On June 10-12, 2015, a group of chemists from the Associated Colleges of the South (the “other” ACS) got together at Rollins College for a workshop focused on introducing VIPEr to a new group and developing new lab experiments.

We know that developing interesting, relevant laboratory experiments has a high activation energy barrier. However, we combined our powers to sketch out two experiments from the recent chemical literature to share with VIPEr and test in our own courses. In one experiment, students synthesize a series of Ag(I) complexes and test their antimicrobial activity. In the other, students explore the substrate scope of Fe(acac)₃ and other iron complexes as catalyst precursors for cross-coupling reactions. We are still getting all of our snakes in a row, but you can look for these two new lab LOs around the beginning of August!

Getting together with chemists from our sister schools was a great opportunity to compare and contrast teaching methods and materials among those with similar student populations, class sizes, and resources. Most importantly, it allowed us to welcome more new VIPEr friends!

Thanks to generous funding from the Associated Colleges of the South Faculty Advancement Program, Laurel Habgood (Rollins College) and Kari Young (Centre College) facilitated the workshop.  Discussions were guided by what we learned from the 2014 VIPEr workshop and Jeff Raker’s  (University of South Florida) presentation on using Understanding by Design principles. Six other chemists from five different schools helped us achieve our goals of developing two new labs based on the literature and helping others see all that the VIPEr community has to offer.