Wednesday, March 14th 7-8 p.m. 
UMBC's AOK Library, 7th Floor 

Achieving the American Dream or Not: Immigrants' Narratives Following the Great Recession with Dr. Claudia Strauss 

This is a FREE event! 

Reception following lecture.

See attached flyer for all the details!

Given all the race, national origin, class-based violence, anti-blackness and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the media and the subsequent backlash from white-identified people and groups, there is a growing need for mindful, supportive education for white children. 

Here is a short list of resources that was just sent out on the Social Justice Training Institute's listserve by various social justice educators and activists.  

What White Children Need to Know about Race, Ali Michael and Eleonora Bartoli, Independent School Magazine
While white parents’ intention is to convey to their children the belief that race shouldn’t matter, the message their children receive is that race, in fact, doesn’t matter. The intent and aim are noble, but in order for race not to matter in the long run, we have to acknowledge that, currently, it does matter a great deal. If white parents want their children to contribute to what researchers Matthew Desmond and Mustafa Emirbayer describe as a “racially just America”2 in which race does not unjustly influence one’s life opportunities, their children will need to learn awareness and skills that they cannot acquire through silence and omission.

On Parenting
We need to deal with our discomfort and talk to our kids about racism, By Meghan Leahy, The Washington Post
Since the horrific shooting in Charleston, the questions have been pouring in, mostly from white parents. “How do I talk to my children about what happened?” “How do I explain racism to my 6-year-old?” “How do I talk about this level of violence?” “How can I support African Americans in my community?”

UMBC Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Electives for Fall 2018

  *Approved as an elective for the undergraduate major in Biochemistry

CHEM 401 Chemical and Statistical Thermodynamics, Dr. Lisa Kelly

Area: Physical Chemistry. Chemicals react and rearrange. Fluids boil, freeze, and evaporate. Solids melt and deform. Rubber stretches and retracts. Proteins fold. We will study the forces that drive these (and other) processes. Statistical thermodynamics gives us a set of tools for modeling molecular behavior and how it is realized in the macroscopic realm. Most importantly, statistical thermodynamics gives a language for interpreting experiments.    

CHEM 451 Mechanisms of Organic Reactions*, Dr. James Fishbein

 Area: Organic Chemistry.  Methods used to determine the mechanisms of organic reactions and factors affecting reactivity are discussed, along with a limited survey of specific reaction types.

CHEM 467 Advanced Analytical Methods, Dr. Minjoung Kyoung

Area: Analytical Chemistry.  This course will focus on cutting-edge methods for chemical and biochemical analyses pulled from current literature. The focus of this course will be on providing insight into the fundamentals of each method as well as the molecular information that can be obtained from the various methodologies discussed as well as current advances in these areas.

CHEM 490 (1), Bio and Bio-Inspired Materials*, Dr. Mark Allen

Areas: Inorganic Chemistry, Biochemistry. Bio and Bio-Inspired Materials is a lecture and literature based course designed to focus on how soft organic biomolecules interact with organic and inorganic materials. The course has 4 units including biomolecules (proteins etc), biomineralization (how biology makes inorganic minerals), bio-inspired synthesis (how we can mimic biology in material preparation) and biomaterials (how materials interface with biology).

CHEM 490 (3) Molecular Imaging for Drug Discovery*, Dr. Songon An

Areas: Biochemistry, Chemical Biology, Cell Biology.  In this class, students will learn how chemistry and biology meet together to provide new insights in basic sciences and, further, how such interdisciplinary approaches are implemented for modern drug discovery platforms for human health.

CHEM 490 Bioanalytical Lab on a Chip, Dr. Chengpeng Chen

Area: Analytical Chemistry. This course will focus on fabrication of microfluidic devices and their application in bioanalytical chemistry. The course material will mainly come from literature published in high-impact journals. In this class, students will learn the general ideas of microfluidics, as well as how to implement this technology to answer specific biological questions.

CHEM 490 Quantum Chemistry and Spectroscopy, Dr. Chris Geddes

Area: Physical Chemistry.  In this advanced level course, we introduce quantum chemistry and how the interactions of electrons and nuclei give rise to our understanding of modern day spectroscopy.

CHEM 490 (2) Organic Spectroscopy*, Dr. Paul Smith

Area: Organic Chemistry.  An overview of spectroscopic methods used to determine the structures of organic compounds. NMR, UV/visible absorption, and infrared spectroscopy as well as mass spectrometry are covered, with particular emphasis on NMR and use of multiple types of spectral data for structure elucidation.

 *Approved as an elective for the undergraduate major in Biochemistry

Important Notes

If you enrolled in the B.S. Chemistry Program in Fall 2015 or later, you are required to take CHEM405L and one advanced elective.

CHEM405 is now a spring-only course and CHEM405L is now a fall-only course.  Because 405 is a pre-requisite for 405L, B.S. Chemistry majors MUST take 405 in the spring of their junior year for on-time graduation.