As students return to Oakland for the start of the 2026 academic year, Chemistry professors Margaret Vines and Michelle Morgan prepare to not only teach critical skills, but to extend chemistry into the everyday lives of their students.
This semester, Morgan is teaching Analytical Chemistry and a disciplined based Seminar in Composition lecture while serving as the Honors General Chemistry Lab Director. Following an opportunity to take Professional Development Leave in the spring focused on using artificial intelligence to enhance scientific writing, Morgan is incorporating new worksheets and revision assignments into Honors General Chemistry labs and the composition course. The activities will help students think critically about how AI can be used as a tool while strengthening their own writing and scientific communication skills.
More than anything, Morgan hopes students leave her courses with more confidence in critical thinking skills.
“Even if they don't remember the chemistry that I taught them 10 years down the road, I want them to remember that they learned how to analyze a problem and determined the best way to proceed” Morgan said.
Vines also hopes that students can utilize chemistry outside of the classroom. One aspect of this semester that she is especially looking forward to is the continuation of a program she launched last fall titled "Not Just the How, but the Why and Real-World Applications of CHEM 0120”, which received a DB-SERC Course Transformation Award.
Additionally, Vines is working to introduce a new mentor-mentee program designed as additional support to students that are in need of help but may not qualify for already existing support programs. She will also once again run the CURE Organic Chemistry Laboratory: Antimicrobials Discovery. “I particularly enjoy teaching this course because of the deep learning students experience and the genuine interest it sparks in research-based discovery” says Vines.
She hopes that students leave with a lasting appreciation for chemistry and notice it in everyday life. She tells an anecdote of a student recently emailing her after adding salt to boiling water for pasta and realizing she was thinking about boiling point elevation from general chemistry.
“Those moments-when students carry both the material and the habits of thinking into the real world-are what I value most.”
