New professors

Kudos to Lisa Jarvis, the C&EN staff, and the generous candor of the three first-year chemistry department faculty members you showcased in your May 22 article “A year in the life of a new professor” (page 34). I found this cover story to be a very interesting and enlightening read. It was clear that the three young faculty members you showcased poured everything each had into the job, grew and accomplished a good bit over the year, and are very deserving of being tenure-track young faculty at their respective universities.

Timothy J. Rydel
Saint Charles, Mo.

I enjoyed your feature on the first-year experience for newly minted assistant professors. In this era of the $2 million start-up package, my own experience in 1963 with Yale University offers an interesting contrast. The matter of start-up assistance was never discussed. It was tacitly assumed that the needed funds would come from NIH or NSF, and indeed my NIH grant was activated on my first day of appointment. Yale did end up contributing; they had asked me to include $8,000 for lab renovations in my NIH proposal. By the time the grant was funded, the renovations had been completed at Yale’s expense. Alas, Yale learned too late that work completed before the grant had been approved could not be reimbursed. So the $8,000 became my start-up package.

Christopher K. Mathews
Corvallis, Ore.

The story of three first-year professors also resonated with readers who commented online.
cenm.ag/ayearinthelife

Correction

May 29, page 5: The U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy was established by the America Competes Act of 2007, not by the Obama Administration. Congress first funded it in 2009.