Courses
Dr. Tanski teaches Vassar’s's accelerated general chemistry course, CHEM-125: "Chemical Principles", the first semester of organic chemistry, CHEM-244 "Organic Chemistry: Structure and Properties", and CHEM-326: "Inorganic Chemistry."
CHEM-125: Chemical Principles, is a course designed to cover the pertinent aspects of general chemistry in one semester to prepare students with a strong chemistry background for organic chemistry in the second semester of the year. The material covered includes chemical reactions, stoichiometry, atomic and molecular structure, and general chemical physics, emphasizing the fundamental aspects of and connections between equilibria, electrochemistry, thermodynamics, and kinetics, as illustrated below:
CHEM-244: Organic Chemistry is an introduction to the structure of organic molecules and their nomenclature. Among the properties of organic compounds, shape, charge distribution, and spectroscopic properties are emphasized. Laboratory work includes isolation, physical transformations and identification of organic compounds including the application of gas chromatography and infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
CHEM-326: Inorganic Chemistry is an introduction to structure and reactivity of inorganic, coordination, and organometallic compounds, including the following topics: chemical applications of group theory, atomic and molecular structure, theories of bonding, the solid state, coordination chemistry, inorganic reaction mechanisms, and organometallic chemistry. A laboratory portion of this class includes selected experiments which reinforce these concepts. Dr. Tanski and Dr. Miriam Rossi teach this course on a rotating basis.
Another course that is offered by Dr. Tanski is CHEM-370: “Advanced Laboratory : The Synthesis and Manipulation of Air and Water Sensitive Materials.” Students who elect this course will become familiar with laboratory techniques and equipment used in the synthesis and manipulation of compounds that are sensitive to the atmosphere, in particular oxygen and water. A novel research project is undertaken that requires the use of special techniques to isolate and characterize a new compound. Each project will begin with training in the use of an inert atomosphere glove box and standard vacuum line Schlenk and swivel frit techniques. This training will be carried out while synthesizing and purifying a known transition metal starting material from the literature. Finally, students will employ their starting material to synthesize and characterize a novel compound. All materials will be characterized, where appropriate, by NMR, IR, UV-vis, MS, elemental analysis, magnetic susceptibility and X-ray crystallography.