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DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY CORNELL UNIVERSITY ITHACA, NEW YORK H U.S.A.
NEWSLETTER
Issue No. 22 March 1978
We begin with this issue the eleventh year of publication of this Newsletter. This issue, as you can see from the masthead, is number 22 (because the previous issues were 21, 20, 19, etc.). In case you wonder why this first issue of our eleventh year is not No, 2 1 , the reason dates back to 1971 when we went from No. 7 in March to No. 9 in August. I know not why.
We also begin with this issue with a new editor, if that be the appropriate word. Let me introduce myself. My name is Earl Peters and I am the new Executive Director of the Department. Twice a year I have the pleasant task of coordinating the preparation of this, your Newsletter. I stress that this is your Newsletter because not only do we hope to communicate to you what*s going on in the Department, but perhaps this Newsletter can also serve as a vehicle for communi- cations among those of you who are Cornell Chemists. Pd like the contents of the Newsletter to reflect what you would like to know. I would like to meet each and every one of you so you can tell me in person, but until we do meet, perhaps you'll drop me a note.
Now let me tell you a little bit about myself. I attended Oberlin College, Yale University and the University of Buffalo from which I received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1958. Prior to this time, I worked for two years at the Sprague Electric Company in North Adams, Massachusetts as a polymer chemist and at the Polymer Structure Section of the National Bureau of Standards as a guest-worker while serving in the U.S. Army. After postdoctoral work at Buffalo for a year, I spent the next thirteen years with Milllken and Company and Burling- ton Industries in the Carolinas in various textile research, development and technical management positions. In 1973 I came to Cornell Uni-
versity and for four years I taught and did research in textiles in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis of the New York State College of Human Ecology.
And now I am here. My predecessor, Harold Mattraw, was such a capable administrator that it has been very easy for me to take over the management of this rather large and complex chemistry department. We are all grateful to him for his many years of dedicated and effec- tive leadership.
I have enjoyed my first few months here very much. I find a faculty who are both outstanding researchers, as is attested to by the over 200 publications that issued from this department last year, and dedicated and capable teachers of both undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars; a bright and hard-working student body; a committed, diligent staff. Together we shall continue to make this one of the outstanding chemistry departments in the country and in the world.
Earl Peters
FACULTY NEWS
Ton C. Clardy has joined the staff as Full Professor. "He was a Visiting Professor during the lovely Spring of 1977 and claims that he was scandalously misinformed about the weather in Ithaca. He arrived permanently in January and has enjoyed both the 100 inches of snowfall and the two sunny days.^11 (Editor's note: (1) We have had 114.9 in. of snow so far this season. The most to fall in one whole winter, since records started being kept in 1879, was 115 in. (2) We have had at least 3 sunny days since 1 January by my count.) His work deals with the organic chemistry of biologically active sub- stances and relies heavily on x-ray diffraction. After completion of his Ph.D. research at Harvard, he joined the staff of Iowa State Uni-
Chairman's Column
From the Chairman's perspective, two particularly important staff changes took place in the Department last fall. In the first place, as you may recall from last summer's issue of the Newsletter, Dr. Harold C. Mattraw stepped down from his position as Executive Director of the Department and retired to an active life in Ojai# Cali- fornia. Harold originally took over the Director's position from Bill Gurowitz (now Vice President for Campus Affairs), in August 1971. He soon established himself as a calm, unflappable director who knew what went on in every corner of the Department and was sensi- tive and understanding of the concerns of all. He was particularly helpful to graduate students and postdocs needing advice regarding positions in industry. As a new chairman, I found him a ready and reliable source of information and advice. Harold was a very modest man and would not allow us to mark his retirement in a formal way. Nevertheless, a few informal luncheons by faculty and others were held to say good-bye and tell him and his wife Afra that we in Ithaca would rniss them. I want to take this opportunity to wish them both a happy and refreshing new life in retirement.
The second staff change, of course, concerns the appointment of Dr. Earl Peters as the new Executive Director. Earl has introduced himself within this Newsletter. I do want to express my gratitude to him for agreeing to take on the job so soon after it was offered to him. Indeed, for the two and a half months before Christmas, Earl effec- tively held down two jobs! Thus, he continued his teaching, research, and administration in the College of Human Ecology, while at the same time coming regularly to Baker to cope with the day-to-day chores and to start on the longer-range tasks that arrive on the Director's desk. At this time, Earl Peters is truly at home in Baker and rapidly becoming well-known, well-liked and well-respected by all of us. We look for- ward to a long and fruitful association with him.
Lastly, one more staff change concerns me since it affects
my own position as Chairman! My three-year term will be completed this summer and on July 1st I will hand over the reins to my successor, Professor Benjamin Widom. Ben, a theoretician like myself, has agreed to take on the chairmanship for a three-year term. By happy coincidence, he had arranged to take this current semester as a sabbatic leave in the University of Oxford in England. Thus, he will come fresh to the job of chairman — and has also been spared the uncommonly heavy snow- falls, blizzard conditions and flooding that have struck Ithaca recently.
Ben will take over a department that has changed little in the last three years. Currently, we have about 29 full-time faculty, (not counting some very active emeritus professors), 75 postdocs and 135 graduate students. There have, of course, been some changes in faculty. Associate Professor Marc Loudon left us last September to take up a position at Purdue University. To the disappointment of us all, we will also be losing Professor Earl Muettertles to Berkeley at the end of this academic year. On the other hand, we have been de- lighted to welcome back to Cornell, Professor Jon C. Clardy of Iowa State University. Jon visited us last Spring and presented a most stim- ulating course and set of lectures on organic structural determination by x-ray diffraction. He now joins us permanently as Full Professor. His arrival follows shortly on the establishment of a Departmental X-ray Facility incorporating a Syntex P2 j Diffractometer purchased last fall with the aid of a major equipment grant from the National Science Foundation and matching funds provided by the University.
The Department has also been fortunate in continuing to attract outstanding young chemists to our junior faculty positions. Barry Carpenter and Paul Houston joined us in 1975 (in physical-organic and physical chemistry, respectively). This last fall Edward Grant (in physical chemistry) and Lawrence Que (in bioinorganic chemistry) started their terms as Assistant Professors. Within the last few weeks, Dr. James Rasmussen, currently at Harvard, has accepted our offer of an Assistant Professorship in bioorganic chemistry, to start next fall.
The Department thus remains strong and vigorous. As chairman,
Lauby's Recollections
For some thirty-six years I had the privilege of close associ- ation with Al Blomquist and valued him as a first class scientist, out- standing teacher, and genial friend. He and Sarah were members with us of Grad-Fax, a unique social organization of Cornell graduate students and faculty which started back in the twenties and has held monthly dances and dinners down through the academic years. Prob- ably the only group in the country which still has program dances and sports tuxedos and long dresses# it provides a campus-wide mix. Grace and I often exchanged dances with Al and Sarah and found them elegant partners.
When World War II occasioned an exodus of many senior fac- ulty members to areas of war work, Al and I were brought close in the struggle to keep instruction going and adapt the course schedules to meet the damands of Army and Navy for accelerated instruction for military contingents. And this was combined with much traveling and consulting on urgent research for the war effort. They were strenuous years but lightened greatly by the sympathetic understanding and strong backing of Professor Debye, who was then Chairman of the Chemistry Department. Al did a tremendous job helping to carry the Department through those demanding years and make it possible for rapid post-war resumption of normal academic activities.
In later years, when Al made consulting trips to Goodrich at Akron and I traveled to Cleveland for Sohio, he frequently provided pleasant companionship on railroad and plane. The door to his third floor red-carperted Baker office was always open to colleagues and students. His place in the history of chemistry at Cornell is out- standing.
Harold Scheraga, Charles Wllcox and Jerry Meinwald have written about Al in the collection of "Memorial Statements of Cornell Faculty^11 for 1976-77. This is such a fine tribute and summary of ATs career that I have obtained the authors 1 permission to reproduce it here in toto, because the publication is not circulated to alumni.
A. W. Laubengayer 7
^
ALFRED THEODORE BLOMQUIST
November 16, 1906 -January 15, 1977
^ Alfred T. Blomquist, one of the outstanding organic chemists of his gener- ation, had a relatively unconventional career compared to that of most academic scientists. A native of Chicago, he received his B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees all from the University of Illinois. It was also at the University of Illinois that he met and married Sara Moffat. He had always been a brilliant student, and on completing his doctorate under the supervision of Professor Girl ("Speed") Marvel, he was awarded a prestigious National Re- search Council Postdoctoral Fellowship. He used this fellowship to pursue organic chemical research at Cornell and had intended to follow a career as a research scientist. The death of a key person in his father's clothing business, however, caused him to revise his plans; he declined an attractive offer from the DuPont Company when his fellowship appointment came to an end in order to return to Chicago as a partner in his father's firm. He spent the next eight years in the family firm and undoubtedly gave up any hope of being able to use his organic chemical training again. World War I I , however, brought Al Blomquist back to the academic world by temporarily depleting Cornell of its entire organic chemistry faculty. Professor J. R. Johnson had always wanted to bring Al back to chemistry, and he was Finally successful in an appeal to Al to forsake his life in Chicago and to return to Ithaca to help out in this emergency. When Al claimed that he had forgotten most of his chemistry and had certainly failed to keep up wiili any new developments, Professor Johnson simply sent him a set of Chemical Society annual reports for the appropriate years, along with some recent texts and monographs, and told him to do some homework. While the practice of organic chemistry had not changed significantly during the 1930s, there had been very important advances in electronic theory and in the understanding of reaction mechanisms. The task of digesting these new developments in a few months must have been enormous. Nevertheless, Al IHoinquist prepared himself the best he could, joined the Cornell University faculty as an assistant professor of chemistry in 1941, and soon found him- self tearhing all the organic chemistry courses and directing the research of all of the organic chemistry graduate students. It was under these strenuous circumstances that Professor Blomquist launched his academic career.
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marked him as a scholar and a gentleman. Those who knew him will long remember him with deep af feel ion.
Harold A. Scheraga Charles F. Wilcox Jen old Meinwald
Faculty Members
(Spring Term 1978)
A. C. Albrecht J. M. Burlitch B. K. Carpenter J. C. eiaitfy W. D. Cooke E. L. Elson R. C. Fay M. E Fisher J. H. Freed B. Ganem M. J. Goldstein
E. R Grant G. G. Hammes R. Hoffmann P. L. Houston R. E. Hughes F. A. Long F. W. McLafferty J. Meinwald G. H, Morrison E, L. Muetterties E. Peters
R. F# Porter L. Que, Jr. T. N. Rhodin H. A. Scheraga A. G. Schultz M. F, Semmelhack M. J. Sienko D. A. Usher B. Widom J. R. Wiesenfeld C. F. Wilcox
Emeritus Faculty
S# H. Bauer J. R. Johnson V. du Vigneaud A. W Laubengayer J. L. Hoaiti W# T. Miller M. L. Nichols
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CORNELL CHEMISTS
Please inform us of any changes of address or circumstances by completing this form and mailing it to Earl Peters, Department of Chemistry, 122 Baker Laboratory, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
- Thank you.
NAME:
ADDRESS:
YEAR OF GRADUATION:
CORNELL S O C I A L HOUR
175th National ACS Meeting Tuesday, March 14, 1978
INN AT THE PARK Terrace II
Anaheim, California 5:30 PM
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