Stockroom Staff Adapts to Changing Lab Needs

Structural Changes to Teaching Lab Services and the Main Stockroom

The retirement of Charlene Fuller led to many changes for Main Stockroom team. Sam Post, previously a senior laboratory technician, successfully transitioned into the Main Stockroom Manager role, and is continually looking for new efficiencies and better ways to serve the department. Organization of the stockrooms was restructured so that Eric Krantz now supervises the Main Stockroom Manager, in addition to the Teaching Laboratory Services staff.

Sam’s move to the Main Stockroom – and the departure of two other technicians – left Holly Schipper as the sole laboratory technician. As a result, she has taken on more responsibility within the stockroom, where she has played a vital role in training the new technicians, assisting undergraduate students, and keeping operations running smoothly.

Three new laboratory technicians have also since been hired: Annita Alvarado, Philip Langley, and Kimberly Morris. For the first time in over a year, the Stockroom is fully staffed.

Increased Enrollment Spurs Change

Teaching Laboratory Services’ (TLS) role in the department has continually evolved over the past several years, even prior to the pandemic. Laboratory enrollment is up nearly 15% since 2014, now serving approximately 225 lab sections and 4000 students per year. As a result, more evening hours have been added to the lab schedule. Between 2014 and 2019, there were many changes to the Teaching Wing:

All new laboratory exercises for 1122 and for the 1124-1128 sequences were introduced.
New technologies, such as Data Loggers, were introduced to modernize experiments.
Desktop NMRs were purchased for the organic chemistry laboratories, allowing students to obtain spectra of their samples in real time.
The volume of hazardous waste produced by the teaching laboratories was reduced.

Adapting for the Pandemic

The pandemic brought with it new challenges. Early on, the team created online content for labs, held meetings via WebEx, and created a library of standard operating procedures for the stockroom. Once staff was allowed back in the building, they straightened out the remaining unfinished business left by the sudden closure, and prepared labs for a socially-distanced return to learning. Despite all of the global hurdles, the team worked to ensure that the supply of critical use items – including gloves, pipette tips, vials, syringes, and others – were never eclipsed by the consumption of those goods through reaching out to vendors and manufacturers, and proactively overstocking or replacing items that could experience delays or order cancellations.

Future Initiatives

During the Spring 2022 semester, the Stockroom’s main focus will be the continued training and development of their newest laboratory technicians. The team also hopes to create a digital catalog of goods, as well as a digitized system for tracking purchases and packages that will bring them into the 21st century. They also look forward to a renewed focus on introducing green chemistry and sustainable practices to the teaching labs.