursuing the feasibility of using the university’s “e-portfolio” system to collect data and we are currently in meetings with the e-portfolio personnel to possibly develop a system for chemistry.  Our goal is to have a system in place in the upcoming academic year. Should this system not meet our needs our next step would be to consider specialized software that could be written by one of our faculty members.

2006 Update:	We had several meetings with the IS&T software developers to modify the “e-portfolio” system for our program.  Unfortunately, they did not have the staffing to develop a program to meet out needs.   We have met with an outside database software developer who is currently writing a program for us data management, but will also provide a portfolio component for our students to use as a career tool.  

2007 Update:	The software developer we met with last year was unable to provide a program at this time.  Therefore, the departmental administrative coordinator researched and downloaded trial database software that are currently on the market.  One of them (FileMakerPro) has been determined to have the most features that we would like, except perhaps the e-portfolio feature.  It is possible after working with the software we may be able to create a separate database for the students to enter or submit data for entry by one of our staff.

		We have purchased a multiple copy site license of this software and a database will be created by the department’s administrative coordinator.  Data will be input over the course of the upcoming academic year.  One desirable feature of this software is that it has the capability to be uploaded to a server (which is included as part of the site license).  Should this capability be acceptable with CSU’s IS&T department, chemistry department administration would be able to view each student’s career data in real time.  

		Stipends have been increased for teaching assistants. Entering students receive a stipend of $16,500, which increases to $18,000 once the candidacy exam has been passed. 

		Innovative “4+1” and “3+2” programs are in various stages of development.  These programs are attractive recruitment tools, as students can complete two degrees in a shorter period of time.  Because our department bears no financial burden, has a boost in enrollment and graduates more students, these are attractive programs to implement.  The “3+2” program we are currently pursuing involves universities in mainland China and is pending approval.  The second program, “4+1” is under discussion with local colleges.    Students entering the program must meet the university admission requirements, but the department could conditionally admit students with > 2.8, and waive GRE and other requirements.   

		For the past two years we have submitted proposals to the GAANN Fellowship Program and we only recently learned that our most recent proposal has been accepted.  GAANN Fellowships will allow us to admit and support an additional four graduate students.

2008 Update:	We find that the assessment process has greatly increased the overall workload of the departmental graduate program management staff.  Data collection is now on-going rather than sporadic, with numerous, specific checkpoints and forms which must be completed through the year for every doctoral student.  Workload has also been increased by more aggressive admission procedures (i.e., more conditionally admitted students) that have been implemented by the Graduate Admissions Office, and that admission has become a more on-going process as well.  We believe we are doing a good job in this respect, but continue to strive toward more efficiency and streamlining the program management and assessment process.
	
		During the past year two students have been awarded GAANN Fellowships and an additional student will receive the award in Fall 2008.  

		Collaborative M.S. program in chemistry with several Chinese universities are under discussion.  These universities include:

				Guangxi University
				Guangxi Teacher Education University
				Huazhong University of Science and Technology
				Chongqing Three Gorges University
				East China Normal University
				Shenyang Pharmaceutical University

In summary, the Department of Chemistry continues to build and improve upon its original stated goals by systematically targeting areas of improvement and enhancing the improvements. 

OUTCOMES

Goal #1	Students attain a fundamental understanding of all areas of chemistry and a sophisticated knowledge and understanding of a specialized area of modern chemistry

An important outcome for any program is the successful completion of coursework.  In a Ph.D.-granting program, another component is the successful defense of the Ph.D. proposal.  With one or two exceptions, graduate students successfully defend the Ph.D. proposal on the first attempt, and then become eligible to continue the process toward the granting of the Ph.D. degree.  Therefore this is a very high success outcome for Goal #1.  The reason for this high success rate is the high standard for admission to the graduate program, excellent preparation in coursework and the research project. 

Another indicator for success is the post-graduate success of program graduates.  Our Ph.D. graduate students in particular continue to attain 100% employment.   The majority of our M.S. students are typically currently employed in the Greater Cleveland area while in the program and the M.S. degree leads to professional advancement.  Employment immediately upon graduation is an excellent indicator of program success.

Table I shows the current GPA and the GPA upon entrance to the graduate program for students enrolled in the program during the 2007-2008 academic year.  This table shows an average increase in GPA of 0.25 points.  The GPA is a fundamental measure of learning and it is clear that the chemistry doctoral students are achieving measurable results of their knowledge and understanding of chemistry.  

These points show that we have been extremely successful in achieving Goal #1.

Goal #2	Students attain a deep understanding and execution of experimental and/or theoretical working in the area of specialization

After the student has progressed in the program beyond the defense of the Ph.D. proposal, the subsequent level is the successful defense of the Ph.D. dissertation.  All students in the Department of Chemistry were able to bring their Ph.D. research to a successful conclusion and therefore, we find that we have exceptional outcomes for Goal #2.

Each academic year, the graduate students are required to present the results of their most recent research.  In the past, the forum for this presentation was the CSU-CCF Student Symposium of the Joint Ph.D. Program in Clinical-Bioanalytical Chemistry.  However, the College of Science has initiated a college-wide research day, which has become the forum for the presentation of research results.  This program is now held each Spring and is attended by faculty and researchers from Cleveland State University, the Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Medical Center, etc.  Twenty-one chemistry graduate students presented posters in the College of Science Research Day which was held May 2, 2008, while only twelve students participated in the 2006 Research Day.      

The new course, CHM 690/790, Annual Research Report, was offered for the first time the Spring 2008 semester.  As stated previously, 25 students were enrolled in this course.  Twenty-one students submitted the Annual Research Report and were evaluated from “good” to “outstanding” by both the advisors and Graduate Committee.  Three students received an Incomplete and will submit their reports during the summer 2008 semester.  Since this is the first offering of the course, it will be considered a baseline for measurable outcome.   

These activities directly relate to Goal #2 and demonstrate consistent improvement.  

Goal #3	Students attain a professional-level ability to communicate in chemistry and especially in the area of specialization.

Students are also encouraged to participate in local, regional and national professional meetings by presenting papers or poster sessions.  For students participation outside the Cleveland area is very difficult without financial support.   Chemistry students have been increasingly garnering travel awards from the College of Science with matching or supplemental funding from the Department of Chemistry.  Faculty grant funding, College and Department support enable students to attend and present their work in the form of posters and presentations at various other professional conferences outside of the Cleveland area, with several winning awards.  Table II shows the awardees and the conferences they attended.  

CONCLUSION

The Department of Chemistry continues to improve its assessment efforts by consistently fine-tuning the assessment process.  We have made steady progress from the original establishment of goals, to streamlining program management and revising curriculum.   We find that we have exceptional student outcomes in areas of degree completion and employment rates and our students continue to exhibit steady improvement in areas such as publication and presentations.