Courses that Dr. Tanski has taught include Vassar’s accelerated general chemistry course, CHEM-125: “Chemical Principles”, the first semester of organic chemistry, CHEM-244: “Organic Chemistry: Structure and Properties”, CHEM-326: “Inorganic Chemistry”, CHEM-342: “Advanced Organic Chemistry – Organometallics”and CHEM-372/373: “Integrated Laboratory I & II”.
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 327 – Inorganic Chemistry: Molecular Structure
An introduction to the structure of inorganic, coordination, and organometallic compounds, including the following topics: atomic and molecular structure, chemical applications of group theory, and theories of bonding, including molecular orbital theory, ligand field theory and chemical bonding classification.
CHEM 328 – Inorganic Chemistry: Reactivity and Properties
An introduction to the reactivity and properties of inorganic, coordination, and organometallic compounds, including the following topics: coordination chemistry, magnetism, spectroscopy, inorganic reaction mechanisms and organometallic chemistry.
CHEM-342: Advanced Organic Chemistry – Organometallics : Advanced Organic Chemistry presents selected organic chemistry topics in-depth for students who have completed the year-long Organic Chemistry 244/245 sequence. Dr. Tanksi has taught this course with an emphasis on organometallic chemistry, topics including the structure, synthesis, and stoichiometic & catalysitc reactivity of transition metal compoounds containing metal carbon bonds.
CHEM-372/373: Integrated Laboratory I & II provides a comprehensive laboratory experience in chemistry. Selected experiments teach advanced chemistry techniques and reinforce principles introduced in 300 level chemistry courses. The course exposes students to chemistry as an integrated subject, tying together the sub-disciplines that are traditionally offered as independent courses. This includes: instrumental analysis, physical chemistry, biochemistry, environmental, organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry.
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.