96-09-11 Univ. Distinguished Lecturers Named

OHIO STATE NAMES FIRST UNIVERSITY DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS 

     COLUMBUS -- The Ohio State University has named three senior 
faculty as its first University Distinguished Lecturers.

     The 1996 honorees are Charles Atkinson of COLUMBUS (43214), 
professor of music history; Sheldon Shore of COLUMBUS (43214), 
Kimberly Professor of Chemistry; and Karl Rubin of COLUMBUS 
(43214), professor of mathematics.

     "We expect this new lectureship to become one of the 
university's highest honors for a senior member of its active 
faculty," said Richard Sisson, senior vice president and 
provost.

     President E. Gordon Gee, who announced the honorees with 
Sisson, said: "It is a pleasure to honor our first University 
Distinguished Lecturers. These three faculty members are fully 
engaged in creating and transmitting knowledge that will shape 
our future."

     Each quarter, one of the recipients will present a topic of 
interest to the university community in a free, public lecture.  
Atkinson will lecture autumn quarter at 5 p.m. Nov. 14 in the 
Ohio Union Conference Theater, 1739 N. High Street.  Following 
his talk, there will be a reception at 6 p.m. in the Union's Main 
Lounge.

     The university will publish each year's lectures and tape 
the events. Academic programs, chosen by each lecturer, will each 
receive $5,000 in the distinguished faculty member's honor.

     All three lecturers already have received the university's 
highest honor for researchers, the Distinguished Scholar Award.

     Their careers are filled with examples of their academic 
qualifications:

     -- Atkinson specializes in liturgical music and music theory 
of the Middle Ages. His research approach is interdisciplinary, 
embracing historical, sociological, cultural and literary 
aspects.

     His article, "The Earliest Settings of the Agnus Dei and 
its Tropes," published in the Journal of the American 
Musicological Association in 1977, received both the Alfred 
Einstein Award from the American Musicological Association and 
the Van Courtlandt Elliot Prize of the Medieval Academy of 
America. He was the first, and for 10 years the only, person to 
hold both honors.

     Among his many publications are articles commissioned by the 
world's two most highly regarded music encyclopedias.  He has 
presented numerous papers at professional societies, and has been 
invited several times to lecture at Harvard University, as well 
as Rutgers, Princeton and Indiana universities, the University of 
Michigan, and institutions in Europe.

     A nominator said Atkinson is "plainly and simply the single 
most outstanding figure" among experts on the place of Medieval 
ecclesiastical chant within theoretical treatises. Another said, 
"He is a first-rate lecturer: clear, learned and urbane."

     -- Shore, the Charles H. Kimberly Professor of Chemistry, 
specializes in inorganic, boron hydride chemistry.  He conducts 
basic research on the compounds, which for many years perplexed 
chemists because of their unusual chemical bonding and 
structures.

     Unraveling the questions is leading to understanding areas 
of chemistry well beyond boron hydride chemistry.  Shore was one 
of the first chemists to recognize similarities between boron 
hydrides and so-called "cluster compounds" of metals.

     Shore has developed ways to readily synthesize once rare 
boron hydrides.  His work has produced a very pure form of 
diborane used to implant elemental boron in computer chips. He 
developed a procedure to convert 200,000 pounds of government 
surplus pentaborane into useful products. He has extended his 
work  to metal cluster compounds and produced new materials and 
fundamental results on mechanisms of chemical reactions.

     Shore's highly original research in inorganic chemistry has 
brought him numerous awards.  Most recently, he was named as a 
corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.  The 
four other corresponding members include three Nobel laureates.

     A nominator for the Distinguished Lecturer Award noted, "In 
presenting lectures, he speaks with authority. He maintains 
excellence rapport with the audience, holding their attention 
throughout the lecture.  He has a delightful sense of humor."

     -- Rubin works in the field of number theory, one of the 
oldest branches of math and one concerned with solving equations 
in integers.  A pioneer on the frontier of mathematics, he 
studies how to apply Euler systems to problems in number theory. 
Euler systems are a mathematical tool.  Since 1987, he has 
clarified and added to number theory techniques.

     A nominator said, "I do regard Karl Rubin as belonging to 
the group of the few leading mathematicians of our time who will 
shape the future of our science."  In 1992, Rubin received the 
Cole Prize in Number Theory. The American Mathematical Society 
gives the award only every five years.

     Rubin is highly praised for his teaching.  He even explained 
the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem to Secretary of Defense 
William Perry.  Fermat's 17th century algebraic puzzle stymied 
mathematicians until Andrew Wiles announced a proof in 1993.  
When the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in California 
offered public lectures, including one by Rubin on Fermat's Last 
Theorem, the entire 1,000-seat auditorium was sold out -- unheard 
of for a mathematics meetings.

                             #

Contact:  Richard Sisson, Academic Affairs, (614) 292-5881
          Charles Atkinson, Music, (614) 292-9440
          Karl Rubin, Mathematics, (614) 292-8678
          Sheldon Shore, Chemistry, (614) 292-6000


[Submitted by: Von Reid-Vargas (ereid@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
               
Wed, 11 Sep 1996 11:36:55 -0400]
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