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George C. Pimentel Award In Chemical Education

by Susan J. Ainsworth
February 11, 2013 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 91, Issue 6

Stanitski
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Credit: Tim Brixius/Franklin & Marshall
Conrad L. Stanitski, visiting scholar at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
Credit: Tim Brixius/Franklin & Marshall

Sponsored by Cengage Learning and friends and colleagues of George and Jeanne Pimentel

During his long career, Conrad L. Stanitski has had a significant impact on the way chemistry is taught.

“He has made substantial contributions to all the areas of chemical education identified in the criteria for the Pimentel Award: teaching, organization and administration, influential writing, instructional methodology, standards of instruction, educational research, and public enlightenment,” according to A. Truman Schwartz, DeWitt Wallace Professor Emeritus at Macalester College in St. Paul, who received the award in 2007.

Stanitski, a visiting scholar at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., has applied his broad teaching experience to national chemistry curriculum reform projects for more than five decades.

Demonstrating a commitment to high standards of instruction, Stanitski served as chair of a National Research Council committee to evaluate the Advanced Placement Program in chemistry in 2005. “Conrad often says that educators should strive to ‘uncover course material rather than simply cover it,’ and this message is clear in the report generated by the committee,” notes Jerry A. Bell, professor emeritus at Simmons College in Boston and the 2000 Pimentel Award recipient. Partly because of Stanitski’s influence, the College Board has worked to revise its Advanced Placement exam so that it clearly assesses students’ conceptual understanding of the material, according to Henry W. Heikkinen, professor emeritus at the University of Northern Colorado, who received the Pimentel Award in 2009.

Stanitski served as chair of the ACS Division of Chemical Education in 2001 and has contributed administrative skills to groups including Project Kaleidoscope, the National Science Foundation, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and numerous ACS committees, Schwartz says.

An influential writer, Stanitski was a coauthor or lead editor of numerous textbooks, including ACS’s “Chemistry in the Community” and “Chemistry in Context.”

Stanitski earned a B.S. in science education at Bloomsburg State College in 1960 before teaching high school for four years. After receiving an M.A. in chemistry education at the University of Northern Iowa in 1964, he became an instructor at Edinboro State College. He earned a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at the University of Connecticut in 1971 and then joined Georgia State University as an assistant professor of chemistry.

Stanitski was a chemistry professor at Randolph-Macon College from 1976 until 1985. He then became a lecturer in chemistry at Franklin & Marshall, while serving as an American Council on Education fellow in academic administration.

In 1988, he moved to Mount Union College, where he was professor of chemistry, vice president for academic affairs, and dean of the college. In 1992, he was appointed professor of chemistry and department chair at the University of Central Arkansas (UCA). He retired from UCA as a distinguished professor emeritus in 2005 and became a visiting scholar at Franklin & Marshall.

A recipient of many awards, including the Catalyst Award from the Chemical Manufacturers Association (now the American Chemistry Council), Stanitski says he is “excited and humbled” by receiving this year’s Pimentel honor from ACS. “George Pimentel, through his work in the 1960s on the Chemical Education Materials Study, was an early professional role model for me,” he says. As a result, “the award has an added dimension and a very special meaning to me.”

Stanitski, who is 73, will present the award address before the ACS Division of Chemical Education.

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