Thursday, March 26, 2020
VALLEY PROFILES
PAGE 9
Entire community benefits from Gustavus professor’s passion for educating By ALLISON K. SCHMITT Correspondent For Chuck Niederriter, the world is a classroom. If he’s not teaching classes in Olin Hall, he might be in the community coaching a robotics team or Down Under looking at upside down constellations.
very supportive of our education in general.” She read his papers and suggested improvements. “Although that wasn’t specifically science, I would say it helped me a lot to become a better science communicator,” he said.
That fertile environment produced Niederriter is a professor in physics four teachers, Niederriter and his and in environmental studies at Gus- three older sisters. tavus Adolphus College in St. Peter. Niederriter was a graduate assistant in the early 1980s when, witnessMention his name to Barb Larson Taylor of the college’s marketing and ing young people’s enthusiasm for communication department and the science, he decided to become a teacher. “Just seeing the excitement compliments pour out: He’s super community oriented, he gets young they have around science, I think that’s precisely why I got involved in people interested in science and he science,” he said. goes above and beyond. “And he’s just a great guy,” she added. For a lot of young people, “it’s blowing stuff up,” he said. “I will figure out a way to add an explosion Gustavus physics sophomore Ana or something noisy,” he said. For Zaalishvili is likewise complimenexample, for the “Gustie Buddies” tary. afterschool program, he’ll demon“As a professor, he is always open to strate a ping pong ball bazooka or questions and always makes time to potato cannon. (The liquid nitrogen help the students,” she said. “During ice cream is always hit, too.) classes he makes the atmosphere feel very casual and safe, where it is O.K. for students to ask questions and not know something, because learning is what we are there for!”
Gustavus Adolphus Professor Chuck Niederriter poses in the Olin Observatory atop Olin Hall in 2013. Submitted photo by Terry Clark. (Allison Schmitt/St. Peter Herald) gave him various math puzzles to keep him engaged.
Who sparked his excitement for science?
His wife, Debbie, is also a professor and is currently a paraprofessional at North Elementary School. All four of their children are in science-related fields, including one who writes Niederriter grew up in Erie, Pa., one science fiction/fantasy. of five children of an electrician and “I had some teachers who were great Niederriter participates in a host an office worker. At home, his father, at that,” he said. One in particular of activities on campus outside the Charles, was an avid tinkerer and was his sixth grade math and science official classroom. One is the Nobel was adept at fixing electric trains, teacher. “She actually saw that I need Conference, [gustavus.edu/events/ which led to Niederriter’s penchant some enrichment,” he said. So she nobelconference/2020], which for the toy. His mother, Rita, “was
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Passion for renewables
“It’s amazing to have the opportunity to have lunch with, to have long conversations with the caliber of people who win the Nobel,” he said. Niederriter served as director of the conference for four years and has been involved in some way or another almost since he joined Gustavus in 1985.
His main areas of expertise, physics and environmental studies, come together in energy.
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“When I retire I would like to feel like I helped the college to generate a significant amount of its energy by renewable means, helping to put a dent in our green house gas emissions,” he said.
His efforts toward that end were noted by others. But competing interests have so far thwarted his efforts. “It’s often a battle between finances and sciences,” he said. Starting 20-some years ago, a coalition of students, faculty and administrators worked industriously
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