The Spring issue of Reed Magazine delivered all kinds of
chemical tidbits to its readers …
p. 4. Terry Steinborn ’68 wrote a letter challenging the
integrity of Reed’s new geosciences-free environmental studies program. The
magazine’s editor replied by pointing out that Reed has no geology
department, a situation that cannot be rectified without major new financial
support. The editor then extended an invitation to its readers to “remedy the
situation.”
p. 7. A description of the retirement party for long-time assistant
to Reed presidents and friend to Reed chemists, Kathy Rose. Kathy was already a
fixture in the president’s office when most of the current Reed chemistry faculty
were hired and we wish her well.
p. 11. Meg Turney Fried ’79 supplied a chemistry-themed caption for the above photo to
win the Reed Magazine’s caption contest. Her entry, “Professor Cronyn, we
respectfully request that the chem exam be postponed until next week!”
and the fact that Meg was not a chemistry major, attest to the legendary difficulty of Marsh Cronyn’s (chemistry professor 1952-89) organic chemistry exams.
p. 45. A synopsis of the newly published, “Encyclopedia of
Weather and Climate Change: A Complete Visual Guide” (University of California Press, 2010). The encyclopedia was created by a five author team that included Reed’s environmental chemistry professor, Juliane
Fry. The encyclopedia’s many and varied entries evoke the global reach of our
planet’s weather systems and help readers learn to think critically about the
notion of a “local” weather forecast.
The Class Notes section reported on Terry Steinborn ’68 (see p. 4) activities. Currently semi-retired, Terry lives in Prescott, Arizona and keeps “very busy” teaching at Yavapai College, playing competitive bridge, and helping his artist wife. An “alumna profile” of Beverly Karplus Hartline ’71 revealed that she is Associate Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of the District of Columbia. Her long career has seen her in various posts, including stints as project director for construction of DOE’s Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, and as assistant director of the White House Office of Science Technology Policy where she once had to respond to a citizen letter asking, “wouldn’t it make more sense if the element sodium, now known by the symbol Na, was instead listed as SOD?” (I wonder what she makes of Marsh Cronyn’s ’40 (chemistry professor 1952-89) famous suggestion to slide hydrogen into the center of the periodic table?) Beverly is currently working on what is arguably a more important problem than the labeling of sodium or the placement of hydrogen, why are there so few women and minorities in science? Finally, we learned that recent graduate, Lindsay Deis ’09, has enrolled in a biochemistry doctoral program at Duke University.