The Department of Chemistry strives for an ideal balance between knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination in the chemical sciences, with a focus on student training and education. Our mission is to train and mentor students as responsible scientists and scientifically literate professionals, involving them in all aspects of chemistry and the global chemical enterprise. Our students will be treated as partners in the educational process. This implies that both students and faculty have expectations and responsibilities in their dealings with one another. All students deserve an equal opportunity to participate in the educational partnership. There is an undeniable connection between a first-rate teaching program and an active program of research and other scholarly activities. Faculty and graduate students active in scholarship can relate the excitement of discovery and state-of-the-art findings to their teaching. Faculty and graduate students who are good teachers often make good mentors and partners in scholarship. Graduate Teaching Assistants are not simply hired technicians for, but rather partners and coworkers with, faculty supervisors. TAs deserve an active role in the educational partnership, including input into policy decisions. A voice in the educational decision-making results in a satisfying, constructive, teaching experience, which promotes the desire of prospective graduate students to participate. Graduate Research Assistants should wholly participate in, and take responsibility for, the direction of the dissertation research project. This implies early recognition of the context and significance of the research in the expansion of society's knowledge base, as well as the importance of conducting research in an ethical manner. Research mentors have a responsibility to provide students broad access to multidisciplinary research skills as well as in-depth understanding of a targeted research project.
