Curriculum Vitae – Robin L. McCarley - LSU Department of ...

Robin L. McCarley September 2011
EXCEPTIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM
Summary of Contributions
Co-Director of the first NSF-sponsored Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Chemistry
and Biochemistry Program at LSU, 1995-2001
Recipient of Dreyfus Foundation Grant for Preparation of Digital Laboratory Instructional Videos
for Analytical Chemistry Laboratories, spring 2001
Of the 20+ undergraduates who have undertaken research with Professor McCarley since 1992,
seven of those have gone on to graduate school in chemistry or chemical engineering at schools
such as the University of California Berkeley and the University of Florida
Obtained funding for laboratory instrumentation in undergraduate analytical chemistry, the first
proposal submitted and funded for undergraduates in chemistry at LSU since 1990, spring 1999
First to introduce “real-world-situation experiments” into an undergraduate analytical chemistry
laboratory at LSU, fall 1998
First in Department of Chemistry at LSU to utilize internet-based lecture notes for lecture courses,
spring 1996
First in Department of Chemistry at LSU to utilize student poster sessions as part of analytical
chemistry lectures to reinforce concept of scientific team work, fall 1993
Established the first co-operative education program for chemistry undergraduates at LSU
(LaRoche Chemical), fall 1993
Educational Grants
I have been extremely active in soliciting funds for our undergraduate analytical and organic
teaching laboratories. To date, I (and my former colleagues Ron Reese and Gary Lyon) have brought in
over $350,000 in funding for our two analytical chemistry laboratories, and in collaboration with Tamara
Nauman and Mark McLaughlin have been able to obtain $190,000 for our organic chemistry
laboratories. The funding agencies include Dow Chemical, the Louisiana Board of Regents (LEQSF or
LaBoR), the LSU Student Technology Fee Fund, and the Dreyfus Foundation.
This was a planned sequence of grant writing, for it was our desire to develop a laboratory in
analytical chemistry that had both the instrumentation and the instructional support needed to operate it.
For example, we used monies from Dow, LSU Chemistry, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at
LSU (Silverman, PI) as matching funds to acquire the funding from LEQSF. Then we used the
equipment acquired with the previous monies to demonstrate the need for expansion and modernization
of our teaching laboratories when we solicited the Student Technology Fee money. Finally, we wrote a
proposal to and obtained funding from the Dreyfus Foundation that took advantage of our situation with
the new equipment and cost sharing from the Department of Chemistry; the work targeted the making of
compact, digital instructional videos that students would use to become educated regarding the use of the
instrumentation in the laboratories.
It is clear that my efforts for obtaining grant funding for our undergraduate chemistry laboratories
have been very successful. The impact of the new equipment on the students at LSU has been
significant thus far. In addition, the presence of the new equipment has made it easy to establish the
connection between theory in the lecture courses and practice in the laboratory. I am very excited about
having digital videos on the use and theory of the new instruments; students access the videos over the
internet or through use of CDs/DVDs and obtain uniform training in the use of the equipment. Finally, it
makes me proud to be at LSU, because we can state that LSU students get the best education in
analytical chemistry laboratory in the entire State of Louisiana.
Course Development
Chem 4553-Instrumental Analysis. I began teaching the advanced analytical chemistry laboratory in
the spring of 1998. At that time, the experiments were quite good and took advantage of the equipment
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