Fifty Years Ago

FIFTY YEARS AGO IN THE SOUTHWEST RETORT

Dr. O A Battista, Vice President for Science & Technology at Avicon Inc., Ft. Worth, has been chosen by the American Academy of Achievement as one the fifty giants of accomplishment to receive the Golden Plate award at during the tenth annual Salutes to Excellence weekend June 24-26 in Philadelphia. Dr. Battista is the author of numerous publications on polymer science, holder of 405 US and foreign patents, and a pioneer of microcrystalline polymer chemistry. He is the author of his well-known Quotoons, and this and succeeding issues of The Southwest Retort will feature his Quotoons.

In the Central Texas ACS Section at UTAustin, Dr. James E. Boggs has been selected to give the Hassel lecture named in honor of Prof. Odd Hassel, who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year for his work on conformational analysis. Boggs’ lecture subject will be “Structural Chemistry in Cyclopropane Derivatives.” Dr. George E. Watt attended the Los Angeles ACS meeting. At the Board of Directors Meeting he presided as Chair of the Board Committee on Grants and Awards. Welch Professor Michael Dewar attended the Annual Meeting of the Chemical Society in Brighton, England, where he gave an invited lecture on “MO Theory as a Chemical Tool.” In the Dallas-Ft. Worth ACS Section at the Mobil Field Research Lab Dr. Donald E. Woessner attended the 8th Colloquium on NMR Spectroscopy April 14-20 at Aachen, Germany, where he presented an invited paper on “Magnetic Relaxation Under Hindered Rotation in Toluene.” Dr. James Melrose presented a paper at the Los Angeles ACS meeting on “Thermodynamic Dependence of Adsorption and Adhesional Interactions of Paraffin Hydrocarbons with Water.” Dr. Conrad Hinckley of Southern Illinois University visited Drs. Brinkley Snowden and E. Thomas Strom on Mar. 22 to discuss his work on shift reagents for NMR.

At UT-Dallas Dr.D. Storm has joined Dr. Donald Rapp as postdoctoral associate. He will study charge-transfer reactions. Dr. Rapp’s book on “Quantum Mechanics” has just been published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. It features greater emphasis on dynamic phenomena. New faculty members are Drs. Christopher Parr and Richard Compiled by

Caldwell. E. Thomas Strom

The Chemistry Department at East Texas State University (now Texas A&M University Commerce) is pleased to announce a new program, the degree of Doctor of Education in the College Teaching of Chemistry. This degree is designed to be much stronger in chemistry than the traditional Ed.D. At Tarleton State Dr. Robert Fain was elected Vice President of Region 1 of the Western District of Alpha Chi honorary scholastic society. North Texas State University (now UNT) faculty members attending the Los Angeles ACS national meeting were Drs. J. L. Marshall, W. H. Glaze, W. T. Brady, J. L. Carrico, and R. B. Escue.

At Baylor University Welch Professor Malcolm Dole participated in a radiation chemistry conference in Budapest.