Connie Fox retired at the end of this summer after 38 years of service to IU South Bend - and 4 years as an undergraduate student. Fox was our department's laboratory director who supervised the setup and troubleshooting of the freshman chemistry labs and was nearly single-handedly responsible for the maintenance and improvements to the lab manual for these courses for the past 25 years. She also taught prelab sections and lab sections for these courses as well as discussion sections for the lecture counterparts. In addition, Fox helped with the senior seminar class, department meetings, and was in charge of chemical inventory, ordering, and waste management. She was typically aided by a part-time staff member, most recently Brenda Beatty.
A brick honoring Fox will be installed in front of the Student Activity Center next week. Fox's long history with the university, deep knowledge of how our department works, and her keen mind made her the unofficial "head honcho" of the department as she remained constant while department chairs came and went in three-year terms. Using a ship analogy for our department, Fox was said to be the hull that held our program together. Fortunately, we are somehow managing without her this fall, but she is sorely missed, and it was a joy to dine with her last night in a reunion-retirement party. Thank you for all that you have done for our department and campus.
