@BiffBrown : Those two have never gotten along and other schools with say, biochemistry and chemical biology programs are achieving it through collaborations with the medical school, graduate school or engineering school. It does not usually involve direct and tight collabs between chemistry and biology departments in the arts and letters unit. Also, most biology faculty have interests in genetics, evolution, immunology, neuroscience, and maybe even quantitative sciences. That doesn’t bode well for involving them.
The department isn’t doing things on the basis of need, but “innovation”. There never “needs” (as in it isn’t required, and one can indeed take a “it ain’t broke, don’t fix it approach”, but without some risk taking, Emory will always lead from behind in terms of providing UG education) to be innovation. Again, the idea is to align the curriculum more with research disciplines in chemistry (especially those represented well by current chemistry faculty). It simply isn’t easy to do that with a traditional curriculum structure. Classes like general chemistry have traditionally been useless if you needed to learn the utility or applications of it for say future research, courses, or even standardized exams (chemistry and biochemistry GRE, MCAT, PCAT). I guess they are modernizing it by adding some experimental technique components (Mass Spec, X-ray) typically not included in basic general chemistry courses, and emphasizing structure a lot more. Then they migrate more into courses that emphasize structure and reactivity (the math stuff gets integrated into these courses or the first courses). You will have organic chemistry in other courses, but they will not be full out ochem courses and one of them will have many advanced topics often covered at much more elite schools in STEM (like Caltech or Harvard’s organic chemistry 2 for chemistry majors will cover serious organometallic, and apparently course 3 will do that in addition to stuff typically covered in ochem 2). Course 2 is more like carbonyl chemistry or something, which makes sense in theory (biochem, in theory, should stress it. Carbonyl chemistry is much more relevant in the natural and biological sciences than a lot of the reactions covered in traditional ochem 1) but deviates a lot from the Course 1 (a “modernized” general chemistry course I described…okay, being real here, topics are not so much modernized as they are reminiscent of how top LACs teach general chemistry. Many top and non-LACs have also migrated away from a 2 semester general chemistry sequence and do either an organic first approach or do a structure/orbital oriented general chemistry 1 and then ochem as the second semester. Michigan also does something like this, so it isn’t unheard of at large research universities, just rare). 221/222 gets phased because it just makes sense (though honestly…I would maybe keep it around for chemistry majors, send top teachers to teach it, and let everyone else just needing chemistry courses take the new ones that will substitute).
I am very skeptical about how it will end up working out in practice but I see the theoretical strengths of redesigning it. Traditional chemistry programs have very generic foundation courses that none of the tenure track faculty are excited about teaching. They thus teach from a textbook and are often bored when doing. If you refocus them to have more specialized content aligned with their research, it may excite them a little more and they may teach better. The only issue is that certain disciplines are vastly over-represented in the chem. department so the status quo will remain where courses related to some disciplines get all the good instruction while 1 or 2 may be struggling because not many faculty, at least those willing to put any effort into teaching undergraduates are capable of teaching or specialize in that content. Fortunately they have already finished a search round for the new general chemistry course and physical chemistry course. The materials, macromolecules course…have no clue who would teach that one. The 2nd and 3rd courses can mostly be covered by those with organic PhDs (lecturer and tenure track). In addition, some of the content in these courses are rigorous, as in more rigorous than the minimum content required to be covered in ochem 1 and 2 today, so even “easy” instructors that students would otherwise flock to, may still give easier exams, but the content will end up harder to grasp. Running to the easier instructors will be much less advantageous in this system. In addition, all the instructors who gave a very sub-standard course will be gone (Menger and Scarborough) once 221/222 are phased out.
*Also, just a warning, since 221/222 are offered next year, I believe Jui and Blakey (the easier options) will be there first semester (along with Weinschenk). The second semester is super uncertain. It looks like Weinschenk will be catching a majority of those folks and Soria may even teach. Technically only 2-4 sections may be necessary because some students will have piloted the “new” courses (via McGill I guess) this year so may not need to take ochem next year at all (along with those who do it during summer or will delay till junior year when those two won’t exist). Whoever is the “easier” instructor for 222 (could be Davies or McDonald- not a cakewalk whatsoever for 222. Also, a new ochem/catalysis tenure track is supposed to be hired. Wouldn’t bank on them being the next Scarborough) next year will likely be substantially more challenging than Jui or Blakey and that is a fair warning. It isn’t as bad as the Menger 221 and say Weinschenk/Soria (the latter is actually much worst. I tutored last year and many from Menger either drop out or received grades lower than C. Apparently someone with an A- from Jui dropped as well…the differences are very serious. Weinschenk is a little more accommodating) 222 or “whoever else” 222 gap, but there is still a substantial gap. It is really just best to take Weinschenk first and “drop down” to any non-Weinschenk or Soria option if it did not work out than to risk taking one of those two and then being automatically funneled into any of the 222 sections. If pre-med, keeping a stable or upward trend is important. It will leave explaining to do if there is a sudden downward shift. Best to position oneself for a solid performance both semesters or an “enhanced” (as in appears enhanced) one the next.