December 7, 2000
 
 

    The University of the Virgin Islands has received a $180,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve the University's chemistry laboratories as part of an innovative NSF-sponsored program that is revising UVI's science and mathematics curriculum.
    Dr. Frank P. Rinehart, a professor of chemistry at UVI, is the principle investigator for the NSF's $180,000 Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program grant, which is to be applied over a period of three years.  UVI is implementing changes to its science and mathematics curriculum as part of its Caribbean Scholars Program, funded by a  $3.5 million NSF Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) grant. The Caribbean Scholars Grant enables UVI to reform its science and mathematics curriculum over a five-year period, in innovative ways, to improve students' retention and make science and mathematics more relevant to them.
    The additional $180,000 CCLI grant from NSF will make it possible for UVI to purchase two new laboratory instruments and to upgrade a third so that students can utilize the most modern instrumental methods used in chemistry today.  "We hope to boost enrollment through this project and to motivate students to excel in their work," Rinehart said.
    UVI students who are being introduced to the field of chemistry will be given an opportunity, through more modern chemistry labs, to conduct the kinds of experiments done on a day to day basis by professional chemists.  As an example, Rinehart said first semester chemistry students will be asked to create a substance and then analyze its makeup through a combination of traditional wet chemistry methods and modern instrumental methods."It's one thing to think that you have made something and it's another to prove that you have made it," Rinehart said.
    UVI's participation in National Science Foundation grant programs puts the University in the forefront of a national experiment to improve teaching methods in the fields of science and
mathematics.  The CCLI grant proposal was written by Rinehart and UVI chemistry professors Mary Whitten and Ralph Isovitsch.

Historically American...Uniquely Caribbean...Globally Interactive...