Inventory to the Percy Lavon Julian Family Papers

  Archives Homepage

Percy Lavon Julian Family Papers
Series III: Folder 8
Julian Memorial Lecture: William Thomas Lippincott
April 26, 1984

     "Wisdom starts with teachers; knowledge comes from books and research. Science teachers have no monopoly in stimulating wisdom, but the scientific method is the most successful and viable approach to problem-solving thus far devised. It appears to offer a path to wisdom as valuable to the science student as to his nonscience colleague, as vital to the future chemist as to the future politician."  W. T. Lippincott

     Dr. W. T. "Tom" Lippincott was born in Baltimore, Maryland, April 4, 1924. He received the B.S. Degree from Capital University (Ohio) in 1948. He began a lifelong commitment to higher education and to university college teaching when he accepted a position at Capital University as instructor and then Assistant Professor of Chemistry. He completed his Ph.D. in chemistry at Ohio State University in 1954, served as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Michigan State University until 1957, then accepted a position as Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida.

     In 1961 Dr. Lippincott returned to Ohio State University as Professor of Chemistry and Head, Division of General Chemistry. In time he would also serve as Vice-Chairman of the Department of Chemistry, member and Chairman of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President and Board of Trustees (1969-71), and as member of the Advisory Committee to the Chancellor for Higher Education and the Board of Regents, State of Ohio.

     Although Dr. Lippincott's contributions to chemistry and chemical education have been numerous and outstanding, his greatest impact on national chemical education has been as editor of the prestigious and scholarly Journal of Chemical Education (1967-79). In his monthly editorials in the Journal his thinking his concerns, his search for excellence were set forth with clarity in such beautiful prose as to set a standard for all future editors. His high sensitivity to the impact of good liberal arts education on the college student, both the science major and the nonscience major, runs as a golden thread through his writings, his teachings, and his lectures. He has had and will continue to have great influence upon the teaching of science in our liberal arts colleges in the decisive years ahead.

     Dr. Lippincott has served with distinction on committees of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association, the Advisory Council on College Chemistry, and the American Chemical Society. He has authored or coauthored eight books and more than 150 Journal articles and editorials. He has taught in more than 60 summer institutes for college and high school teachers and has given talks and seminars at more than 130 colleges and universities.

     His many honors include the American Chemical Society Award in Chemical Education (1975), the Manufacturing Chemist Association Award (1966), and the James F. Norris Award in Chemical Education (1982). The January 1980 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education was dedicated to him. Capital University conferred the honorary Doctorate of Science on him in 1974.

     Tom and Shirley E. Lippincott were married January 1, 1953. They are the parents of two sons. They presently reside in Tucson, where Dr. Lippincott has been Professor of Chemistry at the University of Arizona since 1973. In 1981 he became director of a new experimental high school chemistry course, Chemistry in the Community. He spent last summer as a visiting professor at Huazhong University in Shanghai, China, where he also served as a consultant to the International Advisory Panel and the Chinese Review Commission of the Chinese Ministry of Education.