Our History

Tracking down the exact date of creation of the Department of Chemistry has been difficult because some sources of information may no longer be available. Dr. Albert Brown became President of SUNY Brockport in Fall 1965 following the long-term leadership of Dr. Donald Tower (1944-1964). Dr Brown swiftly took on major reorganizational changes that likely were at least to some degree pre-conceived by Tower who retired in 1964 and interim President Dr. Gordon Allen as SUNY Brockport was already transitioning from an institution devoted to teacher preparation to an institution also offering degrees in an increasing number of specialized areas. From what we can extract from “Cherishing This Heritage” – The Centennial History of the State University College at Brockport by W. Wayne Dedman, 1969, Dr. Brown changed the administrative organization as well as organization of degree programs. As for the administrative organization, he instituted as subordinates “the Vice President for Academic Affairs, to which Dean Allen was appointed, the Vice President for Administration, for which Alexander Cameron was recruited. Also reporting directly to the President were the Dean of Graduate Study and Research and the Dean of Students.” As for the reorganization of the degree program, departments were grouped into “Faculties” under the Vice President for Academic Affairs replacing existing Divisions. Importantly, ”a number of old Departments were splintered and new ones created. “Natural Science” became a Faculty with the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Psychology, Mathematics, Geography, and, eventually, Geology-Earth Science. “Social Science” also became a Faculty, consisting of the Departments of History, Political Science, Economics, and Sociology-Anthropology. The Humanities Faculty, including Departments of English, Foreign Language, Philosophy, and Speech, was created, as was the Faculty of Fine Arts with Departments of Art, Music, Theatre, and Dance. The Division of Health and Physical Education became a Faculty with the same name with Departments of Health, Men’s Physical Education, and Women’s Physical Education. The Department of Education also became a Faculty, composed not only of the Department of Education, but also of the Demonstration School, and of Supervision. Instructional Resources and the Library were also administered here as was, later, International Education.”

Given that Dr. Brown became President in Fall of 1965, these organizational changes likely came to full effect for the 1966-67 academic year. This agrees with the statements on “completed items” in presumably the first department report by Dr. Peterson that the Chemistry BS program was developed and approved and that he was appointed as Chairman. The other faculty members in the department at that time were Dr. Robert Brandaur, Dr. Armin A. Sommer and newly hired Dr. Kermit A. Schroeder. Lots of hiring continued until 1970 (Dr. Emory Morris in 1967, Dr. Derek Hill in 1968, Dr. John Bixler in 1969 and Drs. Martha M. Vestling, Thomas W. Kallen, Kay T. Finley (initially hired as Dean) and Kenneth D. Schlecht all in 1970. The first BS Chemistry graduates are listed in our records for 1968 consisting of Edward Glover, Robert Folger, Carl Emmens, Robert Johnson, Paul Kronthaler, Jon Tappan, Charles Dean, Paul Nozynsik, Steven Richard, and Jack Weyeneth.

As the number of students increased and programs grew in number and size during the 1960’ies, construction of new buildings was ongoing to accommodate these changes. Lennon Hall was first occupied in 1964 and Smith Hall in spring of 1968. A third science building was in the planning stage but never materialized.

Interested in reading other snippets about the history of SUNY Brockport? Check out the Brockport Archives.

A strong emphasis on scholarship, which early on included involvement of undergraduate students, was placed as soon as the Chemistry Department came to exist. With a rapid influx of early career faculty eager to conduct research (Kermit Schroeder 1966, J. Emory Morris 1967, Derek Hill 1968, John Bixler 1969, Martha Vestling 1970, Thomas Kallen 1970, Kenneth Schlecht 1970), the department became quickly prolific in disseminating research findings. 45 articles were published between 1970 and 1976, with the first three undergraduate student (denoted by asterisk) co-authored articles all being published in 1974 ( J.W.Bixler and T.M.Larson*, “Ion Association Studies with a Chloride Ion Selective Electrode”, J. Inorg. Nucl. Chem., 1974, 35, 224; J.E.Morris, C.Peraino, and D.Strayer*, “Molecular Weight of Rat Liver Ornithine­Ketoacid Aminotransferase”, Proc. Soc. Exptl. Biol. Med. 1974, 147, 706; K.D.Schlecht, R.B.Dix*, and M.J.Tamul*, “Internal Reflection Spectra of Several Tetracyclines”, Appl. Spectroscopy, 1974, 28, 38 .)

Important for the success of these research activities was the availability of new research instrumentation purchased from building equipment funds. Major instruments purchased included a 60 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer, a Gas Chromatography unit with Mass Spectrometer detection, an IR spectrometer and a UV-vis spectrophotometer. The research of Jim Eilers (joined in 1974) was computational in nature, and he was allowed to use the University’s mainframes for his research until he resigned in 1984. The strong commitment to involve undergraduate students resulted in successful efforts of obtaining funding from the Undergraduate Research Participation Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1971, which supported students doing research in the summer months, the first support for undergraduate research of that kind in the department. The electrochemistry research of John Bixler was particularly prolific in research with undergraduate students that found external support by NSF and the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society. 18 of his students were co-authors on a good portion of his more than twenty articles and contributed also significantly to his three inventions. Much of his research was collaborative with Prof. Alan Bond at Melbourne University in Australia, where Bixler spent a one-year leave of absence supported by an NSF grant.

The chemistry department had a significant role in establishing Scholars Day on Campus. A group of faculties from various departments including chemistry met regularly socially for many years since the mid-1970s. One night, they discussed how to increase a common esprit for scholarship on campus and identified the need to have some kind of event on campus to celebrate scholarship. Jim Eilers who was on Faculty Senate then wrote up a proposal to institute Scholars Day and presented it to the Faculty Senate and to the Provost. The Scholars Day idea was taken up and the first Scholars Day was held in 1983. It consisted entirely of faculty presentations but over the years shifted completely to presentations dominantly given by students.

On March 28, 1981, the department held a Kronthaler Memorial Chemistry Symposium where the Kronthaler award recipients Thomas Kankoski, Leslie Ryan, Martin Keibel, Scott Tilden, Robert Teitelbaum, Rory Nee, Earl Stich, Edwin Senko, and Donald Hallenbeck presented on their current endeavors. The symposium concluded with the 12th Kronthaler Award presentation to Diane Kleve.

In 1986, the department established funds raised internally to offer for the first time “Undergraduate Research Fellowships in Chemistry” to achieve a continuity of support for summer research with undergraduate students. A year later, Emory Morris made a donation to establish the “Morris Fellowships” fund for the same purpose. Both funds are active to this day and accept donations through the Brockport Foundation. The designation numbers are 008.00 and 260.00 for the Undergraduate Research Fellowships in Chemistry and the Morris Fellowship, respectively.

With respect to the chemistry curriculum, two major developments occurred between 1970 and 1999. The Chemistry Program was first certified by the American Chemical Society in 1972 at which point the ACS certified chemistry degree program came into existence. Secondly, in 1980, the concentration in Biochemistry was formally established.

A significant contribution to public chemistry education was provided by Ken Schlecht who presented chemistry shows over several decades. As instructor of College Chemistry in the late 1970s he increasingly developed classroom demonstrations. In the early 80’s, Prof. Mancuso (Physics) suggested he should do a traveling Chemistry Show (called the Excitement of Chemistry) much like his traveling Physics show. This was an opportunity to expose pre-College students to the sciences. The Excitement of Chemistry program was presented over 310 times at over 230 different locations to a total audience of almost 40,000. This program evolved with small groups of primary school children actually do some safe hands-on chemical activities. This was done 55 times at 28 different locations to approximately 1,400 students.

Mancuso and Schlecht also developed a joint Chemistry & Physics Show (The Beauty and Unity of Chemistry and Physics) illustrating how the same scientific principles manifest themselves in each discipline. From 1981 to 1997, The Beauty and Unity of Chemistry and Physics was presented 78 times at 60 different locations to a total audience of over 17,000. Many of these shows were presented during the Winter break as part of an effort to recruit students from Long Island.

Schlecht also ran approximately 44 workshops to train high school teachers and other chemists on how to do various demonstrations for student groups. It should be noted that all these demonstrations began in the classroom and then moved to a “show” for others. All have a good scientific explanation behind them; NONE ARE MAGIC!

The resignations of Jim Eilers and Martha Vestling as well as the retirement of Kermit Schroeder, Ingo Petersen, and Armin Sommer late 1980’s through early 1990’s led to hiring lecturer Carol Greene (1990), and Assistant Professors David Dwyer (1990) and Bill Todd (1991). Dwyer and Todd resigned late 1990’s to ultimately take on positions with SAIC in the Washington DC area. Before his resignation, Dwyer was successful in receiving external funding including from NSF, which allowed the purchase of the first NMR instrument in the department with a superconducting magnet, in addition to new ESR and IR spectrometers.

The Chemistry & Physics Departments were combined administratively in the 1996-97 academic years with Tom Kallen as Chair. According to the Faculty Directories, this continued through 1998-99, three years. Richard Mancuso was listed as the Physics program coordinator in the last year. Even before the departments were temporarily joined, the student run chemistry and physics clubs started to organize a spaghetti dinner at each end of the semester. This became a tradition for many years with Prof. Morris always cooking the spaghetti in a big vat over three running Bunsen burners, and Prof. Mancuso always preparing the spaghetti sauce.

With the hiring of three new tenure-track faculty (Mark Heitz, fall 1999; Markus Hoffmann, fall 2000; Margaret (Maggie) Logan, fall 2001) research with undergraduate students found renewed invigoration as evident by the annual number of student research presentations shooting up to over 20 by 2002. External research funding was secured from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society, Rochester Midland Corporation, SAIC, Kodak, Merck-AAAS, and the National Science Foundation that funded half of the cost shared purchase of a new 300 MHz NMR instrument. Generous donations to the Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Chemistry Fund, the Morris Fellowship Fund, The Pre-Med Fellowship funds and the Susan Collier Fund, were vital resources that enabled participation of chemistry majors in summer research projects. Upon retiring in 2009, Prof. J. Emory Morris put up a dollar-to-dollar matching fundraising challenge of $100,000 to support summer undergraduate research in chemistry that was accomplished within its 3-year time frame. In parallel, campus wide support for summer research through donations to the Brockport Foundation was established and has grown over the years to the current (as of 2024) Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) supporting on the order of 30 undergraduate students annually. Both developments further boosted departmental undergraduate research activities.

By 2011, all of the remaining faculty who were hired at the beginnings of the Chemistry Department retired. Kenneth Schlecht retired in 2007, Emory Morris in 2009, Kay Thomas in 2010 and Thomas Kallen in 2011. Thomas Kallen stepped down as chair after having served for 12 years in 2006. Mark Heitz served as interim Department Chair the following academic year while a search for an external chair was conducted. The search led to the hiring of Stephen Godleski in this capacity starting fall of 2007. During his tenure until his retirement in spring of 2015, tenure-track faculty searches ensued leading to the hiring of Michael Brown (2008), David Vuletich (2010), Joshua Blose (2012), Carly Reed (2012), and Brandy Sreenilayam (2013) who replaced Devid Vuletich who resigned in December of (2011).

Two additional major developments occurred during Stephen Godleski’s tenure:

 Initiated by an NSF infrastructure grant proposal led by Markus Hoffmann, which resulted in an award of ~$1.5 million for the renovation of the Smith Hall research spaces, the renovation of the entire Smith Hall building started in May of 2011. The entire Physics and Chemistry departments moved out of Smith Hall in temporary spaces in Lathrop Hall. The lower-level chemistry lab courses were taught out of three lab spaces in the basement of Lennon Hall. By the end of summer of 2012, the ~$15 million renovation was completed, and the Chemistry and Physics department resumed all teaching and research activities in Smith Hall in the fall of 2012. The renovation resulted not only in modernized laboratory spaces with decentralized vacuum, compressed air and distilled water supply, but also in new equipment acquisitions including a new gas chromatography instrument with a mass spectrometer detection unit and a new instrument to measure circular dichroism.

Through efforts by Mark Heitz, Markus Hoffmann, Stephen Godleski, and Emory Morris, the Department submitted a senate Proposal in 2008 to elevate the biochemistry concentration to be its own standing major. Eventually, this new major was approved during the 2010-11 academic year. Bryan Pratt was the first BS biochemistry graduate in May 2011. To reflect the offering of the biochemistry degree program, the department name was subsequently changed to Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Within a few years, the number of majors doubled from ~ 50 to ~100 majors.

Since 2015, the department continued to have frequent changes in personnel. After the retirement of Stephen Godleski and the resignations of Michael Brown and Brandy Sreenilayam, new tenure-track faculty members joined the department: Jessica Smith (2017), Robert LeSuer (2017), and Saputo (2019). Jessica Smith resigned in 2019, which led to the hiring of Gregory Kortmann in 2020 who resigned as well in 2021, which led to the hiring of Michael Coleman in 2023.

Margaret (Maggie) Logan became Department Chair for three years from 2015 to 2018. Maggie Logan and Joshua Blose spearheaded the submission of a Senate Proposal submission for a new BS degree in Neurosciences, an interdepartmental degree program involving the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, the Department of Biological Sciences and the Department of Psychology. The new program was ultimately approved in spring of 2021, with the first students graduating with a BS in Neuroscience in May of 2022 (Tiara Gilmore, Julia Hoyser and Areefa Sulaiman). While an interdepartmental program, it was housed initially under the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry but was moved in 2024 to the Psychology Department.

In parallel, the adolescent teacher programs of SUNY Brockport underwent reorganization leading to stand alone majors. These changes were ultimately approved in 2021 adding along with the Neuroscience program two additional programs: Adolescence Chemistry Education and Adolescence Chemistry Inclusive Generalist. These two new programs were however transferred to the Department of Education and Human Resources in 2024 so that the Chemistry department formally is currently back to offering just the two BS degree program in chemistry and biochemistry.

2018 marked the 50th anniversary of graduating the first Chemistry majors, which was celebrated in combination with hosting the 63rd ACS Rochester Local Section Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 28 in the morning hours followed by a reception in the afternoon that was attended also by alumni and emeriti and former staff members.

Markus Hoffmann became department chair in 2018 and served for six years. Many of the above-described personnel and program changes took place during his tenure. His tenure also included managing the challenging time during the COVID pandemic. Instruction pivoted campus wide to online instruction for all courses mid-spring 2020 semester. In-person instruction resumed in fall of 2020 but under social distancing conditions that were ultimately lifted in fall of 2021.

The most recent noteworthy development was initiated in the fall of 2022, where the department submitted a proposal to start a Master’s Program in Chemistry. This proposal has been approved in spring of 2024. Under the current chairman ship of Mark Heitz, preparations are underway for Fall 2025 to be the first semester of offering this new program.