In
Memory of E. Leonard Jossem
Dr. E.
Leonard (Len) Jossem passed away Saturday, August 29, 2009. Dr. Jossem served
the International Commission on Physics Education both as its Secretary and as
its Chairman (1981-1993), and was awarded the Medal of the Commission in 1995.
He was also an editor of the ICPE
books, Connecting the Results of Research
in Physics Education with Teacher Education Volume1 and
Physics 2000: Physics as It Enters a New Millennium.
Dr. Jossem was a
consultant for UNESCO projects in Thailand, and a consultant for the World
Bank-Chinese University Development Project in China. He held honorary
professorships in Physics at Beijing Normal University, at Beijing Teachers
College, and at Southeast University in Nanjing, China. Deeply involved in
International Physics Education, he was recognized on his 70th birthday in an
International Newsletter on Physics Education article, “He is at home in schools
as well as in research laboratories, he moves among students and teachers as
naturally as among professors and Nobel laureates. To have a teaching career
with such a fresh innovative spirit during half a century—this is a privilege
only a few of the greatest can enjoy.”
Born in Camden, NJ on
19May 1919, Dr. Jossem received his B.S. in Physics from City College of New
York in 1938. During World War II he was a member of the scientific staff at Los
Alamos in the Advanced Developments Division. He received his master’s degree in
1939 from Cornell University. His Ph.D., also from Cornell University in 1950,
was for his research on experimental condensed matter physics. His long and
productive career included nine years on the faculty at Cornell University, and
two years with the commission on College Physics.
Joining the faculty of
the Department of Physics in The Ohio State University in 1956, he continued his
research in experimental condensed matter physics and was responsible for
building the advanced undergraduate physics laboratories in the department. He
taught at OSU for thirty three years, serving as Chairman of the Physics
Department from 1967-1989 till he became Professor Emeritus in 1989. The
department is well known for its efforts in insuring that all graduate students
are introduced to and schooled in the good practices of exemplary teaching. This
program is part of the legacy of Len Jossem.
Jossem was a fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York Academy of
Sciences, the Royal Academy of Arts, and the Institute of Physics [London]. He
held the Howard E. Maxwell Award for Distinguished Service to the Ohio Section
of the American Physical Society.
An
active member since 1948 and past president of the American Association of
Physics Teachers (AAPT), Jossem continued to serve on several of its committees
till the very end. He was a member of the Committee on the Teaching of Science
of the International Council of Scientific Unions, and of the UNESCO-Physics
Action Council working Group on University Physics Education. He received the
AAPT Distinguished Service Award in 1970, the Melba Newell Phillips Award in
1985, and the Oersted Medal in 1994. In presenting the medal, James H. Stith
noted, “Leonard Jossem is a master teacher and educator in the broadest sense of
the word.”
Long interested in
physics education, his activities include service as Staff Physicist and
Executive Secretary of the Commission on College Physics from 1963 to 1965. He
served as the Chairman of the Commission from 1966 to 1971, during which time
the commission's work fundamentally changed the way physics was taught in the
United States. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the
Michigan-Ohio Regional Educational Laboratory (1967-69); the U.S. National
Advisory Committee on Educations Professions Development (1967-70); the Council
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1967-70); and the
Physics Survey Committee of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research
Council (1967-1970).
On hearing of Len’s death, Minella Alarcon Senior
Programme Specialist for UNESCO stated, “Len Jossem was a good friend of and
resource person for UNESCO and its physics education networks, notably the Asian
Physics Education Network or ASPEN. He was among those who supported UNESCO’s
regional physics education networks and UNESCO’s representation in ICPE and
lobbied for physics education activities in developing countries. Among others,
he will be remembered for keeping and sharing databases of physics teaching and
learning materials.”
“The world’s
physics teaching society has lost one of its pioneers, and the Chinese physics
teaching community has lost one of our old friend and best collaborator”, said
Nian-Le Wu
Nianle Wu ,professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing China and a newly
appointed member of ICPE. He words
express the feelings of all of us.
(Portions of
this page are taken from an AAPT news release.
http://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/upload/JossemPressRelease.pdf)