Eastern Illinois University is a public comprehensive university located in Charleston, IL, which is about 50 miles south of Champaign-Urbana and less than 150 miles from Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis. Eastern enrolls about 10000 students (undergraduate and graduate), and has a large contingent of pre-health professional students. The chemistry department at Eastern is ACS accredited and offers BA and BS degrees plus both a thesis-based and course-based MS degree, as well as accelerated BS/MS and BA/MS plans. The department is comprised of 14 8 tenured/tenure-track faculty, and is home to about 70 undergraduate majors (all programs) and 6-10 graduate students. Undergraduate research is a longstanding tradition in our department and typically over 20 undergraduates (majors and non-majors) are engaged in research throughout the academic year. The department has a full range of modern instruments and equipment to support research including X-ray crystallography, electrochemistry, and a shared surface analysis (AFM) instrument.