October 11, 2006

Lunch of a Lifetime

Dr. Sherwood Rowland '48 takes time to answer student questions prior to his lecture.

This past Tuesday, several other students and I had the pleasure of being invited to lunch, along with five other students at Ohio Wesleyan University, with Dr. Sherwood Rowland, the 1995 recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. I was anticipating this lunch from the time Dr. Kim Lance, one of my professors, asked if I would like to attend. The initial introduction was very intimidating; after all, I am only a senior here at OWU, who, in comparison, has accomplished very little! There I was, shaking hands with one of the great minds of this generation-- someone who has accomplished more than I have even dreamed of doing. This intimidation factor was quickly reduced after we started to walk to lunch with Dr. Rowland. Along the way we talked about how Delaware used to look and what has changed at the University. The more we talked, I felt the gap between us shrinking, as he had once been a student, just like the other five of us now, not knowing exactly what lies ahead.

As we sat down to lunch, Dr. Rowland talked about how he ended up in chemistry and reminisced about the culture at the time he was attending college with World War II raging. He shared with us his decision for attending graduate school (not wanting to waste the free education he was granted from the G.I. Bill) and his subsequent stops after that. At these stops he had faced multiple challenges including being told he was too young to work on a Federal program that he had been offered at one of the universities in which he was employed. Finally, we discussed how atmospheric chemistry had started to grow, and the beginning of his research. He mentioned that as instruments start to allow us to measure processes to greater precision, the chemistry starts to become more interesting. He talked about how many of the gases we associate now with the ozone hole and global warming were present at an undetectable level until recently. The design of better instrumentation opened up a world that we really did not know existed because of the limits of detection. Hearing about research projects truly inspired me to think of what interesting and meaningful work I could be doing in the years that lie ahead.

The lunch with Dr. Rowland was definitely an experience of a lifetime. The chance to have a personal conversation with a pioneer in chemistry is one that I will cherish. One of the messages I took away was that it is of utmost importance to be continually vigilant in life, because we can never know when the opportunity to make a discovery will be in front of us. This conversation also further pushed me into striving for my goals and not being easily deterred by others who do not find them possible. Overall, my lunch with Dr. Rowland has pushed me into believing that great tasks can be accomplished. We must take advantage of opportunities that we stumble across and seize the moment when it is presented. Dr. Rowland seems to live by this credo, and shows that with hard work and perseverance Ohio Wesleyan University can open doors and prepare us to solve difficult problems in the years ahead.

— Dan Albert '07