Adjunct Faculty Awarded for 10 Years of Instruction

Last week the Vice Chancellor honored Merilee Britt (pictured) and Jim Noffsinger for a decade of service to IU South Bend.  While we are very thankful for their loyalty, we are even more thankful for the excellent instruction they provide. Noffsinger, an application scientist at Bayer HealthCare, routinely teaches organic chemistry laboratories for the sophomore students while Britt, a science teacher at Penn High School, instructs freshman chemistry students in the laboratory. 

Adjunct faculty, like Britt and Noffsinger, are a vital part of our faculty and we could not teach all our students without them. Furthermore, evening hours (which full-time faculty usually don't enjoy) are just right for adjunct faculty looking for opportunities outside their standard profession - and this gives working students more flexibility to schedule classes. Thank you both for your dedication to IU South Bend.

Anderson wins the Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award

This morning Professor Gretchen Anderson was presented with the 2015 Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award. The committee responsible for the award remarked that "Gretchen stands out due to the amazing impact she has had on her advisees lives over the course of many years." Anderson has a variety of plans for students with different desires and needs. These plans go by the unofficial names below.


Associate Dean Monika Lynker adds that Anderson "encourages her advisees every step of the way, and helps them prepare for life after college whether that’s graduate school or a job ...[providing them with] an all-around and all-encompassing approach to academic advising, and the result is that her advisees in their letters all say in one way or another that they would not be where they are now if it hadn’t been for Gretchen.” Advising is just one of the many ways that Anderson contributes to student success outside of the classroom and our department is very thankful for her hard work as professor, scientist, and administrator.

Another biochemist for Montana State University

Angela Patterson will be going to Montana State University (Bozeman, MT) to pursue her PhD in biochemistry. On her interview, she was very impressed with the university, the biochemistry program, and the friendly faculty. She also liked the surroundings, even in March. Angela will go there already knowing people in the program; IU alumna Jaq Miller (2014 Biochemistry) started her PhD studies there last year.  

Angela graduated from IU South Bend (BS Biochemistry) last December and has been doing research with David Wilkes, Biology Department, on molecular motors (dyneins) that walk along specialized tracks within cells. Angela is also our 2015 winner of the Excellence in Biochemistry award. Congratulations on both accounts, Angela!

IU South Bend hosts the 2015 Chemistry Olympiad

The Chemistry Olympiad is a yearly event sponsored by the American Chemistry Society that begins at high schools throughout the country and ends in an international competition. Each high school nominates just two students and this year IU South Bend is once again holding one of the many national exams to find the best of the best.

The top twenty students from all over the nation will study together for two weeks at a summer camp at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado and then the top four will go to the 47th international competition in Baku, Azerbaijan. Students spent the morning taking written exams on campus, took a break for lunch, and finished with a practical exam in the laboratory in the afternoon. Laboratory supervisor Connie Fox and assistant Brenda Beatty prepared instruments, equipment, and chemicals for the competitors. More information about the competition can be found at the American Chemical Society webpages.