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About The Department


About The Department

The Chemistry Department at Alma College is housed within the Ronald O. Kapp Science Laboratory Center. The Department was constructed in 1990 and contains well-equipped laboratories arranged in suites with adjacent instrumentation labs. Click here for a photographic tour of the department.

The Alma College Chemistry Department consists of 6 faculty members, 2 support staff, and 150 - 200 undergraduate students (on average), many of whom are involved in research projects with our faculty members.

Our students benefit from an education within the Chemistry Department by developing a fundamental understanding of chemistry, with the emphasis on new structural, analytical, synthetic and theoretical techniques applicable in both academic and industrial settings.

Research and Training Environment

The Department has a wide range of instrumentation, including high performance liquid chromatography, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, atomic absorbance spectrometry and multinuclear superconducting nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometry. More than 40 computers are used to acquire and analyze data for lab work and research.

Research students become well versed in project-specific skills, general scientific awareness, and transferable skills such as written and oral communication as well as computer-related skills.

 

Alma College students have the ability to design their own area of academic concentration, with the assistance of a faculty advisor, to meet specific educational or career goals. In recent years, students have graduated with Programs of Emphasis majors in such fields as arts management, archaeology and anthropology, environmental policy and community advocacy, Foreign Service and international law, and music technology and digital media.

 

Graduate Profile

Bruce S. Fraser
Graduation: 1976
Major: Chemistry

Bruce S. Fraser has used his chemistry major to pursue a variety of career fields.

Now a software engineering manager with Lockheed Martin Corp., the 1976 graduate continued his education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and moved to Los Angeles to be a salesman for an oil and petroleum company.