Core Chemistry

Moreover, for Professor David Phoenix, the dean of the faculty of science and technology, the return of single-honours chemistry is a matter of credibility and pride. "If you say you're a science faculty, you have to have all the core sciences, and this course will mean we attract a new supply of potential Masters and PhD students in chemistry." Phoenix is adamant that the new course will teach solid chemistry, but he thinks that an attraction for students will be a teaching approach that differs significantly from his days as an undergraduate. This takes real-life issues as the starting point of lectures and modules, such as how drugs are made or the science behind green issues. Out of this study, he says, students will be exposed to the same core chemistry unchanged over decades, but they will be doing it in a way that is more engaging and more likely to lead to more fundamental learning. It is an approach that symbolizes chemistry's recent success story: moving with the times while holding fast to the subject's essential role as a building block of science and technological advancements.