Welcome to the December 2006 edition of the  College of Science E-Newsletter.  In our E-Newsletters we highlight one department each month, as well as announce upcoming seminars, publications by students and faculty, and other information that we feel you might find helpful in the weeks ahead.
 
In this edition you will find:
The naming of the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke Family Pre-Medical Program
A feature on the Department of Chemistry
 
In addition, if you have announcements pertaining to the College of Science that you feel should be included in future e-newsletter articles, please don't hesitate to send your suggestions.  We may or may not be able to include them, but we certainly welcome any and all suggestions.
 
Happy Holidays!
 
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The Naming of the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke Family Pre-Medical Program!
 
The Pre-Medical program is now the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke Family Pre-Medical Program, thanks to a very generous gift from Martha Ann Dumke Healy, daughter of the late Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke.  Mrs Healy has pledged to support the program through a two million dollar endowment.  The interest earned on the endowment will be used to build on the strengths of an already outstanding program by funding additional staff support for advising, the purchase of new, state-of-the-art equipment in several departments that education our pre-medical students in the College of Science, and provide scholarships and support for the expensive process of making application to medical schools around the country.
 
In recent years the acceptance rates of students from Weber State University into medical programs throughout the country have ranged from 55 to 78 percent, while the national average is 45 percent.  This year 60 percent of our 60 applicants have already been accepted into medical programs for Fall 2007, even though many schools will not make their determinations of acceptance until February or March of 2007.  Because of the excellent, early acceptance of so many students from Weber State University so far this year, it is anticipated that our overall acceptance rate for this year may reach 80 percent.
 
For more information on the gift, please visit http://weber.edu/WSUToday/111506premednaming.html.
 
The web site for the Dr. Ezekiel R. Dumke Family Pre-Medical Program along with links to our other pre-professional programs is found at http://www.weber.edu/premedicalprofessionalprograms 
 
News from the Department of Chemistry

The chemistry department continues its primary teaching mission, serving numerous general education and pre-professional students.  Seven chemistry majors  were awarded B.S. degrees last spring (four ACS certified) and four Associate (A. A. S.) degrees were awarded.
 
Some curriculum changes for the chemistry B. S. degree are going before the Faculty Senate.  Incoming freshmen will be required to have 40 upper division credit hours (previously 33) for graduation.  This change will bring our chemistry degree more closely into line with other state universities and with other WSU departments.  We also voted to require calculus based Physics (2210/2220) as pre-requisites for Physical Chemistry (Chem 3410), and to require two hours of Special Topics (Chem 4700, which was previously 1 hour).  We plan to reinstitute two hours of undergraduate research Chem 4800 and Senior Seminar Chem 4990 as requirements.
 
Dr. Laine Berghout authored a paper last summer:  H. Laine Berghout, Steven F. Son, Larry G. Hill, and Blaine W. Asay, J. Appl. Phys. 99, 114901 (2006), "Flame spread through cracks of PBX 9501 (a composite octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine-based explosive)."  Chemistry student Jared Hansen received an award for Best Paper in the Physical Science Division for the Spring 2006 meeting of the Utah Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters.  The award was given on Friday, November 17, 2006.  His paper was entitled "A Density Functional Approach to the Tautomers of Fructose".  Dr. Todd Johnson and Dr. Berghout are co-authors.  Jared also presented a poster entitled "Fructose" at the American Chemical Society (ACS) regional meeting in Tuscon, AZ, last month.  The University Committee for Undergraduate Research provided a grant for his travel and participation at the meeting.
 
Dr. Don Davies attended The Grant Institute, Grants 101: Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshop, Seattle WA., June 6th- 8th, 2006.  This workshop covered all of the elements of writing professional grants from identification of sources, background research of organizations, development of each element (summary, goals, objectives, methods, evaluation, budgets), and writing styles.  We are currently working on a NSF grant to fund a new NMR spectrometer.  As Pre-pharmacy club advisor, Dr. Davies has established a new website at http://departments.weber.edu/prepharmacy/.  He sponsored a visit to WSU by KAPLAN to administer pre-professional practice exams to students from all disciplines.
 
Recent publications in the department include:  Edward B. Walker, Don R. Davies, Michael Campbell, "Quantitative Measurement of Trans-Fats by Infrared Spectroscopy" The Journal of Chemical Education (accepted, waiting to be published) and  Don R. Davies, Todd M. Johnson "Isolation of S-(-)-Carvone from Spearmint Oil by Column Chromatography," The Journal of Chemical Education (accepted, waiting to be published), and Lloyd, B. A., Sequential Organic Chemistry Notes, Fountainhead Press, Southlake, TX (2006) (a textbook supplement).
 
Senior chemistry student Angela Proctor, working with Dr. Andy Lippert and Dr. Todd Johnson, was awarded the presitigious "Harvey W. Wiley" Scholarship ($1000) by AOAC International (analytical chemistry association) in Minneapolis, MN on September 17, 2006 for her work on elevated temperature high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Dr. Michelle More’s paper, “Terra Firma: “Physics First” for Teaching Chemistry to Pre-Service Elementary School Teachers,” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Chemical Education.  Dr. Brad Carroll of physics and Dr. More presented this paper jointly at the 19th Annual Biennial Conference on Chemical Education at Purdue University in August 2, 2006 and at the Utah Academy of Arts and Sciences conference at Snow College on April 7, 4006.  Drs. Carroll and More also presented a poster at this conference entitled, is “The Scientific Method in a Cup.”  This poster will also be presented by Dr. Carroll at the 2007AAS/AAPT(American Astronomical Society/American Association of Physics Teachers) Joint Meeting in January 2007 inSeattle, Washington.
 
Dr. More has served as the chair of the ACS (American Chemical Society ) Salt Lake Local Section for a second time in 2006 and the chair of the ACS Rocky Mountain Regional Board in 2006.  The local ACS section sponsors various chemistry outreach programs for students in northern Utah, recognizes outstanding high school teaching and research in Utah, and hosts chemical talks geared for the general public (several of which have been hosted at WSU with the chemistry department).  The Rocky Mountain Regional Board is responsible for scheduling bi-yearly Rocky Mountain area regional ACS meetings.