NCSSM – Chemistry with Dr. Owens

 NCSSM – Chemistry with Dr. Owens 

By James Lisk, June 30, 2025

There were so many wonderful teachers and administrators at NCSSM that selecting one seems unfair to the others. But, with apologies to the other admirable and influential NCSSM staff, I’ll write briefly about my memories of my love of chemistry and my favorite chemistry teacher, Dr. Rufus Owens.

Long before NCSSM, when it was clear that I would not be an athlete; I decided that my favorite school subject was science, and that my favorite field of science was chemistry. Rather than try again to hit a baseball (especially difficult before realizing I needed glasses), I was trying to grow crystals from saturated solutions of salt, sugar and Epsom salt, or was nose-in-book looking up the chemical elements of my current favorite mineral. 

The 1970’s popular black-light posters and fluorescent paints fascinated me, and I wanted to understand the science... the chemistry... behind the glow. Perusal of my dad’s 1960’s era college chemistry text book had little relevant information about fluorescence; but rocks-and-minerals books included a bit. For instance, did you know that a trace amount of chromium in an otherwise clear aluminum oxide crystal makes the crystal red, glow under UV-light, and otherwise be a ruby? Or that several different transition metal elements can cause an aluminum oxide crystal to be a blue sapphire?

A refreshing difference between NCSSM and my home-town high-school was that at NCSSM, none of the science teachers were introduced as “Coach.” So I was thinking "No worries about hitting a baseball here!"

When I first went to chemistry class in 1980, Doctor Rufus Owens, relatively short, dressed in shirt, jacket and tie, at the head of the class, talked impressively about chemistry, education and the plans for the class and labs. But then he commented, at a previous school, “I was the wrestling coach.  If anybody is interested, come see me," and my heart sank a notch .

Later, that first or second week, I was looking for Dr. Owens. He wasn’t in the lab, so I checked his office. The office door was open, so I stepped in. He was not there, but the book shelf in front of his desk was loaded with chemistry text books. I stepped over and started reading titles like “Organic Chemistry”, “Qualitative Analytical Chemistry” and “Physical Chemistry.” I was ready to pull one out, sit on the floor and start reading.

Then a voice behind me said, “See anything interesting? I was the wrestling coach before here, so I could pin you down to the floor before you could get anywhere with anything.” It was Dr. Owens, apparently thinking I was in his office trying to steal something. Or maybe he was just bragging about his wrestling ability. Or both.

“I was just looking at all your chemistry books,” was my meager reply, then added that I was looking for him. That seemed to calm him. We talked a bit about the classes he had to take to get a PhD which he happily answered. And I asked about getting some chemistry lab experience via the work-study program.

Later, Dr. Owens provided my first hands-on experience in a chemistry lab. As part of the work-study program, he taught me about general lab work... protective gear and safety, for instance, in safely diluting acids. One day, I managed to over-flow a graduated cylinder, just a bit, while diluting sulfuric acid for one of the class labs. Dr. Owens seemed reasonably satisfied that I used sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) for an immediate cleanup. So that rather than me asking for his help, he was asking “What is going on here?”  I quickly explained. Another student, Joe Hall, was with him and pointed out that sodium carbonate would have been a better choice, requiring only half the amount to neutralize the acid. I shrugged and admitted, “well that would have worked too.”

He and Carolyn Morris helped me with my "tribolumiescence" senior project, maybe more on that in a later blog.

Early in my senior year, I went to Dr. Owens for advice regarding college applications and a college major selection. I asked about the difference between chemistry and chemical engineering, which were at the top of my college major list, along with electrical engineering. Chemistry was offered at many colleges, but few colleges had chemical engineering programs. Duke University, for instance, had both chemistry and several engineering majors, but not chemical engineering.

Dr. Owens’ advice was very practical. “If you start in chemistry, and later decide you want to be in chemical engineering, you’ll be a year or two behind in the engineering classes. So you’ll be stuck in chemistry if you want to graduate in a reasonable time,” he said. “But if you start in chemical engineering and decide switch to chemistry after a year or two, you will still be largely on-track.” And so, I scratched Duke, Emory, UNC and Davidson, off the list and applied only to schools with chemical engineering programs. And I later graduated in chemical engineering.