My Struggles, and Then I Fly Away
David Richardson
Still Higher My choice of graduate school, Purdue University, was an academic faux-pas! First, Purdue was located in an area of the country, though close to Chicago, it had a significant race problem. Indiana has a history of Ku Klux Klan activities. The Purdue chemistry faculty were cordial, but the West Lafayette community was not entirely devoid of racial prejudice. I can recall an incident in which I went searching for an apartment, and when I showed up at an advertised rental address, the leaser said, “you know the problem!” That was a little discouraging, and I wondered if I would have encountered the same prejudice in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, God is the grand designer, and He had a plan for me despite my inadequacies. The majority of my 720 days in West Lafayette were often discouraging. I will always carry the memory of a Purdue physical chemistry professor who posed a question to me outside his office. He was a short stocky man who wore cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. His question was, “What would the entropy be if a black man married a white woman, and moved into a white neighborhood?” He assumed that I would say that the entropy would be positive. His modus operandi may have been to get me to understand the disorder and randomness of chemical processes, but, along with Bertrand Russel, he should not have 2
been comparing apples with oranges, i.e., using a science metaphor to describe a social issue is problematic. However, since randomness tends toward spontaneity, I thought that he was making a prejudicial statement or giving me a warning that white people and black people should not marry, if they do, then the result would be chaos and disorder or was he trying to say that the marriage between a black person and a white person is spontaneous! I would have liked to have had a conversation with this gentleman after I had reached a more mature academic level and an enhanced level of self-esteem. The Biochemistry Department at Purdue was not the direction I truly wanted to take because it focused more on biology than chemistry, and it was a separate department from the Chemistry Department. I had not realized that when I applied to the program. Also, I am not sure why I even selected biochemistry as a graduate pursuit since I did not take any undergraduate biology courses. What a mismatch!
The Biochemistry Department at Purdue
should have realized that I was unprepared to pursue a career in biochemistry since I didn’t have any college biology courses; however, I took one undergraduate biochemistry course.
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My anxiety, confusion, and frustration to run from MIT drove me to make a mistake in applying to the wrong department at Purdue. My heart was not in my work; therefore, I asked for a transfer to the Chemistry Department. The University approved the transfer and I changed my major to organic chemistry. My first Purdue University course in the Chemistry Department was organic chemistry, and the course focused on spectroscopy. At that time, I didn't have exposure to this modern technique for identifying the structure of organic molecules. The work was tedious and challenging, and I realized that there were multiple gaps in my undergraduate education, and I needed a respite from my graduate studies. Also, I needed the time to do academic catch up work to fill the holes in my science education. I applied for a master’s degree and left the University. I was not particularly happy with my grades at Purdue, but I learned a great deal about chemistry that would help me bridge the gap in my undergraduate education. My undergraduate academic performance was superior to my graduate academic performance; however, a positive spin-off of my Purdue University master’s degree was the enhancement of my self- esteem. Dr. Emerson Cooper created a faculty position for me at Oakwood College at the enviable salary of just under $7,000 per year. In 4
1967, I was anxious to accept this four-figured salary, because it served as a steppingstone to my teaching career. Students always held a high priority in my heart, and I made a pledged to provide the most effective pedagogy and best practices for my students enrolled in undergraduate chemistry courses. I selected Morrison and Boyd for our textbook the first time I got the opportunity to teach organic chemistry. I was enthusiastic about teaching and developing an outstanding teaching and learning environment for my students. Dr. Copper provided an academic pathway that served two purposes- the fulfillment of my passion to help students receive an outstanding undergraduate chemistry education, and the time I needed to patch the holes in my chemistry education. I realized that my academic training was incomplete, but Purdue had equipped me with the academic armamentarium to provide undergraduate students with information that would prepare them for the next level of their academic pursuits. I taught chemistry for two years with a master’s degree, and unusual circumstances and sensitive predicaments at Oakwood College forced me to start looking for a graduate program that would give me the diverse training in content that would catapult me into a teaching career and provide the very best in chemistry education for my students. Fortuitously, I received a letter from 5
Dr. Richard Anderson asking if I would be willing to accept a teaching assistant position in a Ph.D. program at Utah State University. At that point in my life, my travel experiences didn't include states beyond the Mississippi River. The only information I knew about Utah was the 1848 account of the faith of early Latter-day Saints who dropped to their knees when crickets invaded their crops and witnessed a miracle. The crickets devoured their first crops but the says that the pioneers fought a losing battle with the crickets when, out of desperation, they fell upon their knees and prayed for deliverance from the onslaught of the cricket horde. Suddenly, out of nowhere, seagulls descended upon the invading crickets and devoured them. That was a miracle that saved the first fruits of their labors. I saw a dramatization of this story of faith in a very old production of “Ripley Believe it or Not.” Also, I saw an old film, starring Charleston Heston, about the story of Brigham Young. I consulted with Dr. Ernest E. Rogers in the Theology Department at Oakwood College. He shared with me what he knew about the faith and beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. I wanted a pleasant and favorable environment that would prepare me for the challenges of teaching chemistry. Dr. Rogers gave me positive reinforcement about what I would probably encounter in Utah. So, I accepted Dr. Anderson’s 6
invitation, packed our few belongings, and set out for a new challenge in Logan, Utah. The trip to Utah was filled with unanswered questions. I didn’t have a lot of money, I had a wife, and a small baby boy, David Jr. One memorable experience we had during the trip was looking at the coloration of the mountains as we drove into Cache Valley. For the first time in my life, I understood the phrase “purple mountains majesty” from America the Beautiful when I saw the setting sun turned the mountainside near Logan, UT purple. That was an extraordinarily moving experience for me. We arrived in Logan driving south of Bear Lake. We approached the Northside of the University on a pleasant August evening. The contrast between Utah State University (USU) and Purdue University was astonishingly different. USU was radiant, colorful, and beautiful; whereas, Purdue exhibited a dull brown and gloomy appearance. USU had an invitational and warm environment; whereas, Purdue appeared to be an icy environment. Many of the people at Purdue were unfriendly. They seemed to lack exuberance, enthusiasm, and willingness to help others.
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I didn’t know what to expect, but Dr. Richard Anderson (a USU chemistry professor) warmly and lovingly greeted me on my first day on the campus. I didn’t go to his office, he found me sitting on the steps of the Chemistry building, and he approached me and asked, “Are you David Richardson?” He invited me into his office and gave me such a friendly welcome and introduction to chemistry at USU that I felt an immediate sense of belonging. I never felt that comfortable at Purdue. I realized that he was an extraordinary individual with a beaming, sensitive and winning personality. None of my Purdue Professors were as friendly as Dr. Anderson. My Purdue professors were aloft. Perhaps their aloofness may have been related to their notoriety. Purdue University had some famous faculty members such as Dr. Herbert C. Brown who rarely taught any courses but concentrated on his organoborane research. He received the 1979 Nobel prize for his work with organoboranes. Every college organic chemistry textbook (including my book Organic Chemistry Bridging the Gap, iBook 2016) sites Brown’s famous hydroboration-oxidation reactions with alkenes that positioned “-OH” groups in apparent anti-Markovnikov’s positions. Purdue University had Dr. Fred McCafferty, an analytical chemist. He captured the organic chemistry
community
with
his
famous McLafferty 8
Rearrangement (also included in my book titled Organic Chemistry Bridging the Gap) that explains certain critical fragmentation patterns in the mass spectra of molecules containing some important functional groups. Mass Spectrometry, apart from a multitude of uses, is an integral tool used in the structure elucidation of organic compounds. First impressions are everlasting impressions, and Dr. Richard Anderson definitively and unequivocally put my mind at ease. He was that catalyst that dissipated any tensions that I might have had about living and studying in Utah. I owe a great deal of who I became to the USU chemistry faculty. I felt God had truly smiled on me because most of the faculty created a warm and invitational atmosphere for their new graduate students. Dr. Anderson assumed an advisory role for the eight new chemistry graduate students who arrived on the Campus of Utah State University for the 1969 fall quarter. We attended orientations and advisory meetings during our first few days on the campus. After a few days, the University gave us a set of entrance examinations in organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, and inorganic chemistry. What was noticeably missing was an entrance examination in biochemistry. My hiatus from 9
graduate school prepared me for the examinations. Unlike the MIT qualifying examinations and my experience at Purdue, I was confident in my performance on the USU entrance examinations, and my confidence paid off because I excelled on each one. I successfully bridged the gap created by the omission of high school chemistry and poor introductions to college physics and physical chemistry. The USU Chemistry Department gave me an undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory teaching assignment. I registered for Advanced Organic Chemistry and Natural Products (a course that is not generally taken by first-year graduate students). I excelled in both courses. My performance in all my chemistry courses during my tenure at USU was outstanding. I received an “A” in every chemistry course except one (physical organic chemistry) in which the top grade in the class was a “B.” Dr. Richard Anderson taught the course. I completed my doctorate with a GPA of 3.98. This GPA was far superior to the Purdue GPA and higher than my undergraduate GPA at Oakwood College. What made the difference between USU and Purdue? I believe the difference was related to my 10
enhanced and improved preparation during my graduate study hiatus, the invitational and welcoming environment created by the USU faculty, the warmth of the Logan community, the elevation of my self-esteem, and the collegiality of my fellow USU graduate students.
At Purdue, the attitude of the faculty was cold
and aloof. I felt that the community was racist and that my preparation for graduate school had some missing elements. I didn’t feel particularly close to my fellow chemistry graduate students except for an Asian student named Henry Mah. Henry was a delightful young man, and he was a conscientious graduate student. I enjoyed talking with him, and I learned a great deal from him including how to take “minute vacations� and stand still and view the world and its surroundings with patients and with a broader perspective. There were a few other graduate students I associated with outside of chemistry. I had two roommates at Purdue who were from Arkansas. They were in mathematics, and we had similar perceptions of Purdue University. 11
USU was a boost to my confidence. I took a variety of chemistry courses that I thought would help me with my career aspirations, i.e., help me prepare Oakwood College students for their new frontiers! I took multiple organic chemistry courses, multiple physical chemistry courses, advanced analytical chemistry, and inorganic chemistry courses. My research was in physical organic chemistry, and my dissertation was titled “Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectrometry of Alcoholic Metal Solvation.� Like the phoenix, I rose from the ashes of academic despair to become more powerful and intellectually strengthen to face the challenges ahead. I asked for the reinstatement of my faculty position at Oakwood College. I suspect that Dr. Cooper intervened on my behalf, and the College immediately rehired me and gave me a stipend to help support my graduate education. I spent approximately 1100 days at USU in Logan, Utah, almost 400 more days than I spent at Purdue in West Lafayette, Indiana. However, those 1100 days were happy and productive days filled with great and wonderful memories that were enriched by the invitational and friendly Utah environment. At Purdue, you were 12
just a number, and I noticed that, in the sixties, the University accepted many black students in various graduate programs but didn’t provide support mechanisms for those students. Many of those students fell by the wayside and were lost and discarded by the system. USU was different! The support mechanism was incredible! In fact, the story of my relationship with Dr. Terry Alger is an example of a USU faculty member who was committed and dedicated to ensuring the success of his graduate student. Dr. Alger had one graduate student before he left USU for a more prestigious position as Associate Commissioner of Higher Education with the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) Regents Office in Salt Lake City, Utah. Soon after I decided to be Dr. Alger’s graduate student, he took the USHE position. He was a promising young scientist who had worked under the research direction of Dr. David Grant, a magnetic resonance guru, at the University of Utah. Dr. Alger rapidly climbed the USU academic ladder with his research in magnetic resonance spectrometry. He published prolifically in the field of physical chemistry, and there was no end to his creativity. His meteoric rise to a full professorship made him a phenomenon in the Chemistry Department. I will later relate the story of how I decided to work 13
with this dynamic and young aspirant in the world of magnetic resonance spectrometry. We decided to take the next step in his research endeavors. The work went slowly when he came to me to discuss the offer he had received. He asked me if he could take the job! I was amazed that he wanted my input, but he was the kind of person that would reach out to his students. I had difficulty understanding how a promising young chemist could relinquish a dynamic research career for an administrative position. Boy was I naĂŻve! I was flabbergasted, but honored, that my major professor would ask my opinion. Of course, I told him I would be okay if he took the position! The amazing thing is that he visited me religiously every month until I completed the research project. Not once did he forget me! I could calendar his visit for the 80 miles he had to travel to ensure that our research was progressing appropriately. He was committed and dedicated. He was reassuring and encouraging. He didn’t leave me to work out the solutions in total isolation. Despite his busy schedule in his new job, he never missed a monthly meeting with me, his only graduate student. He was a true mentor and friend. Our work culminated in a 1975 publication in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Society 79(16) titled “Proton Magnetic Resonance 14
Studies of Aluminum (III) and Gallium (III) in Methanol and Ethanol. Determination of Solvation Number and Exchange Rate.” Following is an abstract of our paper: Separate OH proton magnetic resonance signals for free and bound methanol and ethanol molecules have been observed at reduced temperatures for solutions of gallium perchlorate, aluminum perchlorate, aluminum nitrate, and aluminum chloride in methanol, and aluminum chloride in ethanol. From relative intensity measurements of these signals at relatively low temperatures, the respective solvation numbers for the various metal salts in the alcohols studied were shown to be approximately 6 for gallium and aluminum perchlorate in methanol, about 5 for aluminum nitrate in methanol, and approximately 4 for aluminum chloride in methanol and ethanol. Below -45°C, gallium perchlorate in methanol has a solvation number of 7. It was not observed directly whether ligand exchange was via whole alcohol molecules, or via alcoholic protons. However, indirect arguments are presented which support whole ligand exchange. A linear exchange mechanism is operating over the observed temperature ranges. The rate constants and activation parameters for the various metal alcohol systems at 25°C for the bound to free process vary from k = 2.9 × 103 to 2.9 × 104 M-1 sec-1 , DH¹ = 3.9 to 10.8 kcal mol1 , and from DS¹ = -6.1 to -29.0 eu (entropy units). The negative values of the entropy activation parameter suggest that ligand exchange in these metal alcohol systems is SN2. Therefore, the activation parameters have been reported in dimensional units of second-order reactions. In the aluminum perchlorate, nitrate, and chloride systems in methanol, the dominant effect creating differences in the ligand exchange parameters appears to be the variation in the solvation numbers. As the solvation numbers decrease (from the perchlorate to chloride system), the systems 15
become more random causing the entropy of activation and the rates of exchange to increase. In the aluminum chloride systems of methanol and ethanol, observed differences in activation parameters and rate constants appear to be dominated by the variations in size of the alcohol ligands. As the ligand increases in size from methanol to ethanol, the enthalpy of activation increases, and the ligand exchange rate decreases. Finally, in the aluminum and gallium system in methanol, differences in exchange rates and activation parameters, due to variations in the cation used, appear minimal.
I observed some very promising work with my preliminary studies with indium, but I lost the opportunity to continue the work with the required equipment in an appropriate laboratory environment. When I returned to Oakwood College after completing my dissertation at USU, I was able to acquire a 60-megahertz magnetic resonance machine from the Redstone Arsenal. However, the transporting company dropped the machine upon delivery, and I don’t think the magnets were ever properly re-aligned. I asked Dr. Wilcox at the University of Alabama in Birmingham if I could use his magnetic resonance machine, and I was able to obtain some preliminary data that proved to be promising. I recorded several pieces of data that would eventually allow me to use the Bloch equations to determine the rate of exchange, and I shared this information with Dr. Alger as well. What I noticed was that the indium solvation shell was expanding unusually, and I observed some very interesting preliminary observations with the rate 16
exchanges of alcohols in indium. My work after leaving USU has primarily focused on teaching and administration. I embraced the Alger syndrome and followed in the administrative footsteps of my mentor and friend. I have done limited research in magnetic resonance research since l left Maeser Hall. I am sure someone has scooped my work with indium. If any of my physical chemistry colleagues are doing or have done solvation number and rate exchange experiments with gallium in alcohol, please note that I was the first in the seventies who observed some interesting solvation properties with indium in methanol and ethanol. I am not sure that such dedication for a minority graduate student would have occurred at Purdue or MIT. I know that God led me to Dr. Terry Alger.
I will share shortly my experience with God’s
intervention in deciding to select Dr. Alger as my major professor. Throughout my career, I have observed the academic demise of promising students who failed to complete their course of study because they enrolled in a college that didn’t support them. I discovered that students perform more effectively if the institution provides them with a welcoming, caring, and supportive learning environment. This is a salient and definitive argument for the existence, continuance, and support of historically black colleges and universities. 17
The years spent at Utah State University (USU) were productive in multiple ways. My daughter, Kymberly Dawn, was born in Logan, Utah. At that time, my first wife, Hazel, and I had two children – David, Jr. and Kymberly Dawn. Hazel worked at the Edith Bowen Elementary School, a USU teaching and learning laboratory school. We lived in student housing referred to as the “Triads”.
The Triads were in easy walking distance to the
Chemistry Building. A cemetery separated the Chemistry Building from the Triads, and I walked through that cemetery twice a day. The return trip was particularly interesting since, usually, I walked through the cemetery late at night. Our small two-bedroom apartment was the focal point of my theoretical studies, and my laboratory on the third floor of Maeser Hall was the focal point of my practical studies. I believe divine intervention played a key role in how I was able to obtain a large research space in Maeser Hall.
I had an intense
desire to learn more about chemistry when I arrived at USU. I was committed to obtaining a Ph.D., and I didn’t want to repeat my experiences at Purdue; consequently, I was excited about a new graduate learning experience. As indicated earlier, I excelled in 18
the first couple of courses I took. This was a real morale booster. I was making great progress, and the next step was selecting a major professor to direct my research. I was sure that my selection would be an organic chemistry professor because I had a strong interest in organic chemistry. My custom was to ask for God’s directions. For example, I prayed earnestly before taking the entrance examination, and God delivered in a mighty way. I passed all the entrance examinations, and I didn’t have to take any remedial courses. So, I asked God to guide me in choosing a major professor. Because of my love for organic chemistry, I was leaning toward Dr. Richard Anderson. I scheduled a conference with each member of the chemistry faculty to obtain a clear sense of his/her research initiatives. One day as I was walking across an on-Campus construction site, I distinctly heard a voice that told me to select Dr. Terry Alger as my major professor. I believe that that voice was the voice of God I mentioned earlier. I realize that people would say that was in my head, but I can testify that I unequivocally heard a voice – a voice I truly believed was the voice of God. I developed interests in multiple chemistry disciplines because I realized that I would be teaching diverse chemistry courses when 19
I returned to Oakwood College. Consequently, Dr. Alger would be an ideal fit. He was a physical chemist, and I was interested in organic chemistry; therefore, my degree would be in physical organic chemistry. I would take multiple physical chemistry courses, organic chemistry courses, analytical chemistry course, and inorganic chemistry courses. What would be missing would be biochemistry, and I had sufficient exposure to biochemistry at Purdue University. I set my future! I would take a physical chemistry emphasis. In 1972, my hard work paid off‌I completed my dissertation. Hazel, David, Jr, Kymberly Dawn, and I returned to my Alma Mater, Oakwood College, where I taught chemistry until 1978.
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