Differential Tuition: What and Why

 

In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, undergraduate students in certain majors or specialized curricula are assessed a differential tuition in addition to their base tuition. In these fields of study the cost of instruction and the teaching facilities is more expensive than in other disciplines and include Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Neuroscience, Physics, and Psychology. The money from differential tuition is strictly committed to improving teaching laboratories, related equipment, and attracting high quality teaching faculty who are leaders in their fields and require funds to establish their laboratories.

 

Many students already have benefited by being taught at renovated lab stations with new equipment including microscopes, autoclaves, incubators, spectrographs, stereoscopes, oscilloscopes, calorimeters and new computers. These funds also have been used to support faculty research where students benefit by participating in projects and by learning about research in their coursework.

 

Departments housing these disciplines have used differential tuition to fund the following improvements for undergraduate education:

 

Biological Sciences

 

The Department of Biological Sciences has used differential tuition funds to purchase several pieces of new equipment for their laboratory classes.  In fall 2010, the department installed DLP projectors and screens in six science labs used by students enrolled in BIOS 100-104, 272/221 and 331 (see Figure 1). 

 

The most prominent pieces of equipment include three Nikon inverted microscopes (see Figures 2 and 3). 

 

In BioS 489, for instance, these microscopes enable students to examine the opening of individual voltage-activated proteins using single channel analysis, channels essential in regulating the electrical excitability of nerve cells. The microscopes also permit students to examine whole-cell electrical currents from individual isolated retinal neurons in culture using voltage-clamp techniques.

 

The differential tuition funds also allowed the purchase of several power supplies and pumps which will enable students to examine nerve cell activity in the lamprey spinal cord preparation.

 

All three sets of experiments–whole-cell recordings from retinal neurons, single-channel analysis of neuronal proteins, and intracellular recordings from cells in the lamprey spinal cord network–are new to the laboratory and could not have been conducted without the items purchased through the differential tuition funds.

 

In addition the Biological Sciences Department purchased new Biopac Physiology systems, allowing students in BioS 443, Psch 351 and Psych 363 to conduct experiments to study the physiological changes that occur in themselves under a variety of conditions. 

This hands-on approach has created excitement in the lab for understanding nervous system function, as well as a deeper understanding of how our nervous system underlies a broad range of behaviors. Sharing these systems across LAS departments has helped to maximize resources and succeed in achieving academic excellence.

 

In one session, students calculated the conduction velocity of a compound action potential along segments of the ulnar nerve (see Figure 4). Data were averaged across students

and the results were discussed and compared to published reports of ulnar nerve conduction velocity.  The students gained a first-hand understanding of how nervous system activity is generated to transmit information in our brain and throughout our body.

 

Chemistry

 

Over the last two years, the Department of Chemistry has purchased a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GCMS) for the analytical and physical chemistry labs. For the biochemistry lab, the department purchased a centrifuge. 

 

Physics

 

One of the Physics Departments' goals is to implement as many technology-rich curricula materials as possible, providing students access to technology in order to realize the full potential of modern electronic methods in education and to make for a more enriching experience for the student. To support this goal, we carry on with our broad modernization of the introductory teaching labs aimed at bringing these opportunities to UIC students.


The central goal in creating new Phys 141 (Mechanics) and Phys 142 (Electricity and Magnetism) teaching laboratories was to develop an introductory physics environment which would improve student conceptual understanding of fundamental physics principles. State-of-the-art laboratory equipment was designed and constructed in-house, creating student-centered physical laboratories to promote learning. 


The new equipment allows instructors to appropriately utilize the power of computer technology, aiding students with the synthesis of the mathematical and graphical meanings of physical concepts and furthering UIC students' insights into the ideas of physics.  The project creates an environment in which students studying Physics, working in teams, perform lab experiments to answer questions presented in a clear, visually enhanced computer medium.


This modernization of our introductory labs, carried out by Professor Clive Halliwell and Zahid Ali, has improved learning for students by actively engaging them in the learning process as they experience physical inquiry and discovery for themselves. We have seen evidence in Phys 141 that use of a technology-enhanced learning environment captures students' attention and increases the level of understanding by visualizing fundamental physics concepts. We have observed that computer-based instruction is more motivational than traditional instruction with students staying on-task longer and more actively participating when a computer is involved.

 

Excerpted from “Constructing Labs to Capture the Imagination,” an article in the 2010 edition of Physics News, published by the UIC Department of Physics.