Chemistry Facilities of the Elton B. Stephens Science Facitlity

The Chemistry Facilities of the
The Elton B. Stephens Science Center
Birmingham-Southern College

The Elton B. Stephens Science Center, which is scheduled to open in February 2002, will house the disciplines of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Neuroscience. At the heart of the building will be a three story atrium providing a space for social and intellectual interdisciplinary interactions and putting science on display.

The Elton B. Stephens Science Center will anchor a new academic quadrangle, with the Stockham Building, the current Science Complex (scheduled to be renovated as a Humanities Center), and Munger Hall. Stockham and Munger are on the National Historic Registry.

The facilities for the Department of Chemistry, which is certified by the American Chemical Society, in the new center will include five teaching laboratories, five research laboratories, an instrument room, a laser laboratory, an interdisciplinary environmental studies laboratory, and numerous stock and support rooms. A photographic darkroom will be available for use by all disciplines. All science disciplines will share the lecture halls and class rooms for lecture work. The Center will also house shared space in computer, conference, study, and seminar rooms.

The third floor houses introductory, advanced, and research laboratories, support rooms, and offices for chemistry, classrooms, a study room, a seminar room, and a conference room.

Current research and teaching equipment for chemistry includes a gas chromatograph, FTIR spectrophotometer, monochromator, glove box, voltammetric analyzer, polargraphic analyzer, diode array spectrophotometers (2), HPLC, thermogravimetric analyzer, He:Ne and He:Cd lasers, AA spectrometer, electrolytic analyzer, ion analyzer, and a tube furnace. A range of ancillary equipment including calorimeters, balances, pipetters, pH meters, and constant temperature baths are also available for general use. The new science facility has been designed to house a 400 MHz NMR spectrometer which the Department hopes to acquire in the near future. The College provides each faculty member with an office computer and the department is connected to the campus network with e-mail and internet access.

The department's annual library budget is approximately $40,000. There is a subscription list of approximately 30 journals, including the ACS on-line collection. The library provides numerous on-line searching capabilities and interlibrary loan. The Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences and the Stern Library, both at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, are world-class research libraries only 10 minutes away. As members of the Birmingham Area Consortium of Higher Education, BSC faculty have borrowing privileges there.

The Department of Chemistry offers 19 courses. The chemistry major is offered as two options: (1) the professional major for students wishing to be certified by the Department under ACS guidelines; (2) a biological chemistry major designed for students pursuing careers in biochemical or health-related areas. The Department also offers a minor. The Birmingham-Southern College Chemistry Department is among those described in the Seventh Edition of Research in Chemistry at Primary Undergraduate Institutions, published by the Council on Undergraduate Research. Many students in chemistry participate in undergraduate research projects, and make presentations at regional and national conferences. The department has a close working relationship with the Biology Department and with the Department of Chemistry of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.