Suits and sage advice will replace lab coats and experiments April 13-14 as West Virginia University’s C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry honors its largest benefactor and shows students what they can do with a chemistry degree.
Activities get under way at 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, in the Mountainlair Gold Ballroom when WVU officials dedicate the department in Bennett’s name. The naming recognizes the substantial financial support of the late WVU alumnus and the continued generosity of his widow, Edna Bennett Pierce. Their gifts to the department exceed $6.6 million.
Mrs. Pierce and her family are expected to travel from Wilmington, Del., to attend the dedication. Scheduled speakers include WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr.; Provost Gerald Lang; M. Duane Nellis, dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences; Harry Finklea, department chairman; and Ken Showalter, C. Eugene Bennett Chair in Chemistry.
The department will cap its two-day celebration with the 10 th annual C. Eugene and Edna P. Bennett Careers for Chemists Program at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 14, at Erickson Alumni Center. The program, endowed by the Bennetts in 1994, brings professionals to the WVU campus to talk with students about traditional and nontraditional career opportunities for persons with degrees in chemistry.
This year’s speakers include Alan F. Vette (WVU Class of’91), a research scientist for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Jeanne M. James (WVU Class of’87), a research assistant professor at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine; and Michael E. Cournoyer, a technical staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Born in Rutherford, Ritchie County, C. Eugene Bennett obtained degrees in chemistry and organic chemistry from WVU . He co-founded F&M Scientific Corp., which later became a division of Hewlett Packard Co., and pursued several business ventures in the Wilmington area prior to his death in 1996.
Other beneficiaries of Bennett family giving include the Bennett Graduate Fellowship Program in Chemistry, Bennett Program Enhancement Fund in Chemistry and Bennett Library Endowment for Chemistry.