HISTORY OF

THE KU CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT: 1950–2000

A Personal Account

by

Marlin D. Harmony

Emeritus Professor of Chemistry

The University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Fifty Years of Faculty—A Quick Summary II. Some Departmental Statistics

• Faculty/Student Growth

• Degree Production

• Research Publications

• Grant Funding

• Departmental Budgets

• Space III. Departmental Staff—Some Really Important People

• Classified Staff

• Unclassified Staff

• Laboratory Directors

• Others IV. Faculty—More Detail

• Analytical Chemistry

• Inorganic Chemistry

• Organic Chemistry

• Physical Chemistry

• General Chemistry/Chemical Education V. The Big Science—Biological Paradigm

• Chemical Physics

• Biological Beginnings

• The Higuchi Years

• More Big Science—EPSCoR and More

ii

VI. Undergraduate and Graduate Studies—The Same But Changing

• The Graduate Program

• The Undergraduate Program VII. Miscellany

• KCCTC

• Helium History Revisited

• Undergraduate Research

• Hoch Auditorium Destruction and Rebirth

• Anschutz Science Library

• War and Civil Unrest Come to KU

• Gala Events Appendix I. Argersinger Poem Appendix II. Deceased Faculty Appendix III. Some Faculty Awards Bibliography Photographic Credits

iii

FOREWORD

After three of my retired faculty colleagues had passed away in a three-month period in

early 2004, I was shocked into the realization that there were few KU faculty members remaining

who had participated in the huge higher education expansion that occurred in the years after

World War II. This led me to some tedious research that culminated first in late 2004 in the

creation of Table I, which presents a summary of the employment record of all permanent full-

time, tenure/tenure track chemistry department faculty members during the period 1950-2000. I

knew that there had been a departmental history written by Professor Taft in celebration of the

50th anniversary of Bailey Chemical laboratory in 1950, so it seemed obvious that a new history

should properly begin at that point.

With Table I as a guide, I assumed that it might not be too great a problem to fill in

between the lines with a summary of what went on during the tenures of all these people.

Moreover, since I arrived in 1962 and retired in 1998, I had first-hand knowledge of most of the

period. In fact, I misjudged considerably the effort needed to pull together what I hope is a

coherent account of the Department’s activities, so it is nearly two years later that I write this

explanation and apology.

I have attempted to be factual at all times, basing the account on a variety of mostly local

documents as summarized in the Bibliography. But, as a participant in the history, the

descriptions of events and happenings are unavoidably colored by my own personal views and

interpretations. For any misinterpretations of fact and for any other errors of commission or

omission, I apologize in advance. I also apologize to those faculty and staff whose roles or

contributions have been underreported and, especially, to all the tens of thousands of

undergraduate and graduate students who go almost totally unnamed and without whom there

would be no university or chemistry department history.

I should thank the Chemistry Department, particularly Susan Teague, for assisting me in

my search through old departmental records. The University of Kansas Spencer Research Library

provided very efficient assistance in the search for old university records and photographs, and

archivist Barry Bunch was especially helpful. I am indebted to my colleague Jack Landgrebe

whose comments on a nearly completed draft were both helpful and encouraging. And, finally,

Nancy Harmony has provided not only her usual exceptional editorial expertise but also great

forbearance during my occasional tribulations with certain word-processing procedures.

Marlin D. Harmony, August 8, 2006

iv

THE KU CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT: 1950-20001

A Personal Account

I. Fifty Years of Faculty—A Quick Summary

My arrival in Lawrence in September of 1962 for the fall semester coincided with the

arrival of three other assistant professors of chemistry. Not since the post-war year of 1947, when

Griswold, Gilles, Reynolds and McEwen joined the faculty, and not at any time up to the present,

have four new faculty joined the department in a single year. My colleagues included Ben Chu

and Robin Fraser, who would both depart in 1968, and Jack Landgrebe, who would serve

admirably for four years beyond my own retirement in 1998. This measure of activity was unique

neither to the discipline of chemistry nor to the University of Kansas. In this post-Sputnik, space

race era the sciences were growing rapidly throughout the country. Fueled by this growth in the

sciences, but not limited to the various areas of science, universities nationwide were

experiencing major growth which would continue still for many years. At KU, the Chemistry

Department would add seven more faculty members by the year 1965, for a total of eleven in four

years.

Table I lists all the permanent faculty who taught during the fifty years of this survey and

summarizes the service time of each. Besides the explanatory table description, several points

should be noted. First, the resolution of the data is only one-half year, and the table does not

attempt to account for split appointments or leaves of absence. In this regard, the appointments of

Vedani and Kuczera were split with the Biochemistry Department. Since 1950 the initial

appointments were at the assistant professor level except for those of Bricker, Higuchi, Kuwana,

Wilson and Busch, which were all full professor positions (Chaired in the latter four cases), K.B.

Schowen, who was hired at the associate professor level and Lata, whose position was lecturer.

The table does not include faculty or other professional staff who held visiting, temporary,

adjunct or courtesy appointments, nor does it include those who held non-faculty professional

positions. Many of the staff persons in the latter category will be discussed later, but it is

important to mention immediately two key personnel in this category, namely, Jack Rose, who

served as the department’s business manager for 33 years, and Ken Ratzlaff, who has directed the

department’s Instrumentation Design Laboratory since 1981.

1 Not entirely fortuitously, the period covered by this history connects well with the previous excellent publication by Robert Taft, “50 Years in Bailey Chemical Laboratory,” which was published to coincide with the 50th anniversary celebration of Bailey Hall in 1950.

1

The reasons for appointment terminations vary widely. Of course, many end by

retirement to emeritus status at ages usually in the sixties. For other, usually senior, faculty,

departures occur in order to pursue new and/or additional opportunities. In many other cases

involving both junior and mid-age faculty, it turns out that the fit with academia is simply not

perfect—what with the demands of “publish or perish”, grant writing, long hours at relatively low

remuneration and an often uncertain reward system. Most of the faculty listed in Table I either

retired normally or were still on the active rolls as of fall 2000 and will be discussed in more

detail later. For those who do not fall into these categories some brief explanations may be of

immediate interest. First, in only three cases did faculty die while in active service, viz., Robert

Taft, Henry Werner and Takeru Higuchi. The first two of these faculty, neither of whom I met,

were legends when I arrived in 1962. They both passed away in less than a four-month period in

1955 (Werner in June and Taft in September). Werner was head of the State Food Laboratory for

many years and served as Dean of Men for the University for eighteen years. A physical chemist

by training, Taft was an avid Kansas historian, especially well known for his books “Across the

Years on Mount Oread” (1941) and “Fifty Years in Bailey Chemical Laboratory” (1950). Taft

remarked about Werner in the latter publication that upon his resignation of the deanship in 1947,

“his sins forgiven, he was again received in Bailey Laboratory as a member in good standing.”

This somewhat suspicious view of faculty who go into administration, while largely tongue-in-

cheek, has persisted to the present day! Higuchi, about whom much more will be said later, died

suddenly in the spring of 1987, at an age when his scientific acumen and vigor were still high,

bringing to an end one of the most remarkable careers in the University’s history.

Two of the department’s strong researchers in organic chemistry, Bill McEwen and Cal

VanderWerf (perhaps happiest and even more well-known as an undergraduate chemistry

teacher), left in the very early 1960s for positions as Chairman of the chemistry department at the

University of Massachusetts and as President of Hope College in Holland, Michigan,

respectively. This loss of two key organic faculty (Cal was also the department Chair in 1961 and

would thus be the one who would have to bear the brunt of any future criticism for my hiring)

was a serious blow to the department, but surely opened up positions that led to the hiring of

Carlson and Schowen in 1963. Frank Sherwood (universally called Sherry) Rowland had built a

very strong program in physical chemistry (gas-phase reaction dynamics and kinetics) in several

short years when he was presented the opportunity to head up and build a new chemistry

department at a new university, viz., the University of California at Irvine. This opportunity was

surely too much for anyone to pass up, but his departure in 1964 was a severe loss for KU.

2

Table I. CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT FACULTY (1950-2000)

50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 00

Brewster,R.Q. XxxxxXxxxxXxx O Davidson,A.W. XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX I Stratton,G.W. XxxxxXx O Taft,R. Xxxxx P VanderWerf,C.A. XxxxxXxxxxXxx O Werner,H. Xxxxx A Kleinberg,J. XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxx I Griswold,C.E. XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxx I Argersinger,W.J. XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxx P Gilles,P.W. XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxx P McEwen,W.E. XxxxxXxxxxXx O Reynolds,C.A. XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxx A Adams,R.N. .....XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXx A Rowland,F.S. ......xxxxXxxx P Iwamoto,R.T. ......xxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX A Burgstahler,A.W. ......xxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxx O Bearman,R.J. .......xxxXxxxxXxxxxXx P Huyser,E.S. .........xXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxx O Chu,B. ............xxxXxx P Fraser,R.T.M. ............xxxXxx I Harmony,M.D. ............xxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxx P Landgrebe,J.A. ............xxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX O Bricker,C.E. .............xxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxx A,G Carlson,R.G. .............xxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX O Schowen,R.L. .............xxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxx O Middaugh,R.L. ..............xXxxxxXxxxx I Lee,J.K. ..............xXxxxxXxxxxXxxxx A Kevan,L. ...............Xxxx P Lata,A.J. ...............XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX G Christoffersen,R. ................xxxxXxxxxXxxxxX P Everett,G.W. ................xxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxx I Higuchi,T. .................xxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXx P Givens,R.S. .................xxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX O Haslam,J.L. ..................xxXxx P Hierl,P.M. ...................xXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX P Lee,B.K. ....................XxxxxXxxxxXxxx P Bowman-James,K. .........................XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX I Defreese,J. ..........................xxxxXxx A Chu,S. ............................xxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX P Daigneault,G. ................................xxx A Engler,T.A. ..................................xXxxxxXxxxxXxx O Heppert,J.A. ...................................XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX I Johnson,C.K. ...................................XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX P Kuwana,T. ...................................XxxxxXxxxxXxxxxX A Vedani,A. ....................................xxxxX I Lunte,C.E. .....................................xxxXxxxxXxxxxX A Schowen,K.B. .....................................xxxXxxxxXxxxxX O,G Wilson,G.S. .....................................xxxXxxxxXxxxxX A Busch,D.H. ......................................xxXxxxxXxxxxX I Bowman,R.M. .........................................xxxxXxx P Kuczera,K ..........................................xxxXxxxxX P Larive,C.K. ..........................................xxxXxxxxX A Benson,D.R. ...........................................xxXxxxxX O

3

CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT FACULTY (Cont.)

50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 00 Laird,B.B. ............................................xXxxxxX P Dunn,R.C. .............................................XxxxxX A Borovik,A.S. ..............................................xxxxX I Hanson,P.R. ..............................................xxxxX O Robinson,J.B. .................................................xX G Malinakova,H.C. ..................................................X O Table description: The initial x indicates the initial fall semester appointment in a tenured or tenure-track position. The final x represents the last fall semester appointment before retirement or otherwise leaving K.U. All years in between the initial and final are filled in with xs, even if a person were on leave of absence or entered into a split appointment in another department, etc. For those faculty who were active in fall 1950, the prior years of service were as follows: Brewster,31; Davidson,29; Stratton,38; Taft,28; Werner,30; VanderWerf,7; Kleinberg,4; Griswold,3; Argersinger,4; Gilles,3; McEwen,3; Reynolds,3. Capital Xs appear every five years to aid in viewing the time scale. Service years as Department Chair are indicated by underlines. Nominal specialty designations on the far right are A=analytical, I=inorganic, O=organic, P=physical, G=general(freshman). One faculty member, G.P. Haight, who served for only two academic years (1952-53 and 1953-54), has been omitted from the table. Prepared by M.D. Harmony 12/17/04

4

Sherry would be awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1995 for his atmospheric

fluorochlorocarbon studies, none of which were underway while he was at KU. It is only natural

to speculate as to whether he would have won the award if he had remained at KU. Of course,

one cannot really know; but the key point is that there certainly were no opportunities available at

KU to compete with those presented to him in California in 1964.

In a seven-year span from 1968 to 1975, the physical division lost four faculty members

while the inorganic division lost two. Three of the physical faculty had developed strong

programs but perceived greater opportunities elsewhere. Ben Chu, who had studied under the

renowned Peter Debye at Cornell, left for a position at SUNY Stonybrook. There he developed an

internationally recognized program and soon achieved a distinguished chair position. Larry

Kevan, a KU Chemistry Department BS Honors graduate, found after only four years that the

supply of physical chemistry graduate students and the support for physical chemistry research at

KU were insufficient to provide the level of activity he desired. He consequently left for a

position at Wayne State University, from which he similarly departed several years later for a

distinguished chair position at the University of Houston. Dick Bearman, an exceptionally

talented thermodynamicist (as was Chu, whose specialty was critical phenomena and light

scattering), was frequently at odds with both the KU and national scientific research

establishment. When an opportunity arose for a leading scientist to develop a new department at

an Australian university (University of New South Wales) Dick seized upon the opportunity and

never looked back. Dick was a notorious figure among the organic graduate students on the

fourth and fifth floors of Malott Hall. His lab was in the basement (as was mine in those days)

and anytime some noxious organic chemical was (accidentally?) disposed of in the drain or in the

hood system it was certain to present its vapors in Dick’s lab. This would lead to several days

during which Dick stormed around the organic labs terrorizing the organic students for their

misdeeds. It is quite true that the drainage and ventilating (hood) systems in Malott Hall were not

of the highest quality during these years (they were later upgraded substantially). In any case,

Dick was absolutely fanatical about the problems. For example, he was the first person to have a

massive activated charcoal filter installed in the air-handling system in his laboratory. Naturally,

the students were quite aware of Dick’s war against organic fumes and vapors and so there were

some never-substantiated rumors that some of these chemical releases were not entirely

accidental. Finally, among the departing physical chemists was John Haslam in 1973. John found

the teaching/research environment to not provide the best outlet for his strong research

capabilities in biological physical chemistry. Fortunately for him and for the local scientific

5

community, he immediately secured a position in the INTERX Corporation (see later discussion)

on the KU West Campus.

The two inorganic departures included Robin Fraser and Dick Middaugh. Robin was an

incredibly talented inorganic transition metal chemist, but he was not completely happy to have to

dilute his research activities with university teaching. There was also some homesickness among

both Robin and his wife, so when a government research laboratory opportunity arose in his

native England, he pounced upon it and never returned. In Dick’s case a couple of reasons came

into play. First, his wife Karen had a substantial job opportunity in Boston, MA; secondly, Dick’s

research in borane chemistry had, to some extent, stagnated. So, all things considered, it worked

out to be a good time for a change.

Four faculty departed KU for other opportunities in the 80s and three in the 90s. The

cases of Jim Defreese, B. K. Lee and Tom Engler were similar; in each instance the individual

took off for a year or two of official “leave of absence” to explore non-academic opportunities.

These stays were in all cases pleasant and led to employment offers at the new locations. Jim

went to Abbott Labs in Chicago where he enjoyed working on well-oriented, clinically directed

research projects; B. K. found the biological physical chemistry research opportunities at N.I.H.

in Bethesda, MD to be just what he had been looking for and he was relieved to be freed of the

responsibility of running the X-ray crystallography service laboratory; and Tom Engler

discovered that he could do excellent synthetic organic research at Eli Lilly without worrying

about all the minutiae of the academic world. For Greg Daigneault, Angelo Vedani and Bob

Bowman the situations were analogous, although the departures were not preceded by academic

leaves. Greg and Angelo left for non-university activities while Bob took a turn at a teaching

position at Colgate University. Finally, my close friend and colleague in physical chemistry,

Ralph (Chris) Christoffersen, left KU to become President of Colorado State University in Fort

Collins. He had in earlier years built an outstanding research program in theoretical chemistry,

but had most recently served as Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs. Chris was an unusually

talented leader and clearly had his sights set on the academic administrative ladder. We sent him

off with our best wishes but also with great sadness. It turned out that his tenure at CSU was

short and not altogether enjoyable, but it was followed by much more fruitful administrative stays

as a research administrator at the Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo, MI and later as the President

of RPI Pharmaceuticals in Boulder, CO.

6

II. Some Departmental Statistics

FACULTY/STUDENT GROWTH. Returning now to more general statistical matters, it

is possible to extract from Table I a simple graph showing the total number of faculty present

annually over the fifty-year period as given in Figure 1. Here it is seen that the department’s

tenured faculty grew very regularly and substantially from 1955 to 1970; the net faculty growth

during this fifteen-year period averaged nearly one person per year! During this time there were,

of course, retirements and departures so the hiring occurred at a furious pace for some time. In

particular, in the 1962-1970 period (see Table I) there were eighteen new faculty hires, an

average of two per year for nine years. The driving force for this faculty expansion was, of

course, the growth of the university enrollment as shown in Figure 2. But while the faculty count

never exceeded the value of 25 reached in 1970, it is seen that the university enrollment

continued to climb rapidly for another ten years before essentially leveling off after 1980.

Although the department regularly requested net faculty additions during the last two decades of

the 20th century for various programmatic reasons, the Dean of the College generally resisted

these requests on the grounds that resources were limited and that demands were greater in other

areas. These were, of course, not new arguments, but they would achieve new cogency in the

1980s as State fiscal troubles would put increasing pressures upon higher education budgets

statewide. It was also true that chemistry department enrollments did not grow substantially

during the last three decades of the century, while new disciplines such as computer science and

molecular biology were attracting ever more science students who might have previously majored

in chemistry. Figure 3 shows that chemistry course student credit-hour production rose rapidly

from 1950 to 1970, after which, in contrast to the overall university growth shown in Figure 2, it

remained relatively unchanged. From the very close similarity between the general behavior of

the data in Figures 1 and 3, it is easy to conclude that credit hour production was the key factor

used by the Dean in determining the need for additional faculty. The more cynical members of

the faculty took this action as a perfect example of administrative “bean counting.”

DEGREE PRODUCTION. Numerous additional statistical measures may be utilized to

highlight the activities of the department during the second half of the 20th century. Perhaps one

of the most important is degree production. Figure 4 summarizes the total undergraduate degree

production (Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science) for two-year periods. (Thus the 1951 data

point shows that there were twenty-one BA and BS degrees awarded for the two-year period

covered by the academic years 1950-1951 and 1951-1952). Although there are year-to-year

variations, BS degree holders represented approximately one-quarter of the total and, among the

BA degree holders, a substantial fraction in any given year (perhaps one-quarter or even one-

7

FIGURE 1. TOTAL CHEMISTRY FACULTY

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

YEAR

NUM

BE

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FIGURE 2. UNIVERSITY HEAD-COUNT ENROLLMENT

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15000

20000

25000

30000

1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

YEAR

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8

FIGURE 3. CHEMISTRY STUDENT CREDIT-HOUR PRODUCTION (including summer)

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4000

6000

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12000

14000

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18000

20000

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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IT H

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FIGURE 4. UNDERGRADUATE DEGREES(Total number of BA and BS degrees per two-year period)

0

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140

160

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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9

third) were pre-health science majors heading toward medical, nursing or dental schools. The

department also maintained its long history of sending many of its BA and BS graduates on to the

best institutions in the country for PhD studies. While it seems that it would be interesting to

attempt even a partial enumeration of some of our more successful graduates, the task would

ultimately be a fool’s errand. Departmental and university alumni records are never able to keep

track reliably of who went where and when, so in the interest of not insulting those who are left

off such a list or who are somehow misidentified, the exercise has been abandoned. It should

perhaps be mentioned that since the 1960s the department has published an annual newsletter

that, among other items, summarizes whatever information our alumni wish to pass on to us.

Returning to Fig. 4, it is interesting to note that the degree production peaked around

1970, after which it dropped by about 50%. Although total chemistry course enrollments

remained high throughout the last three decades, reflecting the always important service role of

the department, the decline in undergraduate majors could not be reversed even though the

department regularly initiated a variety of program enhancements and actions to encourage

students to major in chemistry.

On the graduate (PhD and MS) degree side of the ledger, Figure 5 presents the data for

two-year intervals in a fashion identical to Figure 4. Somewhat surprisingly, the graduate degree

production shows essentially the same behavior as the undergraduate degree data, peaking around

1970 and then declining to 1960 (or even lower) levels with, however, some resurgence in the

mid-1990s. There is no obvious reason why this similarity should occur, since undergraduate and

graduate enrollments are largely uncoupled, except for the possibility that if undergraduate degree

production nationwide were to decline markedly (which seems not to have happened), then

graduate degree production four or five years later might logically also decline. In contrast to the

undergraduate case, graduate degree production in chemistry correlates closely with graduate

student enrollment in chemistry, as shown in Figure 6. Note the excellent qualitative similarity

between the latter two figures. Indeed, since it requires four to five years to obtain a PhD degree,

one expects the degree production peak to lag behind the enrollment peak. A close inspection of

Figures 5 and 6 shows this to be true.

The steep decline in graduate enrollment that began in the 1970s was an issue that

dominated departmental discussion and activities for twenty years or more, because the health

and vigor of the department’s research programs were directly tied to the supply of graduate

students. It was clear that there was no simple solution to the problem. Over a twenty-year

period, a variety of actions were taken by the department to maintain and improve graduate

enrollment. For example, the department:

10

FIGURE 5. GRADUATE DEGREES(Total number of MS and PhD degrees per two-year period)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year

Num

ber

FIGURE 6. GRADUATE STUDENT ENROLLMENT PER YEAR

0

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40

60

80

100

120

140

160

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year

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11

1. Increased almost continuously teaching assistant (TA) and research assistant (RA)

stipends to remain competitive with its peers.

2. Increased the number of faculty recruiting trips to neighboring colleges and

universities.

3. Committed greater amounts of departmental discretionary endowment funds to bring

candidates to campus to visit the department.

4. Committed greater amounts of discretionary funds for summer scholarships prior to a

student’s first year, as well as increased scholarship “add-ons” for the academic year.

5. Reviewed and evaluated in extreme detail the department’s strengths and

weaknesses, relative to its success in recruiting graduate students.

6. Developed a new, innovative course program for graduate students (known as the

“Core” curriculum (see later)).

7. Organized and hosted a conference for neighboring (mid-west) college faculty of MS

degree-granting schools in order to encourage transfer to KU for PhD studies (1977).

8. Organized and hosted an alumni reunion in Lawrence in association with the national

American Chemical Society meeting in Kansas City to discuss graduate student

recruiting and more generally to improve relations (1982).

9. Organized and hosted the College and University Alumni Teachers Reunion to

discuss ways to improve KU’s relations and recruiting with other schools (June,

1986).

10. Organized and hosted the “Graduate Research Symposium” to introduce juniors and

seniors to graduate program opportunities at KU (March, 1987). Thirty-three students

from eleven states and twenty colleges attended this event. (Although the program

led to success in recruiting several students, it was not repeated again until 1996,

after which it became a permanent recruiting tool under the name Graduate Research

Opportunities Symposium.)

With procedures and actions such as these in effect, enrollments in the range of 70-80 students

seemed sustainable. Still, the competition for students remained fierce nationwide, and vigorous

recruiting continued to be one of the department’s highest priorities throughout the century.

Although enrollments and degree production may not have always reached the desired

levels, it was nevertheless a source of great pride when the department granted its 600th PhD

degree in the 1994-95 academic year. Moreover, as for our undergraduates, our graduate students

have gone on to productive positions in academia, industry and government laboratories. Again,

12

as in the case of our undergraduates, any complete, accurate listing is not realistically possible.

However, it is perhaps valuable to simply note in a rather general way, along with some specific

examples, where our graduates have gone for their professional careers. Academic locations

include small, primarily liberal arts schools such as Kansas Wesleyan University, Ottawa

University, Colorado College, and Skidmore College; regional research universities such as

Kansas State, Nebraska, Iowa State and Iowa universities; and national research schools such as

California, Stanford, Michigan State, Ohio State, Boston College, Oregon State, Harvard and

Rice. Industrial destinations read pretty much like a “who’s who” of chemical industry, including

Dow Chemical, E. I. du Pont, Union Carbide, Goodyear, Proctor and Gamble, 3M, Phillips

Petroleum, Exxon Oil, Eli Lilly, Merck, and Mallinckrodt Chemical. Finally, national and

regional research institutes continued to be popular locations, such as Los Alamos, Oak Ridge,

and Argonne National Laboratories, the National Bureau of Standards, the National Institutes of

Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. Most faculty at research institutions such as KU would

not think of measuring their success by counting undergraduate and graduate degrees even if this

is undeniably an important function of the department and university. Rather, they would tend to

measure progress by their scholarly research activities. Perhaps the most significant item to look

at here would be their publication rate in reviewed scientific journals. Figure 7 presents these

data for two-year intervals. (There is, unfortunately, some double counting, which is most

significant in the earliest two data points.) Thus, the point tabulated for 1962 represents all the

journal publications of the faculty for the 1961-62 and 1962-63 academic years. Note that after

the early departmental growth beyond 1950, the two-year publication rate remains fairly

consistently above 100 and, as the century came to an end, was moving toward the 140 level. It

would, however, appear that the department’s publication rate declined in the 1970s before

regaining some strength in the mid-1980s. Does this mean that we were any less hardworking

and industrious during this period? It is certainly nothing that I observed or detected from my

own experience, but perhaps some hidden indolence lurked below the surface.

Let’s look at the data a little more closely. First, the Fig. 7 data show a rough similarity

in behavior (i.e., the peaks and valleys) to the graduate student enrollment given in Fig. 6. This

behavior is just what is expected if research productivity (and hence publication rate) is at least

partially determined by the number of graduate students involved in the research projects. In fact,

the Fig. 7 publication data show that the graduate student productivity actually increased from a

value of about 1 publication per graduate student per two-year period in 1965 to a value of about

2 in 1980, quite similar to that for our peer institutions. The data also indicate that the publication

13

FIGURE 7. FACULTY PUBLICATIONS (per two-year period)

0

20

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160

1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

Year

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rate is in the range of four to five publications per faculty member per two-year period, a result

which, according to data compiled by the department in its 1991 Long Range Plan, is lower by a

factor of about one-half than that for the top quarter of KU’s university peer group. The principal

explanation for this surely lies in the fact that our graduate student enrollments are lower than in

the peer institutions. Of course, there are two issues involved here—quality and quantity, and the

graphs relate only to the latter factor. While it is certainly possible to publish high-quality

research at unusually high rates with the aid of large research groups, it often occurs that

excessively high publication rates are the result of work of a routine, repetitive nature. Jake

Kleinberg once commented about a researcher who turned out some 25 publications per year, that

“he had published far more than he had ever read.” In any case, as the century drew to a close it

14

appeared that the faculty’s scholarly publication rate had returned solidly to the high level of

earlier years.

GRANT FUNDING. The other type of data that is interesting and informative to look at

with regard to faculty research activities is research grant funding. It is especially interesting here

because the period covered by this brief history is precisely coincident with the development of

“big science”, about which I will have still more to say later. It is important to note that until

World War II, which saw the first major developments of big scientific and technical machines

such as cyclotrons, radar and advanced radio equipment, high vacuum technology, and a huge

variety of sophisticated electronic (utilizing vacuum tube technology) instruments for amplifying

and detecting various kinds of signals, chemistry research really did not depend upon what we

now consider to be sophisticated electronic or optical instrumentation. Chemistry research used

beakers and flasks, two-pan analytical balances, gas and liquid burets, mercury thermometers and

manometers, visual color tests for analysis, freezing and melting point measurements, and so

forth; electrochemical (in particular pH meters) and calorimetric apparatus were at the apex of

sophistication. To make a long story short, as we entered the 1950s the KU labs had no NMR

spectrometers, mass spectrometers, recording infrared and optical spectrometers, routine X-ray

diffractometers, HPLCs or GCs, let alone anything utilizing a laser or a computer.

Moreover, research funding as we know it today was just in its infancy. The Atomic

Energy Commission (AEC), which began funding research by Gilles and Rowland in the late

1950s, came into existence only in 1946 in order to develop peaceful uses for atomic energy,

while the National Science Foundation (NSF) was not established until 1950 upon the recognition

that because science had played such an important role in the war it might even be useful in

peacetime.2 Although the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was founded in 1930, it was not

until the establishment of the National Cancer Institute in 1937 that anything really existed.

Finally, in 1946, a few additional institutes were founded and funded to provide extramural grant

support. The dollar numbers for these activities are startling in retrospect. The total N.I.H.

budget in 1947 was $4 million; by 1957 it had increased to $100 million, by 1974 to $1 billion

and to $17 billion in the year 2000. The NSF funded its first 28 grants in 1952 at a cost of $3.5

million. Its budget had grown only to about $30 million until Sputnik I was launched by the

Soviet Union in October 1957; the 1959 budget promptly grew to $134 million, reached the $1

2 Actually, the Foundation was founded upon the urging of Vannevar Bush (a former M.I.T. professor and dean), who directed science and engineering programs during the war for the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD). His visionary report, “Science—The Endless Frontier,” had an immense impact upon the development of government-sponsored scientific research and education programs after the war.

15

billion level in 1983 and the $2 billion mark in 1993. So in the early years grant funding was not

very large by present-day standards, although the researchers of the day were looking ahead

toward a brighter future. Rowland’s AEC grant for the study of reactive tritium atoms in 1957-58

was for a total of $28,000. It is not clear from the still-existing records whether NSF was funding

any KU chemistry research at this early time. A note from then-Chancellor Franklin Murphy to

then-Chair Ray Brewster in May 1953 is illuminating:

“It has come to my attention recently that the NSF may well have available for allocation

next year more than twice their appropriation for the past year. Figures which are

perhaps not entirely accurate suggest that during the past year about $60K of NSF money

has come to the University.” (from 1953-54 Departmental Yearbook)

This “heads-up” shows that the chancellor was well aware that funds were to be available to those

ready to grab them.

The KU chemistry faculty did, in fact, tap into this new federal funding in major ways.

We will speak about the particular KU “big science” paradigm later. But here we simply mention

that grantsmanship grew rapidly in chemistry after the 1950s. In the 1965 departmental

newsletter, the chairman reported that the department had a total of $337,788 of federal agency

funding in effect. The numbers rapidly exceeded one-half million dollars in a few years. A

graph presented in the 2003 Departmental Long-Range Plan shows that federal grant expenditures

totaled $378K in 1980, $1173K in 1990 and $4036K in 2000. This is a growth rate of

approximately $180K per year, a really remarkable performance! Of course, as the century drew

to a close, everything in the research arena cost much more than at mid-century. It was now

necessary to purchase and support one-half or one million dollar research instruments. And

whereas a research assistant stipend was about $155 per month in 1951, it had increased to $722

per month in 1985 and $1367 per month in 2000.

DEPARTMENT BUDGETS. Finally, department budgets provide a rather instant view

of growth and inflation. Table II presents three budgets from the 1950-2000 period plus a budget

for the year just prior to entering this period. The categories presented include essentially those

that are funded by State allocations and thus do not include any grant funds. We see that the

budget increased by a factor of 15 over the fifty years. Of course, the number of faculty doubled

and the number of graduate student TAs increased by about fifty percent. The non-faculty staff

was the area of major growth, however. In 1950, there were ten non-faculty staff persons, while

by 1988-89 the number had grown to 23, including: four supervisory and administrative

personnel, seven secretarial/clerk personnel, four stockroom personnel, and eight

technical/instrument operator personnel. It is, perhaps, surprising also that the operating expense

16

budget reached a plateau and even declined. This is partly due to a shifting of expenses from the

department to other university areas. For example, for many years, the department budgeted for

telephone expenses and central computer center usage costs. Both of these costs disappeared

over the years. But, also, some of the decline was real. Basically, the dean’s budget demands

from non-science areas increased as the years went on, and science areas such as chemistry were

forced to take up the slack in the continuously meager College budget. This, of course, forced the

department to depend even more heavily upon grant funds and also funds from the departmental

endowment (donated by various alumni, friends, chemical companies and other organizations)

administered by the KU Endowment Association.

Table II. DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET ( $1000 units)

1949-1950 1977-1978

Faculty salaries 90 517

Staff salaries (a) 211

TA salaries 35 174

Operating expenses 51 285

$176 $1187

1988-1989 1998-1999

Faculty salaries 1033 1363

Staff salaries 514 587

TA salaries 277 444

Operating expenses 288 251

$2112 $2645

(a) Included in faculty line.

SPACE. The final piece of the statistical puzzle concerns departmental space. The key

point is that by the time that Bailey Hall had reached its 50th anniversary it was completely

unsuitable for the future that lay ahead. The department, led by Chairman Brewster, had already

begun lobbying and planning for a new building by the second half of the 1940s. By the fall of

1948 the chancellor was on board for a building costing $2,000,000; the legislature approved such

an appropriation in the spring of 1949. Serious planning now began for a building to house not

only the Chemistry Department but also the Department of Physics, the School of Pharmacy and

17

the Science library. When bids were finally opened in March 1951, the building with no furniture

had a price tag of $2.6 million. The legislature approved the additional funds and groundbreaking

began in April. Just over three years later the building was finally occupied for the fall semester

of 1954. With furnishings, the total project cost for the seven-floor building (counting the

basement) was $3.25 million. It was named in honor of former chancellor Deane W. Malott, who

had left KU to become president of Yale in 1951. Malott Hall was essentially in the shape of a

capital E with a very short central section. Moreover, the western wing of the building was

capped at four floors above ground. The space allotted to chemistry, physics, pharmacy and the

science library was (in square feet) 88000, 55000, 22000 and 9000, respectively. Because of the

wonderful planning that had gone into this building since about 1950, the resulting structure

really served excellently (the laboratory fume hoods being a notable exception) as is until about

1965. Oh sure, modern instrumentation led to the need for upgraded electrical power and

laboratory air conditioning;3 and water, plumbing, electrical power, telephone and, more recently,

high-speed internet computer lines were constantly being added to the utility chases.

But it was not until 1970 that a major building expansion occurred when the missing two

floors on the west side of Malott were finally added. The laboratory space provided by this

expansion went to professors Adams (originally it was to go to Bearman, but he left for

Australia), Burgstahler, Christoffersen (theory space), Harmony and Schowen, plus several

offices for physics professors. This “two-floor” addition added about 10% to the original

construction. As one of the recipients of this new space, I was in heaven—lab benches where I

wanted them, power outlets where I needed them (including 220 volt), and adequate exhaust

hoods and excellent lighting. When the move of my laboratory (from the basement of the east

side of the building) occurred in the spring of 1971, I was on sabbatical leave at Cambridge

University in England. My graduate students did a marvelous job of handling this activity and

never once complained to me about setting back their graduate careers! Minor remodeling

continued over the next ten years and then in 1980 the Pharmacy School received funding to

relieve its intense space squeeze—the E was closed off (to more-or-less make a Greek theta).

And not too long thereafter a free-standing science library (Anschutz Science Library) was

constructed next door, so the Science library moved out of Malott Hall. In each of these projects

3 Interestingly, Malott Hall has been reported to be the last State financed building (in the entire state) that was constructed without provision for or installation of central air conditioning. It is probably not necessary to relate the difficulties that this has led to over the succeeding fifty years—retrofitting a massive structure such as Malott Hall for the demands of modern energy consuming and heat producing instrumentation has been an almost constant problem.

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the Chemistry Department inherited additional space, always at the expense of great disruption

and chaos from remodeling and upgrading.

Even with all of this activity it has seemed that the department has been in a continuous

space shortage since shortly after completion of the Pharmacy addition. There has scarcely been

a year (or half-year) in which walls have not been knocked out, rooms remodeled, windows

replaced, hood ducts replaced, water lines added, air conditioning ducts installed, myriad wires

pulled through the walls, lighting updated, and even (although only slightly) elevators upgraded

to satisfy the federal disabilities act regulations. (Based upon undocumented but incontrovertible

information the original Malott Hall elevators, one in front of the Chemistry office and one in

front of the Physics office, were the slowest, most primitive and least dependable elevators in the

entire state). Over the years the Chemistry Department has struggled to find the space it needs for

its many research and teaching programs. At the same time the Pharmacy School has shifted its

activities increasingly to Campus West (essentially west of 19th and Iowa), freeing up little bits of

space for Chemistry which, however, always seemed to require substantial remodeling. The

department has had plans for a new building for at least twenty years, but there appears to be little

likelihood of achieving State support for such an enterprise in the modern legislative climate. If

only the federal government or a wealthy donor would come up with $70,000,000!

III. Department Staff—Some Really Important People

CLASSIFIED STAFF. When I arrived in 1962 professors Brewster and Davidson were

clearly the grand old men of the department. But I soon learned that there was another

department stalwart who had survived both the depression and the Second World War, namely

Albert Salisbury. Mr. Salisbury, usually called Sali, joined the staff of the department in 1926

and served for forty-four years as a chemistry storeroom technician before retiring in 1970 at the

age of seventy.4 Most of this time he operated the freshman chemistry storeroom, which meant

that he was responsible for supplying, maintaining and organizing all the chemicals and apparatus

for many hundreds of students every semester. Most mortal men would not have been able to

survive such a task, but Sali did it with efficiency, patience, kindness and a ready smile. The

students loved him! In the 1960s he operated an informal candy bar concession out of the

storeroom (not a single vending machine (soda pop or candy bar) existed in all of Malott Hall in

those halcyon days) until, according to rumor, his business was shut down because he was not

4 Incidentally, until the federal age discrimination act was enacted and came into effect at universities, it was common that all faculty and staff were required to retire at the age of seventy. So 70 was always the magic age at universities; this magic number no longer applies, even though many might believe it to be perfectly reasonable.

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collecting sales tax. Sali’s remarkable tenure covered those of six department chairs and five

university chancellors. He passed on peacefully in 1998 after a full life. Such a long

performance may be at the extreme end of the spectrum, but it represents a not unusual example

of department loyalty illustrated by many staff members over the years. Table III provides a

summary (with some identifying notes) of classified staff 5 who had served approximately 15

years or more in the department by the year 2000.

Table III. LONG-SERVING CLASSIFIED STAFF

Berger, Bob Storekeeper 15 years, retired 1974

Collins, Wilma Secretary 15 years, retired 1961

Cooper, Fred Storekeeper 22 years, retired 1996

Evans, Bob Storekeeper 18 years, retired 1980

Fakhoury, Harold Glassblower 22 years, retired 1995

Goodrich, Evelyn Clerk/Accountant 33 years, retired 1993

Lawrence, John Electronic repair 17 years, retired 1991

Logan, Walter Glassblower 27 years, retired 1975

Salisbury, Albert Storeroom technician 44 years, retired 1970

Sharp, Bill Equipment repair 14 years, retired 1966

Williams, Orlena Clerk/Accountant 15 years, retired 1995

Woody, Hobart Storekeeper 14 years, retired 1962

Still Active in fall 2000

Drake, Bob Instrument operator Began 1971-72

Johnson, Bruce Storekeeper Began 1972-73

Payne, Sonjia Secretary/Admin. Spec. Began 1980-81

Peters, Tom Software specialist Began before 1980

Teague (McAfee), Susan Storekeeper/Clerk/Accountant Began 1978-79

It is clear from the lengths of service of the listed personnel that the department has had

many dedicated and loyal staff members, even if none has quite reached the Salisbury status.

But, look at the group of still-active personnel who were pushing the 20-30 year status by the year

2000;6 there appear to be some real competitors here! Before some further discussions of

5 Classified staff have job descriptions and salaries determined at the statewide level. Another group of employees, designated unclassified, have job descriptions which are written specifically to describe their positions at their particular institution. At KU, professional unclassified employees have a status not unlike that of faculty, including the benefit of tenure. 6 All but Tom Peters were still active staff members as of Jan. 1, 2005.

20

individuals, it is worth describing the general organization of the departmental staff. During the

period of this review, the principal areas included storerooms (both general and course specific),

maintenance and repair (both electrical/electronic and mechanical), business (including

appointments, purchasing and accounting), academic (manuscript and exam preparation, general

secretarial and word-processing) and technical (such as computer hardware and software,

instrument operator and glassblowing). But the times do change. In the earlier years, scientific

glassblowing was an absolute necessity for a quality chemistry department. Here at KU, we had a

superb craftsman in long-serving Walt Logan (incidentally, largely self-taught). Walt was able to

construct nearly any piece of complex scientific glassware from either Pyrex or quartz (either

natural or synthetic substitutes) and it was guaranteed not to suffer cracks or breaks from poor

technique. It was a great loss when he retired in 1975. Fortunately, a replacement who had

learned his craft in Egypt, Harold Fakhoury, was on hand to take over. While Fakhoury was not

nearly as adept as Logan at big jobs or with quartz apparatus (much higher temperatures are

needed and proper annealing is essential), he carried on the tradition for another twenty years.

Upon his retirement in 1995, it was eventually decided that the department could better spend its

money in other areas. Recently, glassblowing has been handled by a part-time person and special

items have been ordered from commercial fabricators.

The departmental head secretaries also exhibited real longevity before the position was

more-or-less discontinued near the end of the century with the advent of PC word processing and

a departmental reorganization aimed at securing personnel with greater specialization. In any

case, in the early days the head secretary position was held for 15 years by Wilma Collins, who

set a standard of performance that I heard much about when I arrived a year after her departure.

Shortly afterward, the position was filled admirably for ten years by Frances Dunkin who sadly

died after a sudden illness in November, 1973. Frances was a real perfectionist who turned out to

be the perfect match for Jake Kleinberg when he was department Chairman. It was well known

that Jake demanded that everything be done just right, even though his many talents did not

include a facility with the minutiae of organization. Frances, on the other hand, loved to deal

with these kinds of problems, so they worked really well together. A few others, including June

McElroy (who served the University in various offices for many years), held this position for

short periods before Sonjia Payne took over the position in 1980. Sonjia has been the key person

in the department for dealing with graduate students (communication, job offer letters, records,

schedules, etc.) for many years, and she is now-- in her current position as administrative

specialist-- one of the truly indispensable departmental resources.

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From the table it is seen that Evelyn Goodrich was certainly one of our most dedicated

workers in the business office. She was in charge of appointment and personnel records during

most of her long period of service, so essentially everyone in the department dealt with her on a

regular basis. She was highly competent, thoroughly self-effacing, completely dependable and

always in good spirits. During her long tenure, she was joined in the office for one long period

by Orlena Williams who was in charge of purchasing. At an earlier time Blanche Berg served in

the office with Evelyn for some ten years. More recently, Rick Huettenmuller and Beth Knapik

carried on the traditions in the business area .

Except for the principal departmental secretaries, no other long-serving staff members

from the academic areas are listed in the table. In fact, there have been some truly excellent

people in this area over the years, including Patti Boucher and Peggy Nichols, but their service

was more on the order of ten years. It is no doubt true that historically the academic office

positions have been substantially more stressful, dealing, on one hand, with faculty demanding

that exams be completed on unreasonably short notice, and on the other, with unhappy students

demanding immediate assistance with a myriad of urgent problems. Terrie Saunders (Lindholm)

is the latest long-serving person (hired in the very early 1990s) in this area carrying on the

tradition of excellence in the academic area.

In the storeroom/maintenance areas, Table III shows that there have been a number of

hardworking, dedicated employees over the years. Many of the storeroom people were legendary

(especially to the graduate students). Bob Evans, in the basement chemical storeroom, often

ruled over his domain with an iron hand. The storeroom was operated on an “open” basis,

allowing students to enter freely and to search out their desired chemicals from organized shelves.

But in the early 1960s when a certain rather uncooperative and recalcitrant student caused

repeated arguments over what he could or could not find, Bob reached his limit of cooperation.

He drew a red line on the floor just inside the door with a piece of chalk and informed the student

in question that if he ever crossed the line he would be subject to untold horrors. My

understanding is that the student never again caused any problem! Bob Berger, who ran the sixth

floor apparatus and glassware storeroom, was also a really tough taskmaster. During a student’s

graduate career (especially in organic chemistry) he/she would typically check out on loan scores

of items (flasks, beakers, etc.). Then, upon completion of the graduate research years later, the

student was required to return everything that had been borrowed. Naturally, some pieces were

long gone and had to be written off, but long searches were required before this decision was

made. Moreover, students have always claimed that upon return the glassware was required to be

far cleaner than it had been when it was borrowed. It was a disheartening comedown for many of

22

the students to find that even though they were now more or less official PhDs they were still

treated like the most lowly novice!

There have been a number of persons who served as electronic repairmen over the years.

Perhaps the most successful and longest serving was John Lawrence, who came out of military

retirement to serve the Chemistry Department. Although he originally trained to work with tube

circuits and then with discrete semiconductor transistor circuits, he persisted at doing his best to

keep up with all the rapidly changing technology involving integrated circuits. Another person in

this area in earlier years was Charlie Duver, who also went on to work in computer internet

communication matters for the university. More recently, Jim Rouviere, who replaced John

Lawrence, served in this position until his tragic death in 2004.

Some very recent reorganization and combination of the academic and business offices

falls outside the purview of this review. But, even though there have been major reorganizations

of space and responsibilities, it is undeniable that the department service staff remains one of its

strongest and most dependable arms. Among those who were approaching ten years service by

early in the 21st century and who have not yet been mentioned are Richard Fritts, Gary Harris and

Larry Miller. I apologize to all those others who have not been mentioned because of relatively

short service periods or because of oversight. And be sure to keep your eye on both Bob Drake

and Bruce Johnson, who continue to provide excellent service after more than thirty years.

UNCLASSIFIED STAFF. In addition to the conventional, one might even say classical,

state classified employees, another group fall into the unclassified area. The first such position in

the department was set up in 1956, namely the position of Director of Laboratories. The duties

and responsibilities of this position were defined explicitly for the local scene. They included

maintenance and oversight of all the laboratories and physical facilities, management of the

business affairs of the department and supervision of all the classified personnel in these areas.

Implicitly, the person holding this position was expected to function with a high level of

professionalism and expertise. The first holder of the position was Duane Postlewaite, who

served admirably, but unfortunately left after only six years for other opportunities in 1962. He

was replaced by Jack Rose, who held the position for 33 years. During this period, Jack played

absolutely essential roles in so many remodeling, refitting and reorganization activities that they

could not be summarized in less than a separate chapter. He provided the expertise needed in

dealing with the university business and facilities offices in matters for which typical chemistry

faculty are either not particularly qualified or simply not interested. For department chairs, Jack

was the one dependable constant that could be counted on to provide continuity and depth of

knowledge over the years. When Jack retired in 1995, the department was extremely fortunate to

23

be able to bring on board a replacement who had trained under Jack in the department in a variety

of capacities for many years, namely Susan Teague. Susan, in the position renamed “business

manager” but essentially unchanged in responsibilities, has continued the important role so ably

performed by Jack Rose over most of the period of this review. In her earlier years (Table III)

Susan had shown her versatility by serving in various capacities, including storekeeper and

clerk/accountant.

Much later in the century, in order to meet the demands of a changing academic office

environment, the department, led by then-Chair Rich Givens, developed a new unclassified

position known as “administrative officer.” The responsibilities of this position more-or-less

included those of the departmental secretary, but also required expertise in data collection and

technical writing with particular emphasis upon PC and word-processing skills. Carol Bray

joined the staff as the first person in this position in 1991 and was still serving as the millenium

came to an end. Within the framework of the extensive job description, Carol pretty much

developed her own modus operandi, which, because it often involved doing things differently

than before, sometimes led to unease among faculty and staff. Still, her technical efficiency was

precisely what was needed in the new position and nearly everyone’s comfort level improved as

time went on.

LABORATORY DIRECTORS. Motivated by the “big science” paradigm (to be

discussed extensively later), the department, in cooperation with other units, began in the 1970s

and 1980s the development of research service laboratories. The labs were typically, but not

exclusively, interdepartmental collaborations, aimed at pulling together resources for major

instrumentation and staffed by suitably trained personnel. The six labs of this type originally

developed in Malott Hall were the following:

1. Instrumentation Design Laboratory (IDL)

2. Biochemical Research Services Laboratory (Enzyme Lab upon its founding) (BRSL)

3. X-Ray Crystallography Laboratory

4. Mass Spectrometry Laboratory (MSL)

5. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory (NMRL)

6. Molecular Graphics and Modeling Laboratory (MGML)

Labs 3,4 and 5 house large, expensive instrumentation and provide analyses of samples submitted

by faculty, students and other research personnel. Lab 1, the first to be developed, provides

design and construction of the hardware and software necessary for digital control of scientific

24

instrumentation. The second lab provides facilities and expertise for the production of various

biochemical substances such as enzymes or proteins, while the final lab provides computer

hardware and software for molecular modeling, interactive graphics and visualization.

Each of these operations requires highly competent leadership and consequently the lab

directors generally hold PhD degrees.7 Their job descriptions and positions are considered to be

unclassified professional; essentially, they are research scientists who serve the university with

credentials much like those of the faculty. Their responsibilities, however, do not include

teaching, unless authorized for particular courses. One of our own PhDs, Wes White, was the

first director of the IDL. As noted earlier, Ken Ratzlaff has directed this operation since 1981.

His management of this facility and leadership in the field has been a model for the other labs,

and he has also been a frequent teacher in the analytical division. The first director of the BRSL,

Judith A.K. Harmony, also a KU PhD, served for only a short time before accepting a faculty

position at Indiana University. The shape and future of this lab was determined by Charles

Decedue, who served for 13 years before leaving for an administrative position with the Higuchi

Biosciences Center on West Campus in 1989.

The X-Ray lab grew out of B.K. Lee’s graduate research laboratory upon his departure in

1984. Although the laboratory had always provided X-Ray structure services to the local

research community it served also as the research lab for B.K.’s graduate research program.

After it was decided that B.K. would not be replaced in kind at the faculty level, the department

decided that it was important to keep the lab operating as a service laboratory for the inorganic

and organic chemists who needed routine crystallographic studies of molecular structure. Fusao

Takusagawa was hired as the first permanent director of the X-Ray Crystallography Lab in 1984.

He did a wonderful job in this position until 1997 when he accepted a faculty position as

associate professor of biochemistry.

Service operations in the areas of mass spectroscopy and NMR spectroscopy have

actually been running in the Chemistry Department from as far back as the 1960s when the early

sophisticated instruments began showing up. It became clear that for both efficiency and

effectiveness qualified operators and instrument scheduling were necessary. When major new

mass spectrometry instrumentation came on board in the Medicinal Chemistry Department in the

early 1980s, space and personnel became a major issue. The MSL (with particular support by

Bob Hanzlik from Medicinal Chemistry) came into being at that time with Charlie Judson as the

first director. Upon his retirement in 1989 the position was taken over by Todd Williams who has

7 Actually, the original director, Christopher (Kit) Gunn, of the MGM lab was not a PhD degree holder but was nevertheless highly trained and skilled in the field.

25

provided able leadership and has presided over much growth since that time. The final service

laboratory to be mentioned here, the NMRL, was begun in the late 1980s with David

VanderVelde as the director. He has led chemistry, biology and pharmaceutical scientists in

major instrumentation upgrades that seem almost continual. Both of these instrument-intensive

service laboratories have outstripped their original Malott Hall space allocations and have

expanded, relocated and/or spread out to other locations within Malott Hall or on West Campus.

It should be mentioned also that the funding for these two labs and for the BRSL was always a

shared effort among the Chemistry Department, departments within the School of Pharmacy,

individual research project directors, program project grant directors and the University central

research administration. The key point here is that the laboratory directors for all of these

operations have been at “home” within the research environment of the Chemistry Department

even if their official appointments have been elsewhere.

OTHERS. Other unclassified personnel served in a variety of roles over the years with

support from outside funding agencies, typically federal grants. For example, during the 1980s

and 1990s Jo Scannell served as an editorial research assistant to Dick Schowen to provide

support for his activities as an associate editor of The Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Jo’s funding involved money from the Society and I recall (being department chairman at the

time) that the university business office had an inordinate amount of trouble setting up an account

to get her paid in a timely fashion. Then there was Nancy Murray Harmony8, who served as

Ralph Adams’ chief administrative assistant from 1968 to 1985 when she accepted a position in

the Higuchi Biosciences Center on West Campus, from which she retired in 1998.9 During her

years with Adams, she was in charge of nearly everything dealing with his grants, teaching,

research and students. At the same time she became a true campus legend, not only in chemistry,

but also in other university disciplines, as the most reliable and efficient (and probably also the

least expensive) person to type and edit PhD theses in the sciences.10 Scores (might it even have

been hundreds) of satisfied students praised her work in the Acknowledgment section of their

theses.

Finally, I should apologize to all those classified or unclassified staff members, who, for

lack of relatively long service terms, or perhaps because service began only somewhat late in the

century, have not been explicitly mentioned. Also, numerous temporary or visiting instructors or

8 The author and Nancy Murray were married in June 1984. 9 Adams agreed to “give up” Nancy’s services so she could assist Ted Kuwana in launching his CBAR activities. Ted was, coincidentally, Adams’ first PhD student. 10 It is important to understand that before computer word processing capabilities came along nearly all graduate students sought professional help for the final typing and preparation of their theses.

26

professors have not been mentioned. No doubt a review of the department in another fifty years

or so will include some of those who have been excluded.

IV. Faculty—More Detail

For many years faculty in American chemistry departments have been organized into four

principal areas, or divisions, viz., analytical, inorganic, organic or physical chemistry. A fifth

common area, biochemistry, found itself most often in a separate department associated more

closely with biology than chemistry. More rarely, at some locations around the country, there

might be found a few chemists who called themselves nuclear chemists or polymer chemists.

These classifications were, on the one hand, entirely reasonable, but on the other hand were often

misleading in the real world. For example, nearly all experimental chemists utilize the methods

of analytical chemistry no matter whether they call themselves inorganic, organic or physical

chemists. And those folks who call themselves inorganic or organic chemists because of their

concentration upon inorganic or organic compounds nevertheless inevitably partake heavily of

the principles of physical chemistry. It is certainly true that at the pedagogical level the common

descriptors have been entirely useful and appropriate as names of the course subjects at both the

graduate and undergraduate levels. Still In the late 1960s, noted California Institute of

Technology professor George S. Hammond proposed that the undergraduate curriculum be

reformulated from the conventional A, I, O and P areas to one based upon the more-

encompassing subject area descriptors “structure, dynamics and synthesis.”11 The promulgation

of these ideas hit a popular chord—many of us had been arguing against the arbitrary

compartmentalization of our discipline into the A, I, O and P areas for many years. Departments

around the nation entered into vigorous discussions about the merits of the proposal, and many

considered schemes that might put them in line with the Hammond “curriculum.” Here at KU we

actually developed a new curriculum for graduate students in the 1970s, known as the

modularized core curriculum (see Section VI), that was tailored in many ways upon the concepts

of the Hammond curriculum. In fact, few departments actually performed any serious

reorganization and, after a brief flurry of activity, mostly amounting to little more than a lot of

talking, the whole affair pretty much died down nationally and everyone remained with the

traditional scheme, which pleased the textbook publishers immensely. Our core curriculum, first

taught in 1978-79, was abandoned for the conventional scheme after the 1986-87 academic year.

So, in any case, as the second half of the 20th century began, and even as it ended, the A,

I, O and P descriptors were useful. They will serve here as guides to us in the following

27

discussion of the basic scholarly activities of the faculty. To begin, we note from Table I that, in

1950, the number of faculty in the divisions A, I, O and P were in the proportions 2:3:4:3, while

at the end of the century the proportions were 5:4:7:5, with two additional faculty being in the

general chemistry/chemical education (G) area. The changes as a percentage of the total are not

unusually large; the greatest changes were the decline in the number of inorganic chemists from

25% to 17% of the total, and the increase in the number of analytical chemists from 16% to 22%.

Of course, the two faculty in the area G represented 9 % of the total in the year 2000. It should

also be stressed that the focus here will be rather narrowly placed upon the individual divisions

and the faculty activities, especially, but not limited to, research (scholarly) activities. The major

departmental initiatives and the details of the big science-biological research paradigm will be

discussed later in great detail. In a certain sense, the following chronological summaries will

serve as a brief history of chemistry in the second half of the 20th century. In particular, it will be

apparent that the field of chemistry was making a transition from classical thermodynamic and

equilibrium studies of the chemistry of small inorganic and organic molecules and ions to studies

of biologically relevant molecules and investigations using sophisticated electronic and computer-

controlled spectroscopic, separation, detection and measurement instrumentation. At the same

time, the growth in computing power spawned by modern integrated circuit development

permitted quantum mechanics to finally achieve its full potential and stature as a major tool for

theoretical chemistry, leading to the development of a new sub-field known as computational

chemistry.

ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY. As our history begins, the analytical division consisted

of two permanent faculty members, long-serving Henry Werner and recently hired Bert Reynolds.

(It will be useful to refer to TABLE I throughout Section IV.) Werner, of course, already had a

long distinguished record of service both as a dean and as the State Food Chemist for a number of

years. Reynolds was hired in 1947 to shoulder the research and graduate education of the

division. His training, expertise and interest were in classical analytical determinations using

coulometric and potentiometric titrations in both aqueous and non-aqueous solutions. Upon

Werner’s untimely death in 1955, the open position led to the immediate hiring of a young

Princeton electrochemist, Ralph Adams. A year later, the increasing needs of the division in

graduate education led to the hiring of another young electrochemist, Rey Iwamoto, also a

Princetonian (which began what many of us would later call the Princeton mafia). Each of these

scientists brought all the latest techniques in electrochemistry such as voltammetry, amperometry,

chronopotentiometry, etc. In the years ahead, the cyclic voltammogram would take on an almost 11 Prof. Hammond’s ideas were published in Pure and Applied Chemistry, volume 23, page 3 (1970).

28

cult-like status around the department. Within a few years, Adams, showing the restless and

innovative nature that would guide his magnificent career, decided to spend several years using

his electrochemical expertise to generate organic cation and anion radicals in the cavity of an

EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance) spectrometer. This work was a perfect melding of

analytical electrochemical expertise with the latest techniques in physics and physical chemistry.

Adams, who flew bombers during World War II, and was known to his friends and colleagues as

“Buzz” (think Buzz Adams in Roger’s and Hammerstein’s musical, South Pacific), was already

developing a legendary status for his casual attire around Malott Hall, including loafers with no

socks and frequently a leather flight jacket with no shirt.

The division’s personnel structure remained static (except that J.K. Lee had already

arrived in postdoctoral and visiting professor roles) until the hiring of Clark Bricker in 1963.

Actually, Bricker (known to his colleagues as “Brick”), although a Princeton-trained PhD

analytical chemist, was hired primarily to take charge of our struggling general chemistry

(freshman chemistry) teaching program. Bricker promptly began teaching the mainline general

chemistry course in a single large section in both the fall and spring semesters. He received help

from numerous other departmental members over the years, but there is no doubt that he handled

this monumental task in a fashion that was truly magnificent. For some years he also participated

fully in the graduate analytical program (directing graduate research, etc.), but eventually he

concentrated fully upon freshman chemistry. Brick was rewarded by the plaudits of thousands of

undergraduate students and particularly by the award by the senior class of the students’ most

prestigious teaching award, the HOPE Award (Honor to the Outstanding Progressive Educator),

not just once, but three times!

J.K. Lee was brought on board in a permanent position a year after Brick was hired to

bring needed help in the analytical teaching program at both the graduate and undergraduate

levels. J.K., the final member of the Princeton analytical mafia, was an expert in the field of

chromatography (he performed early important work with Sherry Rowland) but did not engage in

an active personal research program. Instead, he picked up the inevitable slack in the analytical

teaching program caused by Adams’ heavy concentration in forefront research and Bricker’s

immersion in the freshman program. In 1970, he began a ten-year tenure as associate chairman of

the department, during which time he was an indefatigable leader and visionary promoter of the

department in all its efforts and activities. It would surely be only the slightest exaggeration to

say that J.K. spent 99% of his time promoting the various interests and activities of the

department and its faculty and staff. He was particularly diligent in serving unofficially as

29

Adams’ right-hand man, stand-in, and supporter in the many instances in which Adams’

immersion in research put him in left field in some of the practical matters of the real world.

It is perhaps appropriate at this juncture to remark a bit more about J.K. He was born into

a wealthy Hong Kong family and it was no exaggeration to say, as we did, that “he had more

money than he knew what to do with.” His KU salary was certainly little more than pocket

change. While J.K. was perhaps a bit on the flamboyant side, he did not waste money and he

knew perfectly well the value of a dollar. One of his few extravagances was his love of really

good French cognac and his enthusiasm in sharing it with colleagues. Many of us spent frequent

enjoyable evenings debating solutions to the many and unending problems of the department,

college and university while tossing down several snifters of Courvoisier cognac. While you will

imagine correctly that few problems reached total solution at these sessions, they nevertheless

yielded numerous ideas for future sober deliberations. But his most extravagant activity was his

hosting for several years of an annual dinner party held typically in formal attire (black tie, as

they say) at the Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence. Naturally, all Chemistry faculty and

spouses were invited along with typically the entire faculty of the Medicinal Chemistry

Department and many of the Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Pharmacology faculty and spouses.

The best dinner available at that time (1960s and 1970s) was served along with all manner of

beverages and wine. Most often there was music from the 1940s and 1950s played by a small

live band or by a disc-jockey using records. After this gala affair ended around midnight, a

subset of the more hardy participants usually adjourned to J.K. and Ingrid’s house for an early

morning breakfast of bacon and eggs with all the fixings (always including champagne). It is fair

to say that during these years this event played a major role in developing the esprit de corps

within and among the Chemistry and Pharmacy departments. Many of us attempted on more than

one occasion to persuade J.K. to permit the rest of us to contribute to the cost of this affair, but he

would have nothing to do with this idea.

After J.K.’s hiring, the analytical division remained unchanged for some ten years.

During this time, Adams’s research completely switched over into brain chemistry, or

neurochemistry, with students performing both in vitro and in vivo electrochemical studies of

neurotransmitters in rat brains as well as in vitro studies of human brain slices in order to map

distributions of these active species in both diseased (schizophrenic) and normal brains. These

studies established Buzz and his group among the leading practitioners of brain chemistry studies

in the world, and also began to lead the way to a new focus for scientists in a variety of

biologically oriented departments at KU. The work would lead to numerous awards for him over

the years, including the Midwest Regional Award of the American Chemical Society as well as

30

the C.N. Reilly Award in Analytical Chemistry given also by the American Chemical Society. At

the same time, Reynolds phased out his graduate research program in order to assist Bricker with

the general chemistry courses. Unfortunately, this meant that analytical graduate students were

now left with only two research options, namely the programs of either Adams or Iwamoto. Thus

by the mid-1970s, the division was in dire need of new blood.

The hiring of Jim Defreese in 1976 brought in a young researcher with strong credentials

in modern computer-assisted and computer-oriented spectroscopic analytical chemistry

techniques. While his work generated a lot of excitement, its rather heavy emphasis on clinical

analysis placed it in a tenuous position within a chemistry department. And unfortunately, Jim’s

work did not provide any really strong new supporting bridge to the work of Adams or others in

the department or in neighboring units. After a leave of absence at Abbott Labs, Jim discovered

that he was far more comfortable in the more directed environment of the industrial

pharmaceutical laboratory and, therefore, he departed KU in 1983. The department had at this

time already undertaken a search for a new beginning person with strengths in analytical

spectroscopy and brought on Greg Daigneault in 1982. Sadly, Greg was unable to generate any

outside grant support for his Raman spectroscopic studies of adsorbates on surfaces and,

consequently, left three years later. Thus the department was again in hot water since the steady

supply of analytical graduate students once again was left with few options for graduate research.

In fact, with Bricker’s retirement to emeritus status in spring 1983, which followed J.K.’s

retirement in 1980 to return to urgent family business matters in Hong Kong (precipitated by

Great Britain’s agreement to return the British enclave to mainland Chinese control in the near

future), the manpower level of the analytical division in the spring of 1985 by any measure had

dropped to its lowest level in over twenty years! Because Reynolds had now pretty much taken

over the burden of the general chemistry program (with help from others such as Huyser, Everett

and Burgstahler), Iwamoto once again shouldered a disproportionate share of the analytical

teaching program.

Finally, by the middle 1980s, several developments paved the way for a major focus and

for faculty growth in the analytical division. The first of these was the founding of the Center for

Bioanalytical Research (CBAR) in 1984 by a collaboration among faculty in chemistry and

pharmaceutical chemistry (see later detailed discussion of CBAR). The second was the 1985

hiring by the University of Ted Kuwana (a distinguished electroanalytical chemist from Ohio

State University) as Regents Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Director of the Center

31

for Bioanalytical Research, with a joint appointment in Chemistry.12 The third development

involved the establishment by Tak Higuchi, through a most generous donation to the KU

Endowment Association, of a distinguished chair position for an eminent scientist with strengths

in bioanalytical chemistry. The first holder of this position (and the only one to date), George

Wilson, was brought on board in 1987 as Higuchi Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and

Pharmaceutical Chemistry. In the same year, Craig Lunte was hired as an assistant professor of

analytical chemistry. With Wilson’s expertise in flow-injection analysis, immunochemistry and

biosensor development, and Lunte’s training in liquid chromatography and trace determination of

organic compounds in biological samples, the department had finally achieved a solid core of

faculty with a concentration in bioanalysis. These new research programs were an instant hit with

graduate students and provided a very attractive recruiting tool. Wilson, with his strong national

and international reputation in bioanalysis, became the natural leader of the analytical division,

and by the summer of 1988 had placed KU on the national map with a conference that would

become the biannual International Workshop on Bioanalysis. Much of Kuwana’s effort over the

first several years would involve leading the young CBAR organization into a viable research

unit, including the development of its long-term funding and laboratory space resources and the

establishment of entrepreneurial interactions with the State “high-technology” organizations.

Still, he and his research group found time for a variety of bioanalytical electrochemical studies,

notably the development of various biosensors. Eventually, several years later, he would shift his

activities entirely into the Chemistry Department where he would lead some new non-CBAR

activities as director of KU’s EPSCoR program.13 It is worth noting that Craig Lunte’s hiring

brought a bonus for the department and university in the form of his spouse Susan Lunte, who

was appointed assistant director of CBAR in 1990 and associate professor of Pharmaceutical

Chemistry in 1995.

Further down the line, Reynolds retired in 1988, followed by Iwamoto in 1991 and

Adams in 1992. Bert’s retirement capped a 41-year career that included, in addition to teaching

and research, major service for many years as associate chairman of the department. In this

capacity he handled with alacrity nearly all the department’s lecture and lab course room

assignments each semester as well as all TA assignments. Rey’s retirement after 35 years came a

bit earlier than desired because of chronic back/leg pain that made even a 50-minute lecture

12 This distinguished chair position became available when the previous Regents chair holder, Tak Higuchi, relinquished the position in expectation of retiring to emeritus status in a few years. The role of Prof. Higuchi in the KU research enterprise will be discussed in great detail later in this history. 13 EPSCoR is the acronym for Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. This NSF program will be discussed later in more detail.

32

presentation an unpleasant task. He would be remembered by all former graduate students as a

sympathetic and supportive advisor and by all faculty colleagues as a perfect departmental

citizen. For Buzz, retirement meant that he had time to think about brain chemistry,

schizophrenia, etc. in a more leisurely fashion. And he continued to work with Dr. Arvin Oke,

his long-serving research associate, in a small laboratory on the sixth floor across the hall from

his old major laboratory.

In Adams’ retirement year, Cindy Larive was hired in order that the analytical division

might begin developing strength in analytical spectroscopy of biological systems. Larive’s

expertise in all the latest techniques of high-resolution FTNMR spectrometry permitted her to

investigate a variety of protein structure, conformation, and aggregation problems. Finally, the

hiring of Bob Dunn in 1995 added expertise in optical laser spectroscopy. Dunn’s work, although

very physically oriented, was pointed toward biological problems including dynamics and

structure investigations of membranes. The research programs of both Larive and Dunn

developed rapidly and added additional lustre to those of Kuwana, Lunte and Wilson. Thus as the

20th century came to a close, the analytical division, with Wilson providing sound leadership, was

strongly positioned for forefront research with a clear focus in biological (or life science) areas.

INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. In contrast to the analytical division, which had to grow

and develop from a very small number of research active faculty in 1950, the inorganic division

began the period as a small but homogeneous group with a well-defined research focus. Arthur

Davidson, Ernie Griswold and Jake Kleinberg were all not only well-versed in the more common

chemistry of inorganic compounds in aqueous solutions but were also among the leaders

nationwide in investigating the more unusual chemistry of inorganic species in non-aqueous

solutions. Kleinberg was especially interested in the more unfamiliar oxidation states of the

elements while Davidson and Griswold were both more physically oriented in many of their

studies—indeed, in earlier years, both were often listed in departmental information as

specializing in physical chemistry. In any case, by the time the 1960s rolled around, the division

was in need of major expansion of research capabilities beyond traditional, classical inorganic

solution chemistry. In particular, the division and the department badly needed strength in areas

such as inorganic structure, reaction mechanisms and the chemistry of species such as transition

metal complexes or boron compounds.

Before proceeding to the ensuing years, it should be noted that both Davidson (known to

his colleagues as Davy) and Kleinberg played important leadership roles in the department and

university. Davidson served as departmental chair for five years after returning from service as

assistant dean of the Graduate School for four years and as associate dean for one year.

33

Kleinberg served as department chair for seven years beginning in 1963, during which time the

department was especially active in hiring new faculty in all areas. Moreover, both Davidson and

Kleinberg were among the vanishing breed of chemistry faculty who were not only outstanding

research scientists but also true chemical educators. Each of them wrote freshman chemistry

textbooks in collaboration with other faculty during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Indeed,

Kleinberg’s efforts led to books that were still being revised and published well into the 1980s.

Davy’s magnificent 45-year career would end with his retirement in 1966 while Jake would

continue to play a major role in the department for many more years.

Beginning in 1962, the department added in alternate years three new inorganic faculty at

the assistant professor level. First to arrive was Robin Fraser, followed by Dick Middaugh in

1964 and Grover Everett in 1966. Fraser immediately began an exciting program in the study of

the electron transfer mechanisms involved in the reactions of transition metal complexes.

Middaugh brought expertise in the structural studies of borane and carborane compounds with

special interests in boron NMR spectroscopy. Finally, Everett specialized in structural and

stereochemical studies of transition metal complexes and in the application of NMR spectroscopy

to inorganic systems. It seemed at this point that the inorganic division was poised to move

strongly into the future. Unfortunately, Fraser departed prematurely to his English homeland in

1968 and was not immediately replaced. Griswold’s retirement came normally in 1975 after a

28-year career at KU. A picture of health, Ernie was now free to go on family camping

expeditions at his leisure. Not totally unexpectedly, after having difficulty attracting outside

research grant funding, Middaugh left for non-academic opportunities in 1975. In anticipation of

Griswold’s retirement, the department, which had unsuccessfully recruited outstanding women

scientists for several years, succeeded in hiring Kristin Bowman (later Mertes and then Bowman-

James) to begin in 1975. With strengths in structure/reactivity studies of transition metal

complexes with macrocyclic ligands, her work would expand over the years (especially after her

collaboration with Matt Mertes14 of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry) to include

biologically relevant and supramolecular systems. For various complicated reasons, Kleinberg,

Everett and Bowman-James were forced to carry the inorganic load for the next nine years until

Kleinberg’s retirement after a 38-year career in 1984. Indeed, the division would remain terribly

understaffed until Joe Heppert came on board in 1985. Heppert’s arrival brought additional

expertise in coordination chemistry and also in organometallic chemistry and thus helped to

maintain a focus for the still-small division. At the same time it freed up some teaching

14 Matt was an excellent scientist and a faithful supporter of the Chemistry Department, and his death by heart failure in 1989 was a huge personal and professional loss to all who knew him.

34

flexibility in the division, making it possible for Everett to contribute increasingly to the freshman

chemistry program. Indeed, after Reynold’s retirement, Grover became pretty much of a

mainstay in the freshman courses, and his dedicated teaching efforts were honored by his

selection as a Chancellor’s Club teaching professor in 1996.

As we saw with the hiring activities in the analytical division, and as we shall describe

more fully in our later discussion of the biological paradigm, the mid-1980s were a time when

many closely related cooperative efforts among the Chemistry Department and other departments

in the biological/pharmaceutical/life science areas came to fruition. We in Chemistry actually

had strong interactions with the Biochemistry Department for many years. For example, during

the 1970s and into the 1980s, Gerry Maggiora (a theoretical computational chemist), whose

appointment was officially in the Biochemistry Department, nevertheless was a fully contributing

member of the Chemistry Department’s teaching and research programs. After Gerry left in 1985

to accept a position at the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company, the Chemistry and Biochemistry

departments proposed to the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that a young

scientist with training in computational chemistry/biology be hired with a split 50/50 appointment

in the two departments. This proposal was accepted and the effort led to the hiring in 1986 of

Angelo Vedani (a Swiss citizen), whose research specialization was in force-field calculations

aimed at the structure and function of proteins, with particular emphasis on metalloenzymes.

This latter interest was a good match with some of the emerging interests in the inorganic division

(particularly work of Bowman-James). Vedani’s teaching credentials also fit best with the

inorganic division and, consequently, that is where his Chemistry appointment placed him.

In 1987, Kuwana, who had left Ohio State University to come to KU to accept the

Regent’s Professorship in 1985, called to the attention of the department the fact that Daryle

Busch (who happened also to have been the postdoctoral mentor of Bowman-James) might be

enticed to leave Ohio State University under the proper circumstances. Busch was a leading

senior inorganic chemist with both national and international credentials. The department

promptly went to work recruiting him, which meant generating suitable space, facilities, and

support assistance as well as a suitable distinguished chair position. The effort eventually came

to fruition and Daryle came on board as Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in

the fall of 1988. This marked the second chaired professor to join the department in successive

years (recall Wilson’s arrival in 1987) and consequently the department was involved in major

laboratory renovations for over two years. Jack Rose (in his role as director of laboratories), in

close association with me as department chairman, bore the brunt of directing the remodeling

projects and demonstrated once again his immense importance to the department and university.

35

Busch’s arrival naturally added substantial research strength to the division. His

background was in transition metal coordination chemistry and he was one of the founders of the

field of macrocyclic and supramolecular chemistry. His KU work soon involved biomimics of

heme proteins, with possible applications to the development of synthetic blood, and also new

techniques for oxidation catalysis in dense phase CO2. Most importantly, perhaps, his presence

added markedly to the national reputation of the department, and he acted as a natural catalyst for

a variety of major research initiatives. The contributions of Busch, along with those of Kuwana

and Wilson, to the research vitality and reputation of the department as the century drew to a

close, cannot be overemphasized.15

After only five years, Vedani left KU for his native country at the end of 1990 to take up

a position at the Swiss Institute for Alternatives to Animal Testing. His replacement (Kuczera,

see later) would lead to a person whose joint appointment in Biochemistry would place him not in

inorganic but in physical chemistry. However, the addition of Andy Borovik in 1996 brought to

the division a talented young scientist at an advanced assistant professor level. His expertise in

supramolecular chemistry and molecular design strengthened and expanded the focus already

present in the division. After Everett’s retirement in 1999, the division was left still with a strong,

focussed core consisting of Bowman-James, Heppert, Busch and Borovik. However, Bowman-

James would divert some of her effort into administration when she assumed the department chair

position in 1995 for a six-year term16 and Heppert would move his activities increasingly into

science education aimed at improved science/math teacher preparation at the K-12 level. At the

same time Busch began downsizing his graduate research program (although not reducing his

overall research activities), so as the century came to a close the division was already looking

ahead to the new millenium for the addition of new personnel.

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. The organic division began our reporting period as the

largest division and would maintain that distinction as the century ended. Ray Q. Brewster, who

had accepted the departmental chairmanship in 1940, would continue in that role through the

1955-56 academic year. It is undeniably true that the nature and character of the department in

1950 and that to be exhibited in the immediate future had been shaped and molded by his wise

and strong leadership during his long tenure as department chairman. While his research studies

of aromatic ethers, thiazoles and other heterocyclic compounds were pretty well ended by the

1950s, he continued to play an important role in the undergraduate teaching program until his

15 As the century ended, Busch added further luster to the Department and University by his election to the national presidency of the American Chemical Society in 1999. 16 Bowman-James’s tenure as Chair would be especially noteworthy for the special efforts aimed at recruiting women faculty.

36

retirement in 1963 after 44 years of service. Of course, Brewster had authored a very successful

and well-respected organic textbook in 1948 (updated substantially in 1961), and his reputation in

chemical education circles was notably strong. Few, if any, faculty have served the department

so eminently in all the areas of teaching, research and service. When I arrived in 1962, during

Brewster’s last year of active service, I discovered that he was referred to (respectfully and

endearingly, I believe) as “The Chief.”

George Stratton was continuing to provide his primary efforts in the area of

undergraduate teaching, which he would continue to do until his retirement after 45 years in

1957. The graduate research program in organic chemistry was ably led by Cal VanderWerf and

Bill McEwen . Both researchers were particularly interested in organic reaction mechanisms and

the synthesis and chemistry of organoboranes. Additional research depth and breadth arrived

with the hiring in 1956 of Albert Burgstahler, who specialized in the structure and synthesis of

natural products including alkaloids, terpenes and steroids. He built quickly a very active

research program and was renowned for his vast intellect and diverse interests. The latter led him

somewhat later to concentrate a serious amount of attention on the anti-fluoridation movement,

for which he documented many of the negative health effects of fluoride in water supplies. By

the time I arrived six years later Al already had a mammoth reputation among the graduate

students for the unbelievably rapid manner in which he could draw complicated polycyclic

organic structures (with proper stereochemistry) on the chalkboard. Earl Huyser’s arrival in 1959

brought a person with strong industrial contacts and research expertise in free radical chemistry

and its application to organic synthesis. Huyser rapidly developed a very popular graduate

program in this exceedingly important field, although one involving the notable hazard of needing

to handle organic peroxides with great care. The additions, then, of Burgstahler and Huyser

began to form the long-term future of the organic division for the second half of the century.

Now while McEwen continued to be strongly involved in research, VanderWerf always

had additional interests in undergraduate chemical education17 and yearned also for appropriate

administrative opportunities. The latter came to pass when Cal served for two years as

department chair before leaving for his dream position as President of Hope College, one of the

nation’s premier undergraduate schools, in 1963. He served with distinction in this post for nine

years before returning to a major research university position in 1972 as Dean of the College of

Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. A year earlier, in 1962, McEwen had left KU to

accept a position as chairman of the Chemistry Department at the University of Massachusetts

17 VanderWerf co-authored with George Sisler( a former KU faculty member) and Arthur Davidson a well-received freshman chemistry textbook, General Chemistry, in 1959.

37

where he led a revitalization that brought distinction to that university. These departures, along

with Brewster’s retirement in 1963, meant that the old guard in organic chemistry was suddenly

gone!

The restocking of the organic division had actually begun in 1962 with the hiring of Jack

Landgrebe. This was followed by adding Dick Schowen and Bob Carlson in 1963 and Rich

Givens in 1967, which, along with Burgstahler and Huyser, brought the division manpower to six

faculty—a number that would be remarkably unchanged until 1984. In this seventeen year

period, during which time not a single faculty member would depart prematurely, the organic

division represented the most unified and cohesive group in the department, surely aiding them in

their development of both strong research and teaching programs.

The arrival of Landgrebe, Schowen and Givens brought new strength in physical organic

chemistry, while Carlson joined Burgstahler in the synthesis area. Landgrebe’s research

specialties lay in the area of small-ring and carbene chemistry, and he was an early leader in the

division and the department in the utilization of the rapidly developing field of nuclear magnetic

resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Throughout his long career he led revitalization of the organic

laboratory curriculum, including the development of a respected organic laboratory manual first

published in 1973 and updated regularly four times. Jack’s administrative talents were also

recognized at an early stage, leading to his service as department chairman from 1970 –1980. It

was not an easy time to serve, since the university was growing rapidly in other areas, which

meant that new positions and other resources tended to be diverted from the Chemistry

Department. Additionally, the inflation rate hit 11.1% in 1974 and 11.3% in 1979, so money was

always short. Still, the department's teaching and research programs remained vibrant and

numerous new initiatives were undertaken during this period, including undergraduate lab

upgrades and the development of the graduate “core” curriculum (see later). Jack’s keen

organizational skills were called upon continuously throughout his active career and even after

his retirement in 2002.

Adams’ prowess notwithstanding, Schowen’s hiring represented arguably the most

important young faculty addition of the era. Although his initial research credentials were

exceptional, it was a few years before he began his lifelong research program studying the

mechanisms of enzyme reactions both experimentally and theoretically in order to understand the

origin of biological catalytic power. H/D isotope effects played a prominent role in the kinetic

studies and Dick’s novel development of the “proton inventory” method would lead to a national

38

1. Professor Paul Gilles (left on second row) and research students (1957).

2. Faculty, staff and graduate students (1959).

39

3. Faculty (1977)

4. Prof. Adams with Dr. Arvin Oke and Ramilla Lewis (1979)

40

5. Prof. Brewster at 90th Birthday Celebration (1982)

6. Prof. Bricker teaching in Hoch Auditorium (1983)

41

7. Prof. Bowman-James with student Paulous Yohannes(1985)

8. Faculty and Unclassified Staff (1983)

42

9. Faculty and Unclassified Staff (1994)

10. Some EPSCoR Faculty (1997)

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11. Susan Teague, Evelyn Goodrich and Jack Rose in the Business Office (1985)

12. Service Lab Directors in 1990 (VanderVelde, Williams, Decedue, Ratzlaff and

Takusagawa)

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13. J. K. Lee and Jack Rose Look Over the Budget (1979)

14. Walt Logan in Glassblowing Shop (1966)

45

15. Malott Hall after Pharmacy Addition (1981)

16. Anschutz Science Library

46

and international reputation and to his eventual appointment as a Summerfield Distinguished

Professor of Chemistry. But, in addition to his personal scholarly research success and his

awesome quest for knowledge, he was unquestionably the department leader in grasping the

importance of applying good chemistry to problems in biology and in the generation of

significant collaborations with the strong KU programs in the medicinal, pharmaceutical and

biological sciences.

Carlson’s addition to the division brought needed additional strength in synthetic

organic chemistry to supplement the efforts of Burgstahler. Bob’s interests led him toward highly

strained ring systems, ring-expansion and photochemical syntheses, and he later became one of

the founders of CBAR. Perhaps his greatest strengths, however, lay in his exceptional teaching

abilities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His undergraduate organic lectures were

always a marvel of organization, clarity and rigor and gained him numerous teaching excellence

nominations and awards. With similar attributes, his graduate course in organic spectroscopy

provided scores of organic PhD students with a fountain of IR, UV, NMR and mass spectroscopy

knowledge.

When Givens joined the faculty the department gained an innovative, enthusiastic and

vigorous researcher with expertise in a broad range of organic photochemical studies. His

research program was immediately attractive to graduate students (and to undergraduates as

well). Over the years it evolved from its initial emphasis upon mechanistic and synthetic organic

photochemistry to a heavy emphasis upon the application of photochemical methods to

bioanalytical and biological problems. Always recognized as an outstanding teacher and a good

departmental citizen, Rich was called upon to serve a term as departmental chairman for seven

years. Apparently bitten by the administrative bug, he then accepted a position as Associate

Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs, but with his characteristic energy he hardly slowed down

in his chemistry activities.

After remaining unchanged for seventeen years, the division finally added two new

faculty in the 1980s. First, Tom Engler’s hiring in 1984 not only brought additional strength to

the department in the area of natural product synthesis but also strengthened a growing

interdisciplinary effort involving faculty from the Medicinal Chemistry Department. He was an

exceptionally talented scientist who strove unceasingly for perfection. He became the first

Director of the KASL synthesis facility (Kansas Advanced Synthesis Laboratory, see later

discussion) in 1997, but decided to leave academia in 1998 for an industrial position at Eli Lilly,

Co. His departure was a disappointment to not only his colleagues in Chemistry but also to those

in Medicinal Chemistry who collaborated closely in the area of synthesis.

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Barbara Schowen’s addition in 1987 as associate professor of organic chemistry and

Coordinator of Undergraduate Studies was aimed at bolstering the department’s teaching efforts

at the undergraduate level in general and organic chemistry. She had previously taught at Baker

University and also had been a part-time instructor in both the chemistry and biochemistry

departments at KU for many years. Her academic credentials were impeccable and her teaching

skills were outstanding. Barbara was soon recognized as an increasingly important College

resource and eventually became Director of the University Honors Program in 1996.

The divisional strength actually climbed to nine faculty members after Dave Benson’s

hiring in 1993, before Huyser’s retirement in 1994 after a 35-year career that included recognition

for excellence in teaching. Burgstahler capped his 42-year career upon retiring in 1998 while

Dick Schowen’s retirement a year later only formally ended a 37-year career—much of his

research collaboration and consultation would continue well into the new century. Joining

Benson as late century hires were Paul Hanson in 1996 and Helena Malinakova in 2000. Each of

these young faculty brought new ideas for exciting research programs. Benson’s work was

heavily oriented toward the chemistry and biochemistry of heme proteins; Hanson’s efforts were

directed toward synthetic organic chemistry with emphasis upon transition metal syntheses of

pharmaceutically significant small molecules; while Malinakova’s work similarly utilized

transition metal-mediated asymmetric reactions for synthesis of biologically active natural

products.

The retirements of Landgrebe and Barbara Schowen would not occur until early in the

next century, so that when the year 2000 arrived the organic division consisted of a total of seven

faculty, including a strong core of young researchers. Naturally, when those retirements

occurred, additional new hires would be made—but, that is a story for the next century.

PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY. If the organic division stands as an example of a stable

faculty with no premature departures after 1963, the physical division, for a variety of reasons,

illustrates the opposite characteristics. No fewer than four physical chemistry faculty (Rowland,

Bearman, B. Chu and Kevan) left KU to accept positions at other universities at more advanced

levels and with substantially enhanced space and facilities than they had at KU. A fifth,

Christoffersen, left for a major academic administrative position, while the remaining three early

departures (Haslam, B.K. Lee, and Bowman) were probably best summarized as being due to a

mismatch between their talents and the perceived needs and opportunities of an academic

chemistry department.

For each of the first four of these departures, a shortage of high-quality laboratory

research space may have been a contributing factor, along with, in some cases, difficulties in

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recruiting physical chemistry graduate students. The space shortage issue was a severe problem

for the department that grew throughout the second half of the century as Malott Hall filled up

without major expansion. The two-floor addition to the west side of Malott provided some short-

term relief but was inadequate in the long run. Most of the new space that came along later was

achieved by remodeling and recovering former Science library space and space freed up by a shift

of pharmacy programs to West Campus. The graduate student recruiting problem, discussed

previously, was always most severe in the more physically related areas, which suffered most

from competition by the east- and west-coast power-house institutions.

So, in any case, in 1950 the physical division consisted of long-serving Robert Taft and

two recent additions, Bill Argersinger and Paul Gilles. Taft, who had earlier performed various

physical measurements of solutions (such as conductivity and coulometry), was most heavily

involved in the teaching program. However, in addition to efforts as a historian, remarked upon

in Section I, he was also very active in Kansas scientific circles, serving as editor of The

Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Sciences. Argersinger and Gilles were both active in

thermodynamics research; Bill’s work was concentrated on thermodynamic studies of aqueous

solutions while Paul was rapidly building a nationally recognized program in high temperature

thermodynamic studies of refractory materials such as borides, carbides and oxides. The latter

research attracted very early funding from the Atomic Energy Commission and permitted Gilles

to attract a strong cadre of graduate students at an early stage of his career. Surely one of the

most precise and technically sound scientists the university has ever produced, Paul was

appointed by the university to be the first University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in

1963; he would continue to be one of the department’s vigorous scientists until his retirement

many years down the road. His cadre of PhD students was one the most talented and the most

loyal, and they effectively represented and promoted KU both nationally and internationally.

At the same time, Bill was drafted by the graduate school into an administrative role that

would be consuming for many years. In his first appointment (1963) as Associate Dean of the

Graduate School and Director of the Office of Research Administration, he played a major role

for ten years in assisting and encouraging many young scientists in their fund-raising (grant)

activities. He astonished and impressed many of us by actually reading much of our proposals,

and commenting upon the budgets, before he performed the mandatory sign-off for the university.

In 1972, after some major upper level administrative shuffling, Bill was appointed Vice-

Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School, positions in

which he served faithfully until 1978 when he returned to full-time service in the department.

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Following Taft’s untimely death in 1955, growth in the division occurred with the

addition of Sherry Rowland in 1956 and Dick Bearman the next year. Rowland rapidly built a

popular and nationally recognized program in radiation, radio- and hot-atom chemistry, while

Bearman developed experimental/theoretical research in transport processes and the theory of

liquids. With the hiring of Ben Chu and me in 1962, the division reached a total of six active

teacher/researchers. Chu brought expertise in light scattering, critical phenomena and

macromolecules, while my own interests were in gas-phase spectroscopy (especially microwave

(rotational) spectroscopy) and molecular structure. Unfortunately, as described earlier, Sherry

left in 1964 and one-half of Bill had already been lost to administration the previous year.

Consequently, the division was again in line for new faculty additions.

These came in 1965 and 1966 with the addition of Larry Kevan and Ralph Christoffersen,

respectively. Kevan was an honors BS graduate of the department and came with impeccable

credentials from the University of Chicago. He promptly and vigorously developed a research

program aimed at the investigation of trapped electrons in solids and ESR studies of radiolytic

intermediates. Christoffersen was a molecular quantum mechanician, specializing in ab initio

computations on large molecules (including molecules of biological interest). At this stage, then,

the physical division had six active researchers, three in more-or-less thermodynamic/statistical

mechanics areas and three in quantum mechanics/spectroscopy/kinetics areas—the division’s

programs looked strong and appropriately diverse.

In 1967 the department and the division were recipients of a sort of bonus when Takeru

Higuchi was hired by the university as Regents Professor of Pharmacy and Chemistry. Tak was

brought on board to develop a new department within the School of Pharmacy and to carry out

entrepreneurial activities aimed at initiating new industrial activities on West Campus. The

department and the division played an important role in the recruitment and hiring process

because Tak wanted a real, solid tie to Chemistry, in particular to physical chemistry. He would

be especially busy with his Pharmacy and industrial activities during the coming years, but he

never failed to participate effectively and importantly in departmental and divisional affairs.

The division’s tranquility came to an end when Chu left in 1968 followed the next year

by Kevan. Bearman’s departure came a few years later in 1972, after a 15-year tenure. The loss

of Bearman and Chu was devastating since they were both excellent scientists and good citizens.

Kevan’s four-year stay was especially disappointing to the division and to the department because

he was “one of our own.” In any case, three established programs disappeared in a four-year

period. To offset these losses, John Haslam was hired in 1968, Peter Hierl in 1969 and B. K. Lee

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in 1970.18 Haslam’s hiring represented the first departmental addition of a person with strong

research interests in the biological chemistry area. His research specialty was the elucidation and

kinetics study of the elementary steps in enzyme reactions. Unfortunately, John was not able to

attract strong outside funding for his research, so his tenure lasted only five years.

Hierl’s research specialty was the molecular beam study of gas-phase ion-molecule

reactions and the dynamics of reactive molecular collisions. His well-equipped laboratory

provided ample opportunity for graduate students to investigate the intimate details of chemical

reactions using sophisticated experimentation. For the physical division, and the department,

Peter served always as an important resource in kinetics and dynamics. Peter would, also, in later

years, serve as associate chair during the terms of both Givens and me. B. K.’s research involved

the X-ray diffraction investigation of inorganic complexes and biologically important molecules

such as globular proteins. A severe taskmaster, he finally decided in 1984 that he was simply not

making the desired progress in protein crystal structure determination and, consequently, left KU

for a position at the NIH working on non-X-ray problems. During the 1970s, however (and on

into the 1980s), the division’s research programs were, nonetheless, particularly vigorous,

especially those of Gilles, Christoffersen and my own. Chris was increasingly making contacts

with, and collaborating with, scientists in the biological and pharmaceutical sciences.19 My

microwave studies were eventually supplemented with laser spectroscopic investigations of

transient molecules, particularly halocarbenes. In 1980 I moved into a term in the chairman’s

office that lasted for eight years. As noted previously, this was a time of great activity for the

department and consequently for the chairman’s office (except for the 1978-1982 period during

which time the department hired no new faculty, see Table I), yet it corresponded to one of the

most productive research periods for my research group.

In 1978, new excitement appeared in the division with the hiring of Shih-I Chu, who

came from an appointment at Yale as the J. Willard Gibbs Lecturer. Chu’s theoretical chemistry

research complemented Christoffersen’s, since it was aimed at multiphoton processes in intense

laser fields, molecular astronomy and chaos theory. Shih-I’s promise as a world class scientist

was recognized by the university when he was appointed as a Watkins Distinguished Professor of

Chemistry in 1991. Including Higuchi and Argersinger, who was officially half-time in

Chemistry, the division consisted of eight faculty members with Chu’s arrival in 1978.

18 B.K. Lee was obviously not a replacement for Bearman, but was actually a special “early” hire under an externally funded program known as the HSAA program to be discussed later. But after Bearman’s departure it would be three more years before another new faculty member would arrive. 19 One of Chris’s early postdoctoral students was Gerry Maggiora, who soon became a tenured professor in the biochemistry department, but continued to work closely with the chemistry department.

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Following Chris’s departure in 1981 and B.K.’s resignation in 1984, the division was again in

need of new faculty. Does this sound familiar?

After B.K.Lee’s departure, Carey Johnson, with a research specialty in picosecond time-

resolved laser spectroscopy, was added to the physical faculty in 1985. As time went on his

research would be concentrated more heavily upon biochemically interesting systems and single-

molecule studies. The major divisional turnover was, however, just ahead, with Higuchi’s death

in 1987, Bill Argersinger’s retirement in 1988 and Paul Gilles’s retirement in 1990. Eventually,

this led to the hiring of Bob Bowman in 1990, Krzysztof Kuczera in 1991 (a 50/50 joint

appointment with the Department of Biochemistry) and Brian Laird in 1994.

Bowman’s selection was meant to build upon and complement Johnson’s work in laser

spectroscopy. Bob’s area was femtosecond spectroscopy (nominally two-three orders of

magnitude faster than Carey’s field), including studies of charge-carrier dynamics in nanoscale

semiconductor materials. Kuczera’s specialty was in computational chemistry, specifically

computational simulations of biochemical structure, dynamics and thermodynamics. Laird was

firmly grounded in the statistical mechanics of liquids and solids with particular emphasis upon

the computational simulation of the properties of liquids. All of these new programs fit well

within the growing emphases in the department in the areas of materials science or biological

studies. Bowman’s program was showing great promise but could not generate sufficient outside

funding to sustain it in the long term and, consequently, sadly to most in the department, Bob left

KU in 1998. In this same year my own career, which had become more heavily involved in

freshman chemistry teaching, was concluded by retirement after 36 years. Thus, the division

ended the century with three theoretical and two experimental research programs, much different

than in 1950.

GENERAL CHEMISTRY/CHEMICAL EDUCATION. Although not an administrative

division within the department, it is necessary to account for two faculty who do not fit within the

A, I, O and P divisional scheme. Most importantly, we should mention Al Lata, who arrived in

1965 as Bricker’s handpicked director of general chemistry laboratory. In the position of lecturer

(with tenure) Al was nearly solely responsible for the operation of the fall and spring semester

laboratory portions of the mainline general chemistry courses until his retirement in 2003. He

served as the right-hand man for numerous course lecturers over the years (and he lectured the

course himself) including Bricker, Reynolds, Kleinberg, Everett, Burgstahler, Huyser, Harmony

and others. Whereas the course lecturer might have to lecture to 1000 students three times a

week, Al’s task would be to organize and run 50 laboratory sections, each meeting twice a week,

and to supervise the associated 25 teaching assistants. This Herculean task was handled with an

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efficiency and equanimity that was difficult to rationalize when one observed his office with

every square inch of floor and table space piled high with textbooks, lab manuals, lab experiment

handouts, journals, magazines, newspapers, etc., accumulated and forgotten for untold years.

Last, the department hired Janet Robinson in 1999 to begin development of a graduate

degree emphasis in the area of chemical education. This appointment represented a major

departure in the department’s hiring, since it had never before brought in a person at the assistant

professor level who would not be performing conventional chemical research. Instead, Janet’s

interests were in the cognitive aspects of learning and how best to transmit chemical knowledge

to undergraduate students. Perhaps this hire was a fitting entry into the 21st century.

V. The Big Science—Biological Paradigm

In Section II, data were presented that showed clearly a mammoth growth in scientific

research funding by federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National

Institutes of Health during the second half of the 20th century. Research grant funding for the KU

Chemistry Department from these and other federal agencies, and from private and state sources,

showed analogous growth throughout the period. One of the important facets of this growth was

a shift from an emphasis upon single principal investigator (P.I.) grants to multiple investigator

grant consortiums, not only cooperative efforts among P.I.s within one department but also

collaborative efforts among departments or even among different institutions. While single P.I.

grants have certainly not disappeared, and indeed their numbers and dollar size have surely

increased, many of the programs developed by the federal government over the years have been

aimed at stimulating collaborative programs. Finally, as the sophistication of scientific

instruments has increased, their purchase prices have similarly increased markedly. As a simple

example of this phenomenon it may be noted that in 1952 the Chemistry Department ordered its

first recording, automated, double-beam infrared spectrometer with a purchase price of $14,992.20

On the other hand, in 1999, the Varian Inova 600 MHz NMR spectrometer was purchased for the

NMR laboratory at a price of $786,000! I term the phenomenon described by these observations

as big science.

As a part of the big science phenomenon at Kansas, certain developments associated with

the School of Pharmacy, the Medical Center in Kansas City, and departments in the biological

sciences have played an especially important role. Indeed, as the second half of the century

proceeded, a trend developed which pushed the department increasingly toward research with a

20 The committee charged with evaluating available instruments and recommending to the department the best choice consisted of Paul Gilles, Bill Argersinger and Bill McEwen.

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biological flavor. In this section, some of the key developments in this big science—biological

paradigm will be summarized. Although it is not really a matter of history, but rather of

philosophy, it is interesting to ask whether the big science-biological paradigm resulted because

of the great intrinsic importance of the biological/medicinal/pharmaceutical/health science

research studies or because these were the areas in which the big grant dollars from the federal

agencies were available. No doubt the answer to both queries is in the affirmative.

CHEMICAL PHYSICS. It will surely be surprising to all but the old-timers that the first

glimpse of big science arose from the discipline of chemical physics rather than some field with a

biological flavor. In the early 1960s, Bearman, Chu, Gilles and Harmony (joined somewhat later

by Kevan and Christoffersen) from the Chemistry Department and Jack Culvahouse, Bob Friauf,

Dick Sapp ( later joined by Peter Richards and Wes Unruh) from the Department of Physics

began collaborative efforts aimed at developing a formal joint program in what is termed

chemical physics. Without being too technical, this is simply the scientific research field

involving very physically oriented studies in chemistry, usually involving a heavy emphasis upon

quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, kinetics and thermodynamics; thus the overlap with

physics is very strong.21 Initially, the group began sponsoring a weekly seminar in the field, the

first series running in 1963-64. At the same time the participants began investigating other

interactions, including a joint PhD program in chemical physics as well as various research

efforts leading to federal funding. Unfortunately, a year later the Physics Department voted not

to proceed with a formal degree program even though the Chemistry Department had approved

the concept overwhelmingly. Even with this setback, the chemical physics efforts continued. A

few years later the chemical physics seminar received funding from NASA for a substantially

expanded program including more extensive stays by visiting scientists from both academic and

federal labs.

Most significantly, in the late 1960s, the chemistry and physics departments (with

chemistry being the lead unit) began development of a major institutional research grant proposal

to be submitted to the National Science Foundation under the then existing University Science

Development Program. Due to many delays for budget rewrites and interminable reviews at the

highest levels of the University, before the proposal could be submitted as written, NSF had

terminated its University Science Development Program. In its place, NSF instituted the

21 In describing what chemical physics is, it would not be unusual for scientists to say that “chemical physics is what chemical physicists do”; but it is interesting that there is a subtle difference between this field and the field of “physical chemistry.” Without question, chemical physicists who are trained as chemists will also accept the description “physical chemist.” On the other hand, chemical physicists who are trained as physicists will only accept the description “physicist.”

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Departmental Science Development Program. The chemical physics group in Chemistry, with

support from the Physics Department group, revised the proposal (scaling down the budget

appreciably) to meet the new guidelines. Finally, in December, 1970, a proposal involving a $1M

NSF budget with $2.6M university “matching” contribution was approved by both departments

and by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. After extensive review by all upper

administration groups including the Chancellor, and after much delay, the University decided for

obscure reasons to not submit the proposal to NSF. While no substantive reasons were ever given

for this decision, it was clear that there was a fear that the university was committing itself to a

budget contribution that might be difficult to justify or produce. In addition, there was at the time

a growing fear among some university faculty (outside the sciences) and administrators that the

sciences were going to overwhelm the rest of the university.

This decision was certainly devastating to the Chemistry Department. Sources at NSF

had been telling the department for several years that a major proposal from KU’s chemistry

department would be looked upon favorably; yet we (KU) could not even get one submitted. Not

to be deterred by any of this, the department and the University Computation Center had, in the

meantime, submitted a proposal to the NSF Division of Computing Resources to provide

laboratory computing equipment for high temperature chemistry (Gilles) and microwave

spectroscopy (Harmony), and enhanced computing power at the central site. This proposal,

whose development had been spearheaded by Ralph Christoffersen, led to a $425,000 grant that

provided:

(a) Hewlett-Packard 2116B computers for each of the research labs of Gilles and Harmony, each

computer having 8K words of memory.

(b) An upgrade of the central university GE-625 computer to GE-635 status, which meant that its

memory was upgraded from 64K words to 128K words and its speed was increased from ½

MHz to 1 MHz.22

The HP computers were to be used for developing data acquisition and equipment control for

laboratory experimentation. These computers, along with complementary equipment such as

analog-to-digital converters and digital-to-analog converters, comprised a DAEC system, actually

far ahead of the field at the time (early 1970s). These days, in the 21st century, essentially all

laboratory science experiments in top-flight research labs are performed with instruments that

have built-in DAEC systems. Indeed, since the development of high-speed/large-memory chips

22 I quote these numbers as I type them on my laptop computer operating at about 3 GHz (3000 times faster than the university’s mainframe computer) with several hundred megawords of memory (hundreds of times more than the university mainframe). Those born after 1970 should find these numbers especially illuminating and amazing.

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(integrated circuits), most scientific instrumentation operates in a digital mode whenever possible.

Once the data are in a digital format it is straightforward to utilize techniques such as signal

averaging, data smoothing, least squares fitting, Fourier transformation and other procedures.

The chemical physics activity had still one more success to unfold, when in 1972 the NSF

funded a grant under the direction of Gilles in chemistry and Culvahouse in physics for the

development of a “tri-level computer network.” The concept here was to interconnect

experimental laboratory computers (such as those of Gilles and Harmony) to an intermediate-

sized computer in Malott Hall (which housed both Chemistry and Physics) that was itself then

connected to the larger central university computer at the computation center. Unfortunately, this

was all long before any of the hardware-software protocols of the current internet had been

developed. The tri-level group had hardware and software engineers working diligently to effect

the necessary links, but, in fact, they were never totally successful. Useful research came out of

the individual labs, but the tri-level network concept remained incomplete. At the same time, the

NSF physics directorate began de-emphasizing solid-state physics at the expense of massive

investments in high energy physics (such as the Stanford linear accelerator), which meant that

experimental groups such as those at Kansas experienced great difficulty getting funded. This

soon led to the demise of the Kansas solid state physics program, which was the key physics

component of the chemical physics program. This essentially tolled the death knell of the

chemical physics efforts for many years. As will be documented later, collaborative efforts

between the physical chemists and the physics department were never completely severed, and

later re-emerged with collaborative efforts in computational math/physics/chemistry.

BIOLOGICAL BEGINNINGS. Chemists have never been unaware of the significance

of chemistry to the field of biology. After all, amino acids, proteins and nucleic acids (DNA and

RNA) were all well-known biological molecules long before 1950.23 Still, until 1960, chemistry

at KU maintained a quite non-biological flavor. In that year, Edward E. Smissman was hired as

professor and chairman of the Medicinal Chemistry Department in the School of Pharmacy, an

action that would set in motion the Chemistry Department’s participation in the big

science/biological paradigm.

Ed’s initial efforts at KU were, of course, to build a world-class research department in

medicinal chemistry. Yet, he began almost immediately to also cultivate a strong and lasting

relationship with the Chemistry Department and its faculty, especially, but not limited to, the

organic faculty. He was to be found nearly every morning from 9:30 to 10:30 attending the

23Biology was forever changed by the 1953 report by James Watson and Francis Crick (with important contributions by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin) elucidating the structure of the DNA molecule.

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informal Chemistry Department coffee hour in the conference room next to the departmental

office. These sessions involved relaxation and good-natured discussion of nearly any topic

ranging from politics (university, state, national), to athletics, weather, and, importantly, science.

Most days Smissman would be found with data sheets and publicity dealing with the latest NMR,

mass spectrometer or infrared spectrometer with the hope of building support among the chemists

for its purchase. He was a firm believer that strong departments of chemistry and medicinal

chemistry could not exist without forefront instrumentation, and he correctly perceived that both

departments would be strengthened by working collaboratively toward mutual interests.

Moreover, he knew that there existed an almost unlimited abundance of exciting, fundamental

problems in the biological/medicinal/health science field that chemists (regardless of specialty)

should be involved in solving, and he took it upon himself to make certain that chemists

appreciated the opportunities. Cooperative efforts between Chemistry and Pharmacy of various

types began almost immediately, including joint seminars, courses, research proposals, etc. The

entire organic division, especially Dick Schowen, who rapidly focused his research program and

interests in the direction of the biological paradigm, began a long and fruitful association that has

remained to this day. J.K. Lee, Ralph Adams and Ralph Christoffersen were also especially

strong supporters of Smissman and his efforts and, of course, Adams would achieve world-

renown with his neurochemical studies. Christoffersen’s later efforts in biomedical and

pharmaceutical research were also strongly influenced by Smissman. During all the early years,

the department chairs (Kleinberg and Landgrebe) were strongly supportive of these interactions

and, indeed, the Chemistry Department increasingly supported the biological paradigm

throughout the remainder of the century.

One of the earliest tangible results of Smissman’s leadership was the award in 1969 by

the NIH of a $2.7M grant under its HSAA (Health Sciences Advancement Award) grant program.

This six-year grant was a cooperative effort involving the Departments of Chemistry, Medicinal

Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmacology and Biochemistry in addition to the

Medical Center in Kansas City. Among other features (including the funding of new positions for

an instrument operator and an electronics technician), the grant funded a permanent faculty

position in Chemistry in the area of x-ray crystallography, filled by B. K. Lee in 1970. Other

benefits of the grant included x-ray diffraction and mass spectrometry instrumentation, and

funding to aid the establishment in 1973 of the Enzyme Laboratory under the direction of Judy

A.K. Harmony.

While it could not be said that the biological paradigm dominated the department by the

late 1960s, it is certainly true that Smissman had planted many seeds that were soon to sprout.

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And, at the other end of the spectrum, pharmacy faculty sought even closer ties with chemistry.

Already in the early years, and then increasingly as the years went by, pharmacy faculty

welcomed and sought association with the Chemistry Department. Many Pharmacy School

faculty (including Matt Mertes, Gary Grunewald, Morrie Faiman, Bob Hanzlik and, later, Ian

Pitman, Gunda Georg, Les Mitscher, Sig Lindenbaum, Val Stella, Eli Michaelis and others), and

also faculty from the departments of Biochemistry and Microbiology (such as Jim Akagi, Dave

Paretsky, Dick Himes and Ron Borchardt, who later returned to the School of Pharmacy) were

regular participants in numerous chemistry activities and functions. By the early 1970s there

existed a large collegial group of scientists from the various aforementioned areas that was

working toward common goals in the chemical/biological sciences.

In 1974, Smissman died tragically, and much too young, of a virulent, initially

undiagnosed ailment that was later (too late) thought to be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

contracted from a tick bite. By this time the big science/biological paradigm was well established

in the Chemistry Department, so Ed’s legacy lived on strongly. Major continuity and extension

into new entrepreneurial enterprises had been assured earlier by the hiring of Tak Higuchi as

Regents Professor of Pharmacy and Chemistry in 1967. Higuchi, like Smissman, came from the

faculty ranks of the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy and, also like Smissman, he

thrived upon a strong interdisciplinary atmosphere.

THE HIGUCHI YEARS. The arrival of Tak Higuchi as Regents Professor brought a

science entrepreneur of the type that had not previously been seen at the university. His research

over the years at Wisconsin had led to some fundamental but, most notably, also marketable,

methodology for more effective delivery of drugs. In addition to beginning the development of a

new Pharmacy School Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Tak, upon his arrival, also

established on the West Campus24 a division of the Alza Corporation (headquartered in Palo Alto,

California), known as the Institute of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, to begin commercial

development and marketing of products. It should be noted that the State of Kansas developed

the Regents Chair positions explicitly for the purposes of economic development. Thus, while

Tak’s dual role as a professor, as well as an entrepreneur and Vice-president for Exploratory

Research for Alza, might seem strange in a university academic setting, it was precisely what the

State and the University wanted.

24 The West Campus of the university (west of Iowa street between 15th and 23rd) occupies land owned by the University of Kansas Endowment Association. University (academic) buildings occupy land donated to the university, while non-academic enterprises such as the Alza Corp. (later INTERX) usually occupy the land under some contractual lease agreement.

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Over the years, by the mid-1980s, the West campus pharmaceutical complex grew to a

total of four buildings. The original Alza Corp. building was sold to the Endowment Association

at cost in 1972 when Alza decided to consolidate its operations in California. At that time, the

Association’s Alza stock was sold also, providing capitalization for Higuchi’s new company,

named INTERX Research Corporation. INTERX prospered and continued to operate as a distinct

company until 1980, when it was purchased by pharmaceutical giant Merck and Company, at a

price reported by the Endowment Association to be $9.0M. To put matters in some perspective,

the Chemistry Department’s 12,500 shares of INTERX stock, with a book value of $25,000 when

donated by Tak in 1972, were immediately valued in excess of $100,000 after conversion to

Merck shares. The eventual net proceeds to Chemistry when the stock was sold came to over

$568,000. The enterprise was clearly a major success, yielding substantial financial benefits to the

University and the School of Pharmacy as well as to Chemistry.

Tak, himself, while being an incredibly capable and visionary scientist and businessman,

was often viewed incorrectly by faculty outside the sciences as being merely a wheeler-dealer.

He was, in fact, a most humble, generous and unselfish person who was always sensitive to the

possible conflicts that exist when university research becomes closely tied to commercial

development. One of many examples of Tak’s generosity, as well as of his keen perception of

university needs, came in 1981 when he established, by a personal contribution to the Endowment

Association, what have come to be called the “Higuchi” awards. These awards, four in number,

were named in honor of individuals who played important supporting roles in Higuchi’s

enterprises as well as being strong supporters of the university in general.25 The awards for

outstanding research are presented annually in the amount of $10,000 each, the funds to be used

for any research needs of the awardee. The awards are as follows:

• The Balfour Jeffrey Research Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

• The Olin Petefish Research Award in the Basic Sciences.

• The Dolph Simons, Sr. Research Award in the Biomedical Sciences.

• The Irvin Youngberg Research Award in the Applied Sciences of Importance to Kansas.

Note how wisely Higuchi selected the research areas, essentially covering most scholarly areas

within the university; moreover, the awards are open to faculty at all of the State Regents

25 Jeffrey was former Chairman of the Board of the Endowment Association and C.E.O. of Kansas Power and Light Company; Petefish was a senior partner in a Lawrence law firm and a strong, longtime KU supporter; Simons was the publisher of the Lawrence Journal World; and Youngberg was Executive Secretary of the Endowment Association.

59

institutions (including the Medical Center in Kansas City). Tak was a true master at deflecting

criticisms of the research enterprise by thoughtfully including possible critics in the enterprise.26

During these years Chemistry Department research developed an increasingly biological

flavor. In the 1979-1980 Chemistry Department Newsletter, the following list of newly funded

faculty research grants was presented; note that eight of the eleven grants involved biological

topics.

• Studies of Muscarinic Neurotransmitter Analogs

• Experimental Computer Models for Instruction

• Electrochemistry-EPR of Biological Electron Transfer

• Crystallographic Studies on the Enzyme L-asparaginase

• Biogenic Amine Release in CNS Tissue: Electrochemical Monitoring

• Studies of Neurotransmitter Lateralization in Human Brain

• Biological Transmethylation

• Quasienergy Approach to Intense Fields and Multiphoton Ionization Processes

• ACL Transfer in Aprotic and Enzyme Systems

• Enzyme Effector Design

• Microwave Spectroscopic Studies on the Structure, Conformation and Dynamics of Stable

and Transient Molecular Species

Still, throughout all these years, except for the early HSAA program, the department had

not forged a major, strong and lasting collaborative research effort in the

biological/pharmaceutical sciences, although Adams and Schowen, in particular, were often

involved (Adams usually reluctantly) in a variety of joint initiatives. The most serious, earliest

efforts aimed to forge a neuroscience program involving Adams and various researchers from

pharmacy and biology, a plan that eventually led to a major Department of Defense (DOD) grant

to support a Center for Neurotoxin Research in 1986. Dick Schowen and his research associate,

Ildiko Kovach, were the principal chemistry participants. Although the neurotoxin center did not

have a long life, the program continued to enrich the interdisciplinary atmosphere well into the

future, indeed to the present day.

In late 1983-to-early 1984, Higuchi began pitching an idea for a bioanalytical program to

be supported by the State under the umbrella of a newly announced Centers of Excellence

program. In early 1984, Larry Sternson from Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Harmony, Carlson,

26As departmental chair at this time, I was prepared to nominate two persons who I felt were sure-fire winners, viz., Dick Schowen for the Simons Award and Buzz Adams for the Petefish Award. They were the first winners of these awards in 1982.

60

Givens and Schowen from Chemistry agreed to launch the program and to lay the plans for what

would be called the Center for Bioanalytical Research (CBAR). The general goal would be to

develop methodology for the low-level detection of bioactive substances from biological systems.

The initial goal was the exploitation of new, highly efficient derivatizing agents for the detection

of biologically active amines, amino acids and peptides using liquid chromatotography (LC) with

laser fluorescence or chemiluminescence detection. In the early planning, Sternson was the

leader in the LC area, Givens would provide expertise in photochemistry, Schowen added skills

in kinetics of reaction mechanisms, Carlson would lead the synthetic program for new

derivatizing agents, and Harmony would lead the laser fluorescence detection efforts. From this

list, it is immediately clear that not a single analytical chemist was involved. As has been

discussed in Section IV, this was a time when the analytical division faculty size had shrunk to a

modern low in headcount. Had Defreese or Daigneault still been on the analytical faculty, one of

them might have been a better choice than I was. But, in fact, I had begun laser-induced

fluorescence (LIF) experimentation in my laboratory a couple of years earlier for completely

different purposes and there was no other faculty member in the department who had ever done

any laser experimentation. Thus, I acceded to my colleagues’ request to lead the initial

developments in the area of LIF detection.27 Fortunately, I had an excellent analytical graduate

student (Mark Roach) who had switched to my group after Defreese departed and who

understood both LC and LIF experimentation.

At the same time, Higuchi began the formal steps to establish yet another high-tech

company to provide the corporate support necessary to match the State support via the Centers of

Excellence program. This company, named Oread Laboratories after the famous hill upon which

the university was founded, came into being in 1984 although it was not fully capitalized for a

few years. Things now moved quickly on several fronts. First, Larry Sternson left K.U. in the

summer of 1984 to accept a lucrative job in the pharmaceutical industry, but two other new

pharmaceutical chemistry faculty (John Stobaugh and Chris Riley) with LC expertise joined the

program. At the same time, as described in Section IV, Ted Kuwana was brought in as Regents

Professor of Pharmacy (essentially assuming Higuchi’s position) and Director of CBAR. Based

upon a solid scientific proposal, corporate support from Oread Labs, and, undoubtedly, Higuchi’s

persuasion, the Center of Excellence distinction came later in the year. Funding and research

began in 1985 in McCollum and Smissman Halls on West Campus and, of course, in Malott Hall.

27 It worked out all right; one of the first CBAR publications and the first one reporting the detection of amino acids at attomole levels was: Mark C. Roach and Marlin D. Harmony, “Determination of Amino Acids at Subfemtomole Levels by High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Laser-Induced Fluorescence Detection, Anal. Chem. 59, 411-415 (1987).

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Now, at the same time, Higuchi pulled off one more major coup, viz., he funded through

the Endowment Association a distinguished chair professorship in the area of bioanalytical

chemistry. As described in Section IV, the first holder of the Distinguished Professorship in

Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, George Wilson, joined the faculty and immediately

became a valuable addition to CBAR in 1987. The simultaneous hiring of Craig Lunte brought

additional new strength to the Chemistry Department and to CBAR. By 1991, in The Long

Range Plan of the Department of Chemistry, the department was able to state that one of the

major strengths of the department was “the bioanalytical research emphasis and the development

of the Center for Bioanalytical Research.” So, finally, the department had developed a “major,

strong and lasting collaborative research effort in the biological /pharmaceutical sciences.”

Bioanalytical research and the Center continued to grow and flourish as the years went

on. However, Tak’s death by heart failure in March of 1987 was a severe blow, since he was

always the one with not only the grand vision but also the very real ties to the pharmaceutical

industry. The lack of Higuchi’s wise counsel certainly put increased pressures upon Kuwana in

directing and shepherding the young organization through its growth years. In fact, Kuwana gave

up the CBAR directorship in 1990 to become Senior Science Advisor to KU, a position from

which he would have the opportunity to view the research enterprise more globally (see EPSCoR

program below). Other faculty and scientists would come and go over the years, but bioanalytical

research was firmly established in the Chemistry Department and the university.

MORE BIG SCIENCE—EPSCoR and MORE. Kuwana’s CBAR experience had

provided him with an intimate understanding of the nature of State politics and State funding of

technological and other entrepreneurial activities. After becoming Senior Science Advisor he

began to discern clearly that the state of Kansas was faring poorly in science and engineering

funding compared to the nation as a whole. Indeed, at this time the state ranked 17th from the

bottom nationally in federal research and development (R & D) funding (i.e., it ranked number 33

from the top). Somewhat fortuitously, NSF had initiated some years earlier a program known as

EPSCoR (footnote 13) whose authorization through its Research Infrastructure Improvement

Grant Program was to provide funding to enhance the scientific and technological capabilities of

states faring poorly in federal R & D funding. Moreover, in 1991, Kansas and Nebraska were

declared the 17th and 18th states to be eligible for such funding. Ted quickly grasped that the time

was right to bring Kansas into the EPSCoR funding picture. He immediately began discussing

the project all over the state, in particular at Kansas State University (KSU) and Wichita State

University (WSU) as well as in the state capitol, Topeka, since the initiative had to be a state-

wide effort to succeed. Of prime importance, of course, was the necessity to develop the state

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support for the required 50/50 match. Fortunately, the State was actually ready to encourage such

efforts by utilizing recently developed funds from the new state lottery. The irony of supporting

risky high-technology ventures with gambling revenues could not be missed!

After a huge amount of very dedicated work, Ted finally pulled together all the state

universities so as to develop multidisciplinary, cooperative programs under a strategic plan

labeled K*STAR (Kansas Science and Technology Advanced Research, pronounced k-star, not

k-star-star). Matching state funding would come via KTEC (Kansas Technology Enterprise

Corporation), which was set up by the state to assist high-tech enterprises in economic

development. Finally, after much wrangling on each campus and much more at the state level, a

strong proposal was generated and submitted to NSF. Eventually, NSF funded a $9M grant (half

from KTEC) for three years that funded 16 individual projects, nine of which were centered at

KU, five at WSU and four at KSU. The projects covered a variety of math, science and

engineering topics, with four being located primarily in the KU Chemistry Department, as

follows:

• “The Kansas Program for Molecular Design, Synthesis, and Applications of Macromolecular

Materials and Supramolecular Systems,” directed by Daryle Busch, and including five KU,

three KSU and three WSU co-PIs. The program is known as KAN-SYN.

• “The Kansas Ultrafast Spectroscopy Program,” directed by Carey Johnson, and including two

other KU co-PIs.

• “Signal Transduction in Biology: Analytical Methodology,” directed by George Wilson, and

including eight KU, one KUMC, one KSU and one WSU co-PIs.

• “Kansas Institute for Theoretical and Computational Science,” directed by Shi-I Chu, and

including ten co-PIs from the departments of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy, Computer

Science and Mathematics. This project is acronymed KITCS.28

Note the clear evidence of big science; the projects abound in multi-investigator, multi-

disciplinary and multi-institutional character.

The Kansas EPSCoR K*STAR program was renewed at three-year intervals throughout

the remainder of the century and beyond. Some projects continued in larger versions, other

programs concluded by “graduation” and new programs were brought in throughout the state in

new and different areas. The KAN-SYN program expanded as the years went on and spawned a

28 Not really pronounceable, but reminiscent of kitsch, which certainly was not a characteristic of the program.

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new synthesis laboratory at KU known as the Kansas Advanced Synthesis Laboratory (KASL);

its primary purpose was the not-for-profit synthesis of specialized molecules for Kansas

researchers and also as a training facility for graduate students. The KITCS project also

expanded over the years, morphing into the Kansas Center for Advanced Scientific Computing

(KCASC) in 1996. The following year Chu’s group, in cooperation with the KU Computer

Center, brought on board a $0.5M Cray supercomputer to serve researchers in Kansas. By 1998,

the EPSCoR program was funding a Great Plains Network involving Kansas and six other states

to support development of a virtual-network communication system to provide efficient access to

the national computer grid. By 1998 NSF had committed a total of $16.7M to the Kansas

EPSCoR K*STAR program.

As the century came to a close, other big-science programs continued outside the

EPSCoR area. In a related development, the Department of Defense began funding its own

version of EPSCoR known as DEPSCoR, and KU researchers were soon tapping into this funding

source. Also, in addition to science research funding, the department, under the leadership of Joe

Heppert and in cooperation with the School of Education, began development of a state-wide K-

12 program aimed at improving science education. Big science, and especially biological big

science, continued into the new century in many forms.

VI. Undergraduate and Graduate Studies—The Same but Changing

The preceding sections have documented the massive changes that have occurred in the

department in areas such as faculty, staff and research. One would reasonably assume that

chemistry graduate and undergraduate studies might also have undergone equally large changes.

In some ways this turns out to be the case; yet overall, the curricula have maintained the same

general character to the extent that they continue to consist primarily of analytical, inorganic,

organic and physical chemistry courses and studies. (See reference 11 and the related text.)

Many changes over the years have been cosmetic in nature, for example, changing a five-credit

hour course with laboratory to a three-hour lecture course and a two-hour laboratory course. But

certainly, all the courses have continuously undergone revisions to keep them up to date. In

1950, for example, the analytical chemists surely did not cover gas or high-performance liquid

chromatography in their undergraduate courses; nor did the inorganic chemists treat the theory of

noble gas compounds; nor did the organic chemists lecture on NMR or Woodward-Hoffmann

rules; and physical chemistry courses certainly did not treat the theory and practice of lasers. Yet

these and many other topics have been included as the science came into being.

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In addition to these matters, the various degree requirements have undergone substantial

modifications, especially at the graduate level, where numerous burdensome exam requirements

have been eliminated. But also, at the undergraduate level, changes have been made to make the

degrees more attractive in a competitive environment and to ensure that graduates were prepared

for their future professions. The principal revisions will be described in the following sections.

THE GRADUATE PROGRAM. In this section the discussion will be concentrated upon

the Ph.D. degree since it is the principal graduate degree in the Chemistry Department. The M.S.

degree, although sometimes the degree of explicit student choice upon entering graduate school,

is most often a second choice upon discovering that the PhD requires a really immense amount of

hard work, diligence and perhaps personal and financial sacrifice. The approach here will be to

describe the evolution of the degree over the period of our reporting. The changes will, no doubt,

be surprising to graduates from the 1950s.

Table IV summarizes in a condensed fashion the degree requirements as a function of

time. First, let’s observe the constants of the Ph.D. program. Coursework consists of beginning

graduate level courses in the four principal areas, viz., analytical, inorganic, organic and physical.

This is usually referred to as “distribution,” and is clearly aimed at ensuring that a student obtains

some breadth of knowledge. For a short period of time a special CORE curriculum was in effect

(see below). When this scheme was dropped after the 1986-87 academic year, the distribution

was reduced to three courses outside the student’s specialty. Then too, students have always been

required to take advanced courses in their specialty in order to achieve the desired depth of

knowledge. Typically this amounts to something like four to six courses in the area of

specialization. Another feature that has remained relatively unchanged is the oral comprehensive

exam (taken usually in the second or third year of study) in which a student must defend one or

more original research proposals before a faculty committee. Over the years there has been a bit

of a change in this exam. In earlier days students were required to prepare as many as three

proposals and to be ready to defend them all, although one was always considered to be the

principal proposal. As the century ended only one well-done proposal was required. Of course,

original research and the resulting dissertation have always been at the heart of the program; and

along with this comes a final oral exam presentation (thesis defense) when the dissertation is

complete.

So, what have been the major changes? In 1950, students were required to pass exams

known as qualifying exams in all four areas at the beginning of the fall semester. In fact, these

exams were really placement exams since they were based upon undergraduate material and were

used to advise students in their course enrollments. But in the 1957-58 academic year the exams

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shifted from the beginning of the fall semester to near the end of the spring semester of a

student’s first year; in addition, the material covered was now at a level more advanced than

undergraduate material. Moreover, a student was required to pass these exams with grades of B

or better in order to qualify for continuation of Ph.D. studies! This scheme persisted until the end

of the 1966-67 academic year, when, along with a number of other changes, the exam reverted to

its original usage as a placement exam given at the beginning of the fall semester. Also, in 1950,

students were required to pass an advanced written comprehensive exam in their specialty area

before taking the oral comprehensive exam; and in addition, were required to complete a course

Table IV. Ph.D. REQUIREMENTS 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Qualifiers P ● P P P P Distribution 4 4 4 CORE 3 3 Advanced ● ● ● ● ● ● FL/FLORS 2 2 2 2 2 1 Minor ● ● Cumulatives 0 0 7 6 5 5 Written Comp. ● ● Oral Comp. ● ● ● ● ● ● Dissertation ● ● ● ● ● ● Final Oral ● ● ● ● ● ● Table Key: 1. A bullet (●) means the requirement exists. 2. Qualifiers: P means exams were actually Placement exams. 3. Distribution: Tabulated value is number of courses required. CORE means modularized core curriculum; see text. 4. FL is the foreign language reading skill. FLORS is the foreign language and other research skill requirement. Listed value is the number of required skills. 5. Cumulatives: Listed value is the required number of exam passes.

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of study (usually three to five courses) in a minor area, e.g. physics, math, biochemistry, etc.

Both of these requirements disappeared after the 1966-67 academic year. There is no doubt that

graduate students were placed under a large amount of stress from all these high-pressure exams

and, in addition, they were diverted from their dissertation research studies in order to study for

the exams and to complete the courses in the minor field. Most of the impetus for these changes

was a desire of the faculty to get students thoroughly involved in their research at an earlier stage.

At the same time that these major deletions were made, the department added cumulative

exams to the requirements. These exams were given in the four principal areas on a monthly

basis during the academic year. They originally covered modern topics or problems, often

selected from the chemical literature or advanced textbook material. Students were required to

pass a total of seven exams in a two-and-one-half year period, and were urged to begin taking

these exams immediately upon entering graduate school. Failures on the exams were not looked

upon negatively but provided guidance to the students about material in which they were

deficient. Note that the seven-pass requirement in two and one-half years meant that as many as

twenty attempts could be made to complete the cume requirement, so the exams were really quite

low-pressure compared to qualifiers or written comprehensives. As time passed, the cume

requirements were modified in several ways. In particular, the required number of passes was

reduced, first to six and then eventually to five. In still another easing of regulations, students

were permitted to receive a “half-pass” during their first year of study, so that if they accumulated

two of these during the first year the net result was equivalent to a full-pass.

As seen in Table IV, the final changes occurred in the foreign language requirement. In

1950 and earlier, it was expected that an educated scholar, namely a holder of a Ph.D. degree,

should be prepared to read literature in the field of chemistry written in French or German. These

were, of course, the two most important scientific languages historically. By 1950 it had become

clear that the Russian scientific juggernaut was turning out as much or more research as the

French or Germans so within a few years the requirement was changed to require reading

proficiency in two of the three languages, French, German or Russian. Soon, everyone realized

that the Japanese were publishing important and increasingly large contributions and so Japanese

was added to the list of language options.

By the mid-1960s, the computer was becoming a key piece of equipment for the analysis

of data from experiments in all of the sciences, so it became essential for graduate students to

learn the language of the computer to take full advantage of its capabilities. Thus it became easy

to make the case that it was perhaps more important for a student to achieve proficiency in the

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computer programming language known as FORTRAN than in one of the foreign languages. By

the 1968-69 academic year the foreign language (FL) requirement had become the “foreign

language or other research skills” requirement (FLORS), for which a student must demonstrate

proficiency in two of five areas: French, German, Russian, Japanese, or FORTRAN (ALGOL or

COBOL might be chosen in some disciplines but were not very sensible in the physical sciences

such as chemistry). By the following year, two more options were added in the areas of

electronics and statistical methods. Thus, The FLORS requirement had now departed entirely

from the necessity of learning any foreign language! The culmination of this trend was yet to

come. In 1997, one more option was added to the FLORS list, viz., expertise in modern

(computer-based) library bibliographical search techniques—and, to finish things off, the

requirement was reduced to proficiency in only a single area. The result of this was that

essentially all students now choose to satisfy the FLORS requirement by taking a specially

designed bibliography short course given each fall semester by one of the science librarians.

The major academic experiment of the half-century was carried out during the period

from 1978-79 through 1986-87. This was the time period when a specially designed, one-year

course curriculum, known as the modularized core curriculum, was in effect for first-year

graduate students. This curriculum, summarized in Table V, was developed with much hard

work and wrangling by the faculty over a two-year period. The intent was to have a modern first-

year curriculum to uniformly meet the needs of all graduate students and, in particular, to

eliminate the arbitrary division of chemistry into analytical, inorganic, organic and physical areas

in accord with Hammond’s ideas (see footnote 11 and related discussion). The plan was to

integrate concepts across disciplines as far as practicable and to provide both depth and breadth in

one fell swoop. In order to accomplish this, ten short modules were developed that would be

taught initially with a total of fourteen hours of credit over two semesters, as shown in Table V.

Moreover, to show the seriousness of the faculty, several of the modules were designed to be

taught by two or more faculty with representation from different divisions (A, I, O, P). After the

first year, the expectation was that students would be prepared to proceed immediately to the

usual advanced courses in their specialty.

Note first that the curriculum is really quite remarkable in the breadth of its coverage.

But note also that it is very “busy,” requiring students to take ten courses for 14 total credit hours

(seven each semester). Scheduling was complicated and required that both faculty and students

stay on their toes. For example, Chem. 701 and 703, which total three credit hours, would be

taught typically in a semester-long M, W, F sequence with 701 being taught each day for one-half

of the semester and 703 being taught each day for the second half of the semester. A one credit-

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hour course might be taught in a M, W sequence for half a semester, and so forth. Aside from

these matters it was often not possible to identify really suitable textbooks for some of the short

modules, necessitating the use of either extensive handouts or less-than-optimal books.

Table V. Core Curriculum (1978-79)

____________________________________________________________________________

Credit Title Instructors

____________________________________________________________________________

701 1.5 Functional Group Transformations and Mertes, Huyser

Synthetic Methods

702 1.0 Structure and Symmetry Mertes, Huyser

703 1.5 Stereochemistry and Conformation Everett, Landgrebe, Huyser

704 1.5 Quantum Chemistry Gilles

705 1.5 Thermodynamics Gilles

706 1.5 Dynamics R. Schowen, Harmony

707 2.5 Spectroscopy and Structure Carlson, Defreese, Harmony

Identification

708 1.0 Chemical Periodicity Kleinberg

709 1.5 Separations J.K. Lee

710 1.0 Electrochemistry Adams, Iwamoto

Even with these various problems, the core curriculum was in place for a total of nine

years, with only minor modifications made in course content and credit. It met the major goal of

a uniform sequence of courses that provided suitable subject breadth without being overly

superficial. In addition, there was no doubt that students received a much better taste of advanced

subject matter outside their eventual area of specialization than they received by the traditional

distribution requirement. Still, the nagging problems of inadequate textbooks and scheduling

continued. Another problem that was not initially recognized was that not only were the students

tested with final exams at a rather rapid pace, but some of the exams came at mid-semester rather

than in the normal final exam period at the end of the semester. Problems aside, the student

feedback on the course content and the general scheme was really very positive. For one thing,

no uncertainty existed among students about what their course of studies would be—all new

graduate students took the identical curriculum; and the students knew that upon completion of

the CORE they were ready to move on to their particular specialty. The eventual death of the

program came primarily from the fact that the faculty simply wore down. Some faculty never felt

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comfortable with the short modules and others found themselves teaching a module (or a half of a

module) as an overload to other full semester teaching responsibilities. It is probably true that

most faculty breathed a giant sigh of relief when the program was terminated after the 1986-87

academic year. The grand experiment had ended!

THE UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM. The undergraduate curricula for the BA and

BS degrees remained remarkably constant throughout the second half of the 20th century, namely

they required studies in inorganic, analytical, organic and physical chemistry. Perhaps

surprisingly, and in contrast to the graduate PhD degree, the required chemistry credit hours for

the BS degree increased from 41 at the beginning of the period to 50 at the end. The major

changes were the addition of a course in analytical instrumental methods of analysis, an optional

advanced chemistry course plus required participation in undergraduate research for at least one

semester. The BA degree requirements remained essentially unchanged although the required

credit hours increased from 27 to 29. For both degrees, a “capstone” one-credit hour senior

seminar course was instituted in the 1980s to aid students in generating professionalism in the

field. The seminar was discontinued for several years when staffing became a problem but was

re-instituted permanently in the 1990s. Naturally, mathematics (calculus) and physics remained

as mainstays of the requirements outside chemistry. Somewhat analogously to what occurred for

the PhD degree, the BS language requirement was changed from three courses in French or

German to two courses plus a “skill” course such as computer science or statistics. On balance, it

must be acknowledged that the BS degree was more demanding in 2000 than in 1950.

It is true that the department’s concern for maintaining a vibrant undergraduate program

was never ending. For example, the analytical and physical laboratory courses were updated and

reorganized on several occasions, and Jack Landgrebe led an almost continual modernization of

the organic laboratory experience. After much discussion over the years, two optional programs

were instituted in the mid 1990s, viz., BA and BS degrees with an Environmental Emphasis or

with a Biological Chemistry Emphasis. For the BS degree, the environmental option substituted

four courses from areas such as ecology, geology, meteorology and environmental studies for

four courses in chemistry; while the biological option substituted four courses from areas such as

biochemistry, microbiology, plant biology and cell biology for four courses in chemistry. The

BA options actually required that students take additional courses in both chemistry and the

outside areas.

No matter generated more discussion and controversy throughout the entire period than

did the freshman or general chemistry program. At various times throughout the fifty-year period

there were special one-or two-semester courses for non-science majors, special one-or two-

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semester courses for engineers, and special courses or sections for chemistry honors students in

addition to what might be called the “mainline” two-semester course for science majors.

Contentious discussions about the nature of all the courses were common. Should they require a

course in high school chemistry as a prerequisite? If not, should there be a special (remedial)

course for students who do not have such a prerequisite? Should there be a special course for

chemistry majors? Should there be a special course for engineers? Should there be a special

course for pre-nursing students? Should the labs be modernized to eliminate experiments such as

titrations with color change indicators? Is the course synopsis overbalanced in favor of theory

(thermodynamics, kinetics and quantum theory) as opposed to qualitative chemical concepts? [A

favorite argument around the department for many years was whether or not there was any

importance in knowing the color of copper sulfate, which was once incorrectly identified by a

certain physical chemistry faculty member.] There was even a famous open-ended faculty

meeting in the late 1970s at which it was debated whether or not general chemistry should just be

eliminated so students could go directly into courses in organic and physical chemistry. Needless

to say, this discussion did not sit well with the faculty most directly involved in the program

(Bricker, Lata, Reynolds, Kleinberg, Everett), but it did have a useful cathartic effect upon those

faculty who really had little knowledge about what the program was all about. In any case, the

general chemistry courses were not eliminated. However, by 1977 the course offerings had

already been pared down to the two-semester mainline sequence, a one-semester course for

engineering students, and a one-semester survey course that satisfied the science distribution

requirement for liberal arts students outside the sciences. Finally, in 1986, the one-semester

course for engineers was discontinued and, by the early 1990s, honors courses were being

established for the mainline science-major sequence.

Of course, the principal problem with the freshman program involved the large

enrollments. Until the 1960s, when the fall enrollment in the mainline course in general chemistry

began to approach 1000, the large freshman courses in both semesters were taught in multiple

sections of less than 200 students, which just fit the largest available room in Malott Hall or the

old auditorium in Strong Hall.29 But it was becoming increasingly difficult to assemble a

sufficient number of faculty to teach the increasing number of sections necessary to handle the

large enrollments without unsatisfactorily magnifying the average faculty teaching load. Bricker,

as director of the general chemistry program, decided in 1966 that the solution to the problem was

to teach the large mainline course in one large section utilizing Hoch Auditorium. Hoch was an

29 This auditorium was renamed Brewster Auditorium in 1981 in honor of Ray Q. Brewster. Jake Kleinberg presented some meaningful words of tribute at the November 3 ceremony.

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ancient, cavernous structure seating as many as 5500 people on the ground floor and upper

balconies. It had served the university well for many years in many ways. For example, before

the construction of Allen Fieldhouse in 1955, Hoch was the site for KU basketball games, and it

also served as a major (but totally unsatisfactory) venue for major concert productions before

modern facilities were built. Its accoustics were a true abomination, which I appreciated for the

first time when I attended a concert performance by world famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The music

just seemed to disappear into the vastness of space once it left the instrument. In any case,

following upon the success of anthropology professor Bill Bass, who was teaching a large course

in the hall, Brick transformed Hoch into a chemistry classroom using huge, specially constructed

screens for overhead visual projection, a microphone and speakers for sound, and a portable lab

bench for demonstrations. Remarkably, he turned this facility into the site of a serious learning

experience for as many as a thousand or more students and, as noted previously, he managed to

do it in a flamboyant fashion that gained him unprecedented renown. Taking their cues (in

methods and techniques) from Bricker, many other faculty (including the organic faculty who

used Hoch for their large undergraduate courses) followed in his footsteps until one fateful

summer in 1991 when the building was struck by lightning and burned to the ground (more about

this later). It would be some years before Hoch auditorium was replaced by a new facility. In the

interim period, the large classes were taught in Murphy Hall Theatre, which was not very popular

with the fine arts faculty, or in Woodruff Auditorium in the student union.

Courses other than general chemistry naturally received serious attention also. Over the

years there was a rather continual clamor among students in the biological sciences for a more

“relevant” course in physical chemistry (which meant a course with some biological content and

scaled down mathematical rigor). Eventually, such a one-semester course, entitled Biological

Physical Chemistry, became a regular part of the curriculum in 1981 and was very successful

from the beginning. In a related fashion, a one-semester organic course has become a permanent

feature to satisfy the needs of some biological science students and also some pre-professional

students in fields such as dentistry.

Finally, the distinction known as “honors in chemistry,” which for years had been based

primarily upon a student’s grade-point average, was made more significant and meaningful by the

inclusion of a requirement that a student must also present a written thesis describing his/her

undergraduate research.30 The university distinctions, graduate “with highest distinction” or

“with distinction,” continue to be based simply upon grade-point average.

30 Incidentally, it is interesting to note that The University of Kansas did not transfer to the 4.0 grade-point average scheme until 1970. Until that time the 3.0 scheme was in effect: A=3, B=2, C=1, D=0, F= – 1.

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VII. Miscellany

KCCTC. In its desire to strengthen communication and cooperation among the two-year

community colleges and the four-year public colleges and universities in the state, the Chemistry

Department sponsored a Symposium on Undergraduate Chemical Education in the spring of

1973. J.K. Lee, then associate chairman, was the driving and organizing force behind the

conference that was attended by faculty from a total of thirteen institutions plus KU. The

principal topics of this first meeting included “the roles of junior (community) colleges and

universities in higher education in Kansas” and ”cooperation between the junior and four-year

colleges.” The meeting was held each of the following two years in Lawrence before the

participating institutions agreed that the meeting should rotate annually around the state. The

fourth meeting was consequently hosted by Wichita State University, and the conference has been

an annual event since that time. It has become known as the Kansas College Chemistry Teachers

Conference (KCCTC), and its longevity can certainly be taken as a measure of its success. In the

spring of 1999 the conference returned to KU after a ten-year absence, having visited eleven other

institutions over the years as well as KU several times. This conference is probably unchallenged

in its success at bringing about regular statewide dialogue among chemistry faculty at the public

colleges and universities within the state.

HELIUM HISTORY REVISITED. As noted by Taft in his history of Bailey Hall (see

footnote 1), professor H.P. Cady and his student David E. McFarland became renowned for their

research that identified helium in natural gas from the wells of Dexter, Kansas. Through the

diligent efforts of professor Grover Everett, the American Chemical Society designated Bailey

Hall (the site of Cady’s basement laboratory) as a National Historic Chemical Landmark to

commemorate Cady’s work in a ceremony held April 15, 2000 on the KU campus. The timing of

this event was planned to coincide with a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Bailey Hall’s

construction. At the celebration, which was attended not only by local KU friends, faculty,

students and administrators but also by members of the Bailey, Cady and McFarland families, KU

Chancellor Robert Hemenway was presented by the ACS with a 16 by 20 inch bronze plaque,

which is now installed permanently in Bailey Hall.

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH. Undergraduate students have probably been

involved in faculty research projects for as long as the university has existed. At the simplest

level a student might just ask a faculty member whether there existed any possibility of doing

some lab work, either for remuneration or not. Such opportunities have always existed, extending

from the truly menial tasks such as washing glassware to more significant jobs such as actually

73

planning and performing experiments (typically under the direction of a graduate student). On a

more formal level, it has always been clear that some form of bona fide laboratory research

experience should be a part of the training of any professional chemist. For this reason BS

students have always been encouraged to include at least one semester of undergraduate research

in their schedules. As the National Science Foundation began ramping up its research grant

programs in the 1950s and 1960s, it reasonably ramped up its education/training programs also.

Thus it began funding programs aimed explicitly at undergraduates, particularly during the

summer when they could be immersed in a research project for, say, ten weeks. In the early

1970s, KU chemistry NSF grants supported (stipends and some research supplies) eight students

each summer, half of whom were typically from KU and half from neighboring small colleges.

This program was known as the Undergraduate Research Participation (URP) program and

required that opportunities be provided especially to students at small colleges having limited

research opportunities. As an example, in 1974, the small colleges represented were Baker

University, Ottawa University and Friends University in Kansas plus Missouri Southern

University.

Over the years the program guidelines changed in various ways and indeed NSF dropped

the program for a short time. When it re-emerged it was known as NSF-REU (Research

Experiences for Undergraduates), with particular requirements that student recruiting meet

various diversity guidelines and that a host institution such as KU not support its own students.

Of course, the department could support its own students, as always, with other departmental and

grant funds. By the summer of 1997, the department was beginning its fourth straight three-year

REU grant with ten students selected from among four-year colleges in a 17-state midwestern

region. During these REU years, the department began using the program rather successfully as a

graduate student recruiting tool by encouraging participants (who were normally either rising

juniors or rising seniors) to consider KU for graduate studies if this was on their horizon. These

NSF undergraduate programs were extremely successful throughout the years in developing a

cadre of students who went on to pursue graduate studies, at KU or elsewhere, which was, of

course, the object of the NSF enterprise.

HOCH AUDITORIUM DESTRUCTION AND REBIRTH. In mid-June of 1991 (June

15, to be precise) Nancy and I were attending a Saturday afternoon wedding in a church northeast

of campus during which lightning, thunder and hail provided a spectacular but somewhat scary

backdrop to the wedding and subsequent reception. It was not until we left for home that we

heard numerous sirens and saw smoke rising in the sky. A local radio report informed us that

Hoch had been struck by lightning and was burning fiercely at that very minute. Fire crews from

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Lawrence and numerous surrounding communities fought the blaze for hours, preventing it from

doing any serious damage to neighboring Anschutz Science Library and Marvin Hall. But by the

next morning only the huge stone and brick walls remained standing precariously; the massive

ceiling lay smoking amid the rubble of its steel beam supports on the auditorium floor.31

Eventually, all the walls except for the magnificent front (north) facade were torn down and the

site was prepared for reconstruction of a new lecture hall facility.

By March of 1992, plans for the “new” Hoch were in place and Governor Finney

announced approval of an $18 million allocation for construction. The new facility would

include three state-of-the-art lecture halls seating 1000, 500 and 500 students, respectively. Final

plans were in place by early 1993 and included additional space for the science library and

undergraduate computer labs. As always with state building projects, firm funding was not

established as quickly as desired—it was not until July of 1994 that final construction bids were

called for, after the late 1993 bids were $3 million over budget. Eventually, on October 31, 1997,

after the legislature had appropriated a total of $23 million, the new building, named Budig Hall

in honor of Chancellor Gene A. Budig, was dedicated for posterity. Eight days later, the large

lecture hall was officially dedicated as Bricker Auditorium in honor of Clark Bricker who had

died June 14, 1994, almost exactly three years after the great fire. Beginning with the fall

semester of 1998, the Chemistry Department was back in business with, for the first time, state-

of-the-art lecture halls for its large courses in general and organic chemistry. Each of the three

lecture halls featured three large rear-projection screens that were viewable from all seat

locations, and the halls were equipped to handle all forms of state-of-the-art media and computer-

controlled presentations. The future, without chalkboards, had arrived.

ANSCHUTZ SCIENCE LIBRARY. As noted earlier, the construction of Malott Hall

was especially significant because of the inclusion of space on the sixth floor for a science library

that contained books and journals in the fields of chemistry, physics and biology. Students and

faculty of this era will remember fondly the ease with which a trip to the library could be made;

and faculty will also remember wistfully the days when they had keys to permit entry to the

library stacks twenty-four hours a day (before security issues scotched this benefit also).

Unfortunately, as scientific journals multiplied in number and size, and as space for their storage

was squeezed by the need to provide more reading/lounging space for undergraduates and other

library users, the sixth-floor location had become completely inadequate by the 1970s. Plans for

31 In the 1992 edition of the Department of Chemistry Alumni Newsletter, Grover Everett provided a detailed summary of the destructive fire and a nice account of the history of Hoch Auditorium, from its earliest planning days, through its construction and dedication in 1927, to its use by various chemistry faculty over the past several decades.

75

a new, free-standing science library began to be kicked around by the early 1980s and it should be

no surprise to know that by this time all the science units in Malott (Chemistry, Physics,

Pharmacy) supported the idea completely because the sixth-floor space would then be available

for re-allocation to these units. 1986 architectural plans led to the completion in 1989 of 92,000

square-foot Anschutz Science Library, named in honor of alumnus Phillip Anschutz and his wife,

Nancy. The building, located just west of Malott, was architecturally quite striking but, most

significantly, it provided a major upgrade in both the quality and the quantity of library space.

Still, there was one negative note even upon the library’s opening, viz., a funding shortfall left

one portion of the old library in Malott. This was a section known as “government documents,”

which unfortunately seemed to grow on a daily basis. After the Hoch fire, which barely spared

Anschutz, the Hoch reconstruction project included in its lowest level the missing space for the

government documents. The new library was a pleasure to use even if it required a one-minute

walk through the outdoor elements. Not surprisingly, by the year 2000 journal space was at a

premium while computer terminals had nearly filled the main floor. But, of course, the library

was now beginning to cancel hard copy journals in favor of electronic (digital) versions that could

be searched and accessed from computers on site or in distant offices. Perhaps the science library

of the future will not have space problems, but that all remains to be seen.

WAR AND CIVIL UNREST COME TO KU. Wars and higher education do not co-exist

happily. Of course, during World War II, university enrollments (of primarily male students)

were drastically reduced by the draft. In the 1950s, to a much lesser extent, universities again

found their students being called away for military service during the Korean War. KU and the

Chemistry Department were certainly no exception. But the real educational disruption during

the second half of the 20th century came during the Vietnam conflict. By 1970 the war in

southeast Asia was not going well at all, and campuses throughout the country were showing a

huge amount of unrest brought about by a growing anti-war movement. At the same time, civil

rights unrest was rampant as black citizens continued to seek their full constitutional rights. The

spring, summer and fall of 1970 found the city of Lawrence and the University of Kansas

inextricably embroiled in these events, and they cannot be forgotten by anyone who lived through

those days.

During hectic one-to-three week periods in April-May, July and then again in December

the city and campus were the scenes of student (both college and high school) demonstrations and

strikes, the detonation of incendiary devices to set fire to automobiles and buildings, and a

general disorderly display of resistance to any form of civil authority. The April disruptions

culminated on the 20th when the KU Memorial Student Union suffered an arson attack in the form

76

of some type of incendiary device on the upper floors, resulting in over a million dollars in

damage. Heroic actions by both firefighters and student volunteers prevented the entire building

and valuable contents from going up in flames. (This was still two weeks before the Kent State

University demonstrations that eventually led to the tragic deaths of four students on that

campus.) During the following days dozens of students were arrested for civil disobedience and

a citywide curfew was in effect. Finally, after numerous demands to end the school year

prematurely, the university chancellor, Laurence Chalmers, met with 13000 students on a Friday

afternoon in the football stadium. The students approved a plan which permitted each student to

either end the semester immediately (actually two days later on Sunday) or to finish out the

semester in a normal fashion.32 If they chose to end the semester prematurely, then they were

permitted to obtain a grade by one of four options:

(1). Credit-no credit based on work through Sunday.

(2). Letter grade based on work through Sunday.

(3). Letter grade or credit-no credit based on work through Sunday, plus the final exam.

(4). A grade of I with coursework to be finished according to existing regulations.

Of course, faculty, being state employees, were given no options; they had to finish out the

semester’s classes as long as any students desired them, and were required to work out grades

according the above scheme for each student. For faculty teaching courses such as general or

organic chemistry this was a real nightmare since a high percentage of students chose to stop

attending classes immediately. For graduate courses such as my class in chemical physics, nearly

all students chose to finish out the semester in a normal fashion.

Naturally, everyone at KU and in Lawrence hoped that this was the end of unrest and

civil disobedience. Unfortunately, by the middle of July, the university and town were erupting

again. And now, in addition to incendiary fires around town and the university, guns were

coming into play by both the demonstrators and law enforcement personnel. Tragically, on July

16, a former high school student was killed in a confrontation with police, and four days later a

KU undergraduate student was also shot and killed. On this latter day, one of our chemistry PhD

graduate students, Merton Olds, was struck by a richocheting bullet as he crossed Oread Avenue

on the edge of campus. Mert lived on Oread and was simply heading down the street when mob

events caught up with him. Demonstrators had overturned a VW automobile and local police

were pursuing them down the street. As is so often the case, it was never really determined who

fired the shot that went cleanly through Mert’s leg. Fortunately, the wound was not serious. In

32 This meeting was on May 8. One week of classes still remained in addition to the usual nearly two-week final exam period.

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next day’s Lawrence Daily Journal-World, Mert was quoted as saying “I was blessed.” Mert, an

excellent student, did not let this adventure slow him down. After completing his degree in 1973,

he went on to a successful career at Dupont Chemical Company.

In the fall, some minor disruptions occurred, but nothing serious until December 11,

when a bomb went off in a hallway of Summerfield Hall (just down the hill from Malott), which

housed the university’s computation center. No serious damage to the computer (GE-635)

occurred but three students suffered minor injuries. This event brought major fears around

campus for several days. Since the Chemistry Department storeroom contained huge amounts of

flammable solvents such as benzene, toluene, ethanol, pentane and others, there was a serious

concern about maintaining the security of the chemical storeroom. For several nights, faculty and

other staff members maintained all-night vigils at the doors of Malott to ensure that no one

attempted to break in. I was on duty one night and early in the morning I discovered a one-gallon

polyethylene container of toluene sitting on the floor at the back door. I promptly locked it up in

the storeroom; no one ever determined how this toluene got to the back door, where it came from,

who put it there, or why! The campus finally again calmed down and, as the war wound down to

its final unsatisfactory conclusion over the next several years, eventually returned to “normal.”

GALA EVENTS. From a day-to-day point of view, the activities in a university

chemistry department might not seem to be the makings of an exciting environment. After all,

the daily or weekly advances in teaching/learning and scholarship/research are incremental at

best. Yet, all the many activities throughout the year serve to bind the faculty, staff and students

together into a closely-knit family. In the KU chemistry department, faculty, staff and graduate

students annually convene informally for a fall semester welcoming picnic at a local city park or

more recently at Clinton Lake. Similarly, the semester’s end and the holiday season are marked

annually by a Christmas party at some off-campus location in town. No doubt everyone who has

passed through KU as a graduate student or staff member in Chemistry has memories of these

special occasions. The summer season has been marked also in recent years by a picnic aimed

especially at the undergraduates who participate in the summer research program.

Among the most memorable occasions were those that celebrated a faculty member’s

career upon retirement to emeritus status, typically after more than 20, 30 or 40 years of service.

These events, located usually at the student union, satellite union or the alumni center, or

occasionally off-campus, bring together friends, family members, colleagues from both on and

off campus and both current and former students. The Department spares no reasonable expense

in providing food and beverages to ensure a gala occasion, and without exception, the retiring

faculty member is presented with some appropriate gift of appreciation from his or her

78

colleagues. A gentle “roasting” by various faculty members is a typical prelude to the gift

presentation, which might be an original painting or some item of particular interest to the person

involved, such as a table saw or personal computer. For many years, a particularly endearing part

of many celebrations was an original poem, written and presented by Bill Argersinger, the

department’s unofficial poet laureate. An example of Bill’s craftsmanship and thoughtfulness is

presented in an appendix.

Although all faculty retirement celebrations have been memorable events, a few might be

adjudged especially noteworthy. Thus, for example, the retirement reception for Paul Gilles in

June, 1990, brought together over 200 guests, including his PhD mentor from Berkeley, Leo

Brewer, John Margrave who was Paul’s first graduate student and was a Distinguished Professor

at Rice, a dozen or more additional former graduate and postdoctoral students and numerous

family members. In addition, Kansas Representative Jessie Branson presented and read House

Resolution No. 6139, which began, “A resolution congratulating and commending Paul W. Gilles

upon his retirement as University Distinguished Professor .....” At the celebration an

announcement was also made about the establishment of the Paul and Helen Gilles Fund in

Physical Chemistry at the KU Endowment Association. Jake Kleinberg’s reception in May 1984

was similarly attended by an entourage of former students, friends, colleagues and family

members. It was particularly noteworthy that it was held in the sparkling new Adams Alumni

Center northeast of the KU Union.

Some faculty celebrations extended over the years. For both Brewster and Davidson,

birthday celebrations were held for the 80th and 90th years, something that is obviously not an

everyday occurrence. For Dick Schowen, retirement activities were preceded by a 25th-year

reunion staged by his students at the fall Midwest ACS meeting in Iowa City, Iowa in fall, 1988.

His retirement was celebrated in June, 2000 by a two-day event which included a symposium

attended by some three dozen former students and a reception attended by over 200 additional

colleagues, friends and family.

In an analogous fashion, Ralph Adams’ former students honored him here at KU upon

his 25th year of teaching in June of 1978. J.K. Lee and former students Ted Kuwana and Rick

McCreery (both then at Ohio State University) organized the surprise celebration and were

among the greater than thirty former students and postdoctorals who attended the gala event. In a

truly immense expression of appreciation to a wonderful teacher, scientist and a gracious human

being, Ted Kuwana, Don Leedy and Gus Manning (all former Adams students) later spearheaded

the establishment of a $500,000 endowment fund in honor of Adams in a formal ceremony held

on May 5, 1989. This preceded his 1992 retirement (at which time he demurred at the suggestion

79

of a celebratory event) and a final symposium held in his honor by the department in October of

2003 on west campus in Simons Auditorium.

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APPENDIX I

A poem written by Bill Argersinger, and read and presented by him, on the occasion of

the retirement of Jack Landgrebe and J. K. Lee from the positions of Chairman and Associate

Chairman of the Chemistry Department on May 3, 1980.

Didymium

Say not they’re through, our catalytic pair,

Who’ve made the best our proper standard state

And led us at top kinetic rate,

These active enzymes joined, this doublet rare.

When burning issues smudged, they cleared the air,

And strife within their art has made abate;

Their quiet help was sure and never late;

In trials with Strong their strength insured our share.

So thank we now in weakly coupled lines

Our J L squared, whose energy’s best used

And yields no jot to selfish entropy.

Salute the twins whose character combines

The best of skills, the talents rightly fused;

The Yin and Yang of Kansas Chemistry.

May 3, 1980 Bill Argersinger

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APPENDIX II

Deceased Faculty

Although a few faculty deaths have been explicitly noted in the text, the following

tabulation lists all those faculty in Table I who were deceased as of December 31, 2005. The

format is date of death (month/day/year) and age in parentheses.

Brewster, R. Q. 06/27/83 (90)

Davidson, A. W. 01/08/93 (96)

Stratton, G. W. 11/23/70 (84)

Taft, R. 09/02/55 (61)

VanderWerf, C. A. 07/18/88 (71)

Werner, H 06/10/55 (65)

Kleinberg, J. 01/12/04 (89)

Griswold, C. E. 05/16/92 (86)

Argersinger, W. J. 12/14/92 (74)

Gilles, P. W. 02/12/04 (83)

McEwen, W. E. 05/24/02 (80)

Reynolds, C. A. 03/14/04 (80)

Adams, R. N, 11/28/02 (78)

Fraser, R. T. M. 10/15/83 (46)

Bricker, C. E. 06/14/94 (75)

Lee, J. K. 01/31/90 (65)

Kevan, L. 06/04/02 (63)

Higuchi, T. 03/24/87 (69)

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APPENDIX III

Faculty Awards

Over the years, faculty have received a variety of awards for especially outstanding

research or teaching performances. Except for distinguished “chair” professorships, we have not

generally noted these in this departmental history. It is also true that precious few awards existed

in the early years—they have multiplied considerably over the years. Still, it is perhaps worth

tabulating some (not all) of the most significant local awards in the 1950-2000 period, while

passing over numerous awards presented by various scientific groups and societies at the national

level.

HOPE Award—Senior class award: Honor to the Outstanding Progressive Educator

Ray Q. Brewster—1960

Clark E. Bricker—1966

Clark E. Bricker—1970

Clark E. Bricker—1979

Midwest Regional American Chemical Society Award—Presented to outstanding research

chemist in midwest section of ACS

Ray Q. Brewster—1957

Takeru Higuchi—1975

Ralph N. Adams—1979

Jacob Kleinberg—1983

Richard L. Schowen—1992

Theodore Kuwana—1994

Chancellor’s Club Career Teaching Award or Professorship

Clark E. Bricker—1977 (professorship)

Earl S. Huyser—1993 (award)

Grover W. Everett—1994 (professorship)

John A. Landgrebe—1999 (award)

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Higuchi Awards (See section V)

Ralph N. Adams—1982 (Petefish)

Richard L. Schowen—1982 (Simons)

Shih-I Chu—1988 (Petefish)

George S. Wilson—1993 (Petefish)

Daryle W. Busch—1994 (Petefish)

Theodore Kuwana—1994 (Youngberg)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. University of Kansas CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT YEARBOOK (1950-51 to 2000-01); an

annual collection of documents dealing with personnel, graduate students, staff meetings and

general departmental business.

2. University of Kansas CHEMISTRY DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER (An annual

publication beginning in Summer 1962; newsletter was not published in 2000 but resumed in

2001; known also as Chemistry Department Alumni Newsletter, Chemistry Alumni News

and the Jayhawk Chemist).

3. University of Kansas Chemistry Department CHEM-NEWS (published in Spring of 1983,

1984 and 1985).

4. Chemistry Department personnel files.

5. University Archives (with special thanks to Barry Bunch.)

6. American Chemical Society DIRECTORY OF GRADUATE RESEARCH (published

biannually beginning in 1961).

7. University of Kansas Undergraduate Catalog (Biannual publication of the University of

Kansas).

8. University of Kansas Graduate School Catalog (Biannual publication of the University of

Kansas).

9. University of Kansas Timetable of Classes (published each semester by the University of

Kansas).

10. Lawrence Daily Journal-World newspaper.

11. National Institutes of Health WEB site: “A Short History” by Victoria A. Harden. National

Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

12. National Science Foundation WEB site. National Science Foundation, Arlington, Virginia.

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PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

Chemistry Department Files: Photos 2,3,7,8,10,11,12,15,16.

University of Kansas Archives (Spencer Library): Photos 1,4,5,6,9,13,14.

86