Holden Thorp is a chemist and an overall great guy. Good news for NC science and education.
More like this
Much hoo-hah in the local fishwrapper regarding the installation yesterday of Dr Holden Thorp as Chancellor of the state's flagship university, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (installation address
On 8 May after a six-month search by a 21-member search committee, 43-year-old chemistry professor H. Holden Thorp was named Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Thorpe and colleagues, publishi
He is rather the exception than the rule. The National Academy of Sciences has published a book on the sorry state of science education in the U.S. It is free in pdf.
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12021
"Part of this unfamiliarity probably stems from the fact that as they pursue their primary and secondary education, few American youths ever come into contact with a practicing engineer or scientist. It is indicative of that local nonprominence that a few years ago at a meeting of American university presidents and the presidents of seven Chinese universi ties, the US representatives were a Renaissance scholar, an economist, a political scientist, a linguist, a lawyer, and a mechanical engineer, and the Chinese delegation constituted of six physicists and an engineer."