Lawrence J. Kaplan

OK, it was Professor Kaplan . . . in the laboratory . . . with the CD-ROM. What you perpetrated turned out to be a marvel of education—the use of forensic science, long before it became a staple of network television, to lure non-majors into the study of chemistry. Students who otherwise wouldn’t be caught dead in a lab signed up in droves. Who would not want to ponder such questions as, Who killed John F. Kennedy? How did John Belushi die? Then there were the simulated crimes, which students had to dash out of class to investigate. This crime wave then swept the country as you helped establish the Center for Workshops in the Chemical Sciences, which, supported by millions of dollars from the NSF, offered free multimedia workshops to more than one thousand faculty from more than six hundred colleges, affecting more than half a million students. All of this while continuing your own scholarship on biochemical systems, including the structure of chromatin. At the same time you served as a longtime advisor to our Jewish Association. Your house was a home away from home for generations of students, and you were instrumental in the development of our Jewish Religious Center. The research, the teaching, the commitment to this community—mitzvahs all the way round.

I hereby declare you Halford R. Clark Professor of Natural Sciences, Emeritus, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.

June 3, 2018