The Friend E. Clark Lectures were initiated in 1950 with the original purpose being, as proposed by Charles Wheeler, then president of Tau Chapter of PLU in 1948, to bring an outstanding research chemist annually to the West Virginia University campus for two days to share his or her research interests and accomplishments with the students and faculty at the University. The department did not have a formal departmental seminar program until 1969. His idea is now a tradition.

Each year the members of PLU select the Clark Lecturer from a list of candidates who are nominated by the faculty and students on the basis of their academic record and accomplishments. The list of the past speakers for this Lecture Series includes six Nobel Laureates and other prominent research chemists spanning the general areas of analytical, inorganic, organic, and physical chemistry.

Pamphlets

To see the John F. Hartwif pamphlet (2007 Lecture) please click here.

To see the Robert T. Kennedy pamphlet (2005 Lecture) please click here.

To see the Eric Heller pamphlet (2004 Lecture) please click here.

 Past Clark Lecturers include:

W. Conard Fernelius (Penn State), C. C. Price (Notre Dame), Ludwig F. Audrieth (Illinois), Herbert C. Brown (Purdue), Peter J. W. Debye (Cornell), Joel H. Hildebrand (California-Berkeley), N. Howell Furman (Princeton), H. G. Drickhamer (Illinois), John C. Bailar, Jr. (Illinois), Louis F. Fieser (Harvard), Max Lauffer (Pittsburgh), Robert A. Alberty (Wisconsin-Madison), Eugene G. Rochow (Harvard), Richard S. Brokaw (NASA), Daryl Busch (Ohio State), Ernest L. Eliel (Notre Dame), Charles N. Reilley (North Carolina-Chapel Hill), Edward C. Lingafelter (Washington), Ronald J. Gillespie (McMaster), Roald Hoffmann (Cornell), L. B. Rogers (Purdue), Harry B. Gray (Cal Tech), W. Albert Noyes (Texas), Frank H. Westheimer (Harvard), Herbert A. Laitinen (Florida), Fred Basolo (Northwestern), Bruce Merrifield (Rockefeller), Orville Chapman (Iowa State), Dudley Herschbach (Harvard), Theodore L. Brown (Illinois), Velmer A. Fassel (Iowa State), Nicholas J. Turro (Columbia), Richard N. Zare (Stanford), F. Albert Cotton (Texas A&M), Allen J. Bard (Texas), John D. Roberts (Cal Tech), John Ross (Stanford), R. Graham Cooks (Purdue), Richard H. Holm (Harvard), Barry Trost (Stanford), and Jerome and Isabella Karle (Naval Research Laboratory), James Jorgenson (North Carolina - Chapel Hill), Louis S. Hegedus (Colorado State University), Maurice S. Brookhart (North Carolina - Chapel Hill), Eric Heller (Harvard), Robert T. Kennedy (Michigan), and John F. Hartwig (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).