Welcome to the Providence College Chemistry Department Web Pages!
Whether you are a prospective P.C. student, a current student, an alum, or a guest, I hope that the information you find will give you a good sense of what is going on in our department these days.
Our department is a vibrant, active one, with enthusiastic, energetic faculty who enjoy working closely with students, both in and out of the classroom. Our class sizes are small--typically about 30 students in sections of General Chemistry and just three or four students in some upper-level chemistry elective courses--so we get to know our students well. Since P.C. has no graduate teaching assistants, labs are taught by faculty as well, providing another opportunity for close faculty-student interaction. Students also have the opportunity to conduct research with our faculty, to get hands-on experience, beginning as early as the summer after their sophomore year.
Our program is certified by the American Chemical Society; as part of maintaining that certification, we are continually upgrading the instrumentation that is available for student use so students are introduced to current techniques.
With about ten to fifteen chemistry and biochemistry majors per year, our students tend to know each other well and work together in a supportive environment. Our students are well-prepared for graduate school, medical school, or careers in chemistry. Recent graduates have gone to Columbia, Brown, Yale, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn State and the University of Virginia in pursuit of advanced studies. Other recent graduates have easily found positions at Pfizer, Amgen, and other chemical companies.
We are particularly excited about our major in Biochemistry, recently certified by the American Chemical Society, which is proving to be quite popular; about fifty percent of our majors are choosing this program of study which is an excellent preparation for graduate school, medical school, or employment.
The long awaited remodeling of Hickey Hall has begun. When completed in late 2007 the project will reclaim and remodel all of the ~6500 sq. ft. building to provide state-of-the-art research space for faculty in the departments of Biology, Chemistry and Biochemistry and Engineering-Physics-Systems. Chemistry and Biochemistry's plans call for two types of flexible laboratory space to accomodate the synthetic and measurement projects of faculty and student researchers.
If there is any information you need that is not found on these pages, please contact any member of the faculty or see the "Contact the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department" page for more information. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thanks for visiting our pages,
Dr. Sheila M. Adamus, Chair
