In Memory of E. Leonard Jossem

 

Len 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.

 

Pratibha Jolly, current chair of ICPE noted, "Len's capacity to put things in historical and global perspective lent a new dimension to discussions.  I enjoyed his deep understanding of cultures and fondly recollect his insightful mails on Indian poetry and literature. Len will be missed most for his steadfast commitment to the global community of physics educators, his words of wisdom and his friendship towards all, even as he made each one feel special." 

 

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)