A Brief History Of The Chemistry Department

1959-1968

A New Program and a New President

The first two Ph.D. degrees in chemistry were awarded in 1962 to Earl Brill and Basil Dimitriades, students of Schultz and Keenan respectively. Over 150 would be granted by 2005.

New hiring reflected this new emphasis on doctoral research. The first half of the 1960s saw the arrival of several new Assistant Professors with doctoral degrees from major universities and the promise of excellence in both graduate research and classroom teaching:

1960, David F. Dever and Karl S. Vorres
1961, Carl H. Snyder
1962, Irving Lillien
1963, John P. Guarino and Howard B. Powell
1965, Ceil M. Criss
1965, Richard D. (Dick) Doepker

Carl H. Snyder	Cecil M. Criss	Richard D. (Dick) Doepker

The addition of eight new faculty within five years might have been expected to generate a fundamental change in the department, with rapid growth in both size and research productivity. But it turned out differently. Like Popp before them, five of the eight left shortly after arriving. Both Dever and Vorres were gone by 1964; Guarino and Lillien by 1967; Powell by 1970. Doepker remained a bit longer, leaving in 1983. Of the eight, only Criss and Snyder spent the rest of their professional careers with the university. Criss served as Chair from 1984 through 1991 and again, as Interim Chair, from 2002 to 2004. Both Criss and Snyder retired in 2006, Criss after 41 years with the department and Snyder after 45 years, longer than anyone else in the department's history.

It was a transformation of the university itself rather than an influx of new faculty that moved the Department to its next stage of development. On April 18, 1962, the board of trustees chose Henry King Stanford to succeed Jay F. W. Pearson as the University's third president. With abundant energy and a fresh vision for the university, the forty-six-year-old Stanford began making substantial changes, several of which affected the department. In 1964 Stanford brought Armin H. Gropp, a professional chemist and an administrator at the University of Florida, to the University of Miami as Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Chemistry.

Another 1964 addition to the department was Kaoru Harada, as Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Harada came to the university as a member of the newly formed Institute of Molecular and Cellular Evolution, an institute dedicated to understanding the chemical and biological origins of life. (In 1967 his title was changed to Adjunct Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and to Adjunct Associate Profess of Chemistry two years later. The Institute itself was an entity separate from the department. Both Gropp and Harada joined the Chemistry Department as a logical and convenient academic home, allowing them to make their major contributions elsewhere in the university. Gropp retired from both the department and the university in 1981.)

Several other changes also occurred in the 1960s. By 1963 the radioisotopes laboratory had been abolished; Mills, still Associate Professor of Chemistry, was no longer its director. A year later, 1964, Keenan advanced to the rank of Professor. In 1967 Snyder rose to the rank of Associate Professor. For several years in the mid-60s Delchamps had been listed as Associate Professor of Natural Sciences. In 1968 he returned as Associate Professor of Chemistry. Earlier in the decade both Walter O. Walker, Chair from 1932 to 1936, and J. Arthur Lewis, who joined the department in 1959, had retired; Walker in 1961, Lewis in 1963.

With a new goal of eminence in graduate research and a new president to lead it, the Stanford years brought profound changes to the university. For the department these included a new home and a new chair.

To return to the Chemistry Department home page, please click the atom:

A New Home and a New Chair

The Cox Science Center - August, 1978

A Freshman Chemistry Laboratory in the New Building

Clarence G. Stuckwisch