Professional Skills & Competencies
Section 8
Preparing students for the modern workplace requires more than technical skills. Surveys of employers consistently indicate the importance of interpersonal skills such as complex communication, social skills, teamwork, cultural sensitivity, and dealing with diversity for success in a wide range of areas. Effective departments train students to communicate effectively, including using relevant technology and information management, work collaboratively, and engage in the ethical conduct of science. The Chemical Professional’s Code of Conduct outlines the obligations of the professional chemist to the public, colleagues, employers, students, the profession, the environment, and the science of chemistry. The professional conduct of scientists must be an intentional part of the instruction in a chemistry program. Furthermore, students must know that science is a collaborative endeavor and requires the collective, equitable, and fair participation of everyone in the scientific community. Since faculty serve as role models, they must exemplify responsible conduct in their teaching, research, and all other professional activities. Successful chemistry programs, by way of their example, instruction, and assessment must prepare their students for the global chemical enterprise by developing strong professional skills and competencies.
Critical Requirements
Communication Skills
- The chemistry curriculum must include writing and speaking opportunities that allow students to learn how to communicate technical information:
- Clearly and concisely,
- In a scientifically appropriate style for the intended audience including non-technical audiences,
- Ethically and accurately, and
- Utilizing relevant technology.
- Clearly and concisely,
- Instruction must demonstrate the importance of including effective visual representations of models and datasets in scientific communication.
- Communication skills must be explicitly assessed to determine the level of student competency in both written and oral scientific communication.
Information Retrieval, Evaluation, & Management
- Students receive instruction in effective methods for performing and assessing the quality of searches using keywords, authors, abstracts, citations, patents, and structures/substructures.
- Students can use chemical identifiers to locate physical and chemical properties in handbooks and databases.
- Students' ability to conduct effective searches and then read, analyze, interpret, and cite the chemical literature as applied to answering chemical questions is assessed across the curriculum.
Teamwork and Collaboration
Programs must incorporate team experiences into classroom and laboratory components of the chemistry curriculum, thus providing opportunities for students to learn to interact effectively in a group to solve scientific problems and work productively with a diverse group of peers.
Professional Conduct of Scientists
- Approved programs must train their students to:
- Follow appropriate experiment documentation and data integrity practices,
- Treat data responsibly,
- Cite the work of others’ properly,
- Abstain from act(s) of plagiarism, and
- Maintain the scholastic standards that pertain to the publication of scientific results.
- Programs address multiple aspects of professional conduct, including sustainability, bias, policy/regulation, professional growth, and limitations of knowledge.
Systems Thinking
Instruction and coursework should demonstrate that the interconnection of chemistry with other disciplines is necessary to develop a comprehensive view of how physical, chemical, and biological systems behave, interact, and affect one another.
Normal Expectations
Communication Skills
Communication skills are developed across the curriculum with multiple opportunities for practice and evaluative feedback.
Information Retrieval, Evaluation, & Management
- Instruction is provided in data management and archiving, record keeping (electronic and otherwise), and managing citations and related information.
- Students are trained in strategies for assessing the quality of sources of scientific information.
Teamwork and Collaboration
Approved programs should incorporate effective measures to assess the performance of both team leaders and members across the curriculum.
Professional Conduct of Scientists
- Successful programs prepare their students to recognize the impact of their work on individuals in society.
- Students have opportunities to learn to treat individuals with respect and fairness in all aspects of the scientific process:
- Establishing collaborations, partnerships, and mentoring relationships.
- Designing and conducting research projects.
- Writing and reviewing manuscripts and proposals; presenting research findings at conferences, etc.
Systems Thinking
Students should be made aware that solutions to problems in the world around us require decision-making that takes into consideration chemical knowledge as well as social, economic, political, moral, or environmental factors.
Markers of Excellence
Communication Skills
- Because chemistry is a global enterprise, knowledge of more than one language or an international experience can be an asset to chemistry students and add greatly to a student’s ability to communicate with chemists worldwide.
- The program offers opportunities that go beyond coursework for students to engage with the broader institutional, local, or scientific community.
Information Retrieval, Evaluation, & Management
Students demonstrate knowledge of intellectual property issues associated with scientific publications including author’s rights, the use of copyrighted materials in research and instruction, the peer review process, and publication in and access to open-access journals.
Teamwork and Collaboration
- Leadership development involves providing instruction and assessment of a range of skills including effective coordination, direction, and engagement of team members; experience in persuasion and negotiation to accomplish goals and meet deadlines; and ability to resolve conflicts and critically evaluate team members.
- The effectiveness of team members is enhanced through opportunities to build strong communication skills and initiative, respect for the views of other team members, and reliability and commitment to the task at hand.
Professional Conduct of Scientists
- Assessment of professional conduct goes beyond evaluating student reports or laboratory notebooks.
- Programs provide multiple opportunities for students to engage in self-reflection and discussion of the role of sustainability, bias, policy/regulation, professional growth, limitations of knowledge in the practice of science.
Systems Thinking
Students work through problems that bring in chemical knowledge, as well as social, economic, political, moral, or environmental factors.
