It is our pleasure to announce the Lionel Raff Scholarship in Physical Chemistry. This Scholarship will be awarded annually to an undergraduate who demonstrates academic excellence in physical chemistry. Dr. Raff's career at OSU has influenced many people - two in particular. His love of math, physics and chemistry brought him into the field of physical chemistry and his students appreciate his knowledge and expertise. Michal Coltrin at Sandia National Lab and Bill Church of Green Mountain Antibodies formed this scholarship to honor Dr. Raff and his accomplishments. The following are some of their comments.
Michael Coltrin writes:
I took Lionel Raff's Physical Chemistry course
during the 1973-1974 school term.
He was the best teacher that I ever had through all
my undergraduate and graduate school days.
Physical Chemistry involves many long mathematical
derivations full of equations. I was always amazed
that he delivered every hour-long lecture flawlessly,
and without consulting a single note. His preparation
for that course and his dedication to teaching are
unmatched in my experience.
Lionel's PChem course was the most challenging,
rigorous, and rewarding class that I had ever taken.
I worked hard on long homework sets, and ultimately
did well in the course.
As I prepared to leave OSU, Lionel was very helpful in
suggesting graduate school options and writing letters
of recommendation for me. I ended up choosing a career
in Physical Chemistry, largely inspired by the
experience I had in his classes. I went on to earn
a PhD in PChem from the University of Illinois.
One of my friends and classmates
at the time was Bill Church. We spent many an
hour together preparing for exams and grinding through
homework sets for that PChem class. We have
kept in casual contact over the years since leaving OSU.
A few months ago Bill told me that Lionel had written
a new textbook on Physical Chemistry. In talking, we
reminisced about what a great teacher he was, and
that even after close to 30 years that PChem course
was a memorable highlight of our college experience.
We decided to establish a scholarship fund through
the OSU Foundation to recognize Lionel Raff's
contributions to teaching and research in Physical
Chemistry at OSU for a career spanning decades.
We hope that other former students and colleagues
will join us in honoring our teacher, mentor, and
friend.
Bill Church writes:
Physical chemistry is the most demanding subject taught on a college
campus. Students require not only a solid background in mathematics and
chemistry but also a rational approach to problem solving, a disciplined
understanding of complex phenomena and their mathematical descriptions, an
intuition for philosophy (there's something called the Schroedinger
equation that even today I haven't a real solid idea of what it is or where
it came from), a good memory for remembering all those equations, and a
method for processing all of this. Lionel Raff taught physical chemistry
but he also taught a system for approaching complicated subject matter in a
way that lets you comprehend and, importantly, use it.
Many science courses (biology comes to mind) are descriptive and
qualitative (trees are big and green, flowers are small and
colorful). Physical chemistry demands quantitative approaches: what are
the variables for this phenomena, what is the mathematical relationship
between these variables, how do you design experiments and obtain numerical
data to prove or disprove your hypothesis, is the data statistically
relevant?
Some of what I learned in P Chem at OSU I've continued to use almost
everyday of my work life: how long does this reaction take to come to
equilibria, what happens to the physical system if I change this variable,
what is the physical basis for this new technology. Even in business, my
Pchem training provided me confidence in my quantitative abilities to
understand numbers and relationships of often seemingly unrelated variables
(like a balance sheet or income statement). As an example, I first used
what is known as an "engineering pad" in P-chem. It's a green sheet of
paper that's clear on one side and graphed on the back. As I type this
letter, there's a pad sitting behind me on the desk. I was using it
earlier today to determine if our employee vacation days in the first
quarter of this year exceeded our yearly allocated rate. Later I'll use
the same pad to design an experiment to test if one of our antibodies
inhibits blood clotting. It isn't the green pad that's special, it's
Lionel Raffs ghost that requires I sit and think (on paper) every step and
to go back again and again until I really UNDERSTAND what I'm doing.
I was at OSU 30 years ago. I've been from one side of the country (both
East and West, and North and South) since then. I've moved a lot of stuff
alot of places. Even after all this time, I know exactly where my Pchem
notebooks are. To this day, they signify something that I want to
remember: that you can do the hard stuff, the stuff that most people
wouldn't even begin to attempt (like start a biotech company on
$30,000). All that's required is that you think about all the steps, write
them down, and keep working at them until you know them and can use
them. This is what Lionel Raff's Pchem course taught me.
