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Chair's Remarks
Rich Paselk
The beginning of the new millennium (2000-2001) finds me finishing
the last year of my second consecutive term as Chair of the Chemistry
Department. These are exciting times for the Department and University,
with a tremendous turnover of both faculty and administrators. In
the five and a half years of my current position as Chair I have had
to work with three different Academic Vice-Presidents and three different
Deans of the College of Naural Resources and Sciences. Our third Associate
Dean begins his tenure this semester. Three new faculty have started
their careers in our Department during these past years as well, with
two more hired for next Fall. We will soon be a new department.
As you might imagine, this is a somewhat daunting prospect. The Chemistry
has had a very strong reputation from before my arrival in 1976. The
challenge is to maintain our strong program and traditions while bringing
in new people and allowing them new directions.
Because of our recognition of the huge impact the "founders"
of HSU's Chemistry department had on its development, and their equally
great impact on my own carreer, my wife Gail and I wished to honor
them as their last members, Thomas Clark and Mervin Hanson retired.
After much though, we decided to initiate a scholarship in honor of
these individuals: John Russell, Thomas Clark, Roger Weiss, Robert
Wallace, and Mervin Hanson. Two students will be selected this Spring
to be the first Chemistry Research
Scholars under this program.
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Editor's Corner
The Department has talked about having a newsletter for many years.
Well this year I decided to bite the bullet, and actually write one.
I was supposed to finish this new letter in early fall, but things
got busy, and I'm only now doing it over winter break - better late
than never I suppose. Much of my motivation comes from the tremendous
changes the Department has seen in the past few years.
Most of the senior faculty, those already here when Bill Wood and
I arrived in 1976, are now retired, with only the youngest, John Hennings
and Tom Borgers left. Obviously these retiree's had to be replaced.
However, there was a time when new tenure-track faculty appointments
were few and far between, and our faculty underwent a significant
shrinkage. Thus when Roger Weiss (1959-89) and Sury (1966-91) retired
we were left for a year with no Analytical chemist (I was 'priviledged"
to teach analytical chemistry and instrumental analysis) before we
replaced them with Carol Lasko. Carol of course continues with the
department, and became the first women to be tenured in Chemistry
at HSU. When Bob Wallace retired (1962-92) he was not replaced by
Jeff Schineller until 1995, while John Russell (1956-92), was not
replaced by Bob Zoellner until 1999. We just replaced Greg Bowman
(1966-94) with Kjirsten Wayman this year (Fall 2000). Things are improving
though. We will be able to replace Tom Clark (1959-2000) with only
a one year hiatus. And we will finally replace half of Sury, after
a decade, and half of Mervin Hanson (1965-2000), after only a year,
with a single new postion combining analytical and physical chemistry.
(Merv has taken advantage of the "faculty early retirement program"
and will continue teaching half time for up to five years.)
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