Hindsight

Outside the entrance to a lecture hall in Founders North hangs a picture of its namesake—Dr. Polykarp Kusch, who was the Eugene McDermott Professor of Physics. The Nobel laureate in physics spearheaded the conversion of a campus movie theater to a 2,535-square-foot, 185-seat lecture hall complete with laboratory bench and lectern. It provided the main stage from which Kusch made physics come alive for his students.

Hindsight: Margie Renfrow on Polykarp Kusch

In April, retired UTD staffer Margie Renfrow attended The Polykarp Kusch Lecture Series: Concerns of the Lively Mind, just as she has for 28 years. The series was established in 1982 to honor Kusch, a Regental Professor and the Eugene McDermott Chair in Physics.

Renfrow, whose 38-year career at UTD began when Kusch hired her as a temporary office worker in 1973, recently reminisced about working for the University’s first Nobel laureate.

“Kusch said he came down here [to Texas from Columbia University in New York] with the idea that he could help build a university that was perhaps different than the ones that were currently in existence.

“Here, he created a course for non-scientists called Phenomena of Nature. It was a showpiece.

“Kusch was better than Mr. Wizard. He would put ice bombs in the corner of the room so they’d go off about halfway through the lecture. He believed in things being dramatic. One time he said he needed some fur. And I had some sandals with a little bit of mink on them, so I took it off my sandals and brought it to him. He used it to show static electricity. We improvised a lot.

“He once said, ‘I describe myself as an adequate scientist, but I am a superb teacher.’”

Kusch shared the 1955 Nobel Prize in physics with Willis Lamb. At an address during the award ceremony, Kusch said, “Science is the greatest creative impulse of our time. It dominates the intellectual scene and forms our lives, not only in the material things which it has given us, but also in that it guides our spirit. Science shows us truth and beauty and fills each day with a fresh wonder of the exquisite order which governs our world.”

Kusch’s Phenomena of Nature is still taught today. Equipment has been updated or replaced over the years and the two-semester format is now condensed into one, but the essence of the course, the experiments that demonstrate the principles of physics, remains unchanged.

A Whoosh Heard 'round the World

Sachin Shah and Josh Brumett do the Comet Whoosh from the cloisters of New College at oxford university, england. (Fans might recognize the site as the location where mad-eye moody turned Draco malfoy into a ferret in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.) Both juniors, Shah is a biology major and Brumett is a literary studies major. They were at oxford as part of the eugene mcDermott Scholars Program, which in 11 years has sent nearly 200 distinguished scholars to study abroad in more than 50 countries. The mcDermott Scholars award covers all expenses for four years of education along with an array of extracurricular experiences that include internships, cultural enrichment and travel.