Crimson and Gold Connection; Petar Dvornic

Welcome to Crimson & Gold Connection, keeping you connected to the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. Hello and thanks for joining us for Crimson & Gold Connection, I'm Kelsey Renfrow. Today our guest is Peter Dwarnik, Peter is the chair of the Chemistry Department at Pittsburgh State University, and he also coordinates the new Polymer Chemistry Initiative at Pittsburgh State University. Thanks for joining us Peter, can you tell us a little bit about your job? I'm Peter Dwarnik, and I am the chair of the Chemistry Department here at Pittsburgh State University, and I also coordinate our new Polymer Chemistry Initiative, chairing the Chemistry Department involves day-to-day affairs of the department, making it run smoothly and courses in order and handling students' affairs and well-being as far as Polymer Chemistry Initiative is concerned, it is a mediating and organizing a program that is a university why program that covers chemistry department with the College of Arts and Sciences, plastics

engineering, technology group at the College of Technology and Kansas Polymer Research Center. For anyone that doesn't know, can you explain Polymer Chemistry and what it is and why it's important? Well, Polymer Science, not only of which Polymer Chemistry is only a part, it also has Polymer Physics, Polymer Engineering and a variety of different disciplines involved with it, has been one of the fastest-growing sciences in the last half of the century or so since 1930. It's been a science that gave us what it probably can very fairly be called the age of plastics in which we live in and which will certainly mark this period in the development and the historical development of mankind. It involves biological natural and synthetic polymers and we human beings, we living creatures and planet Earth are actually some of the best examples of what polymers are because polymers include polysaccharides, polypeptides, the enzymes that make bodily function and that allow

for our life's eyeglasses, nucleic acids which are the essence of the generic code which are directly responsible for life and planet Earth and also synthetic polymers that spread all areas of life endeavors from space and oceanic exploration, from military to plastic bags, to cars, to computer industries, to electronics, to all kinds of things that you can think of including shelter, clothing and everything else that we use in daily life. The Polymer Chemistry Initiative is a new learning program at Pittsburgh State. Can you tell us how this kind of came about? Well it became about by the realization that Pittsburgh State has something very unique to offer and that was a great educational program at the plastics engineering technology at College of Engineering and Technology and Kansas Polymer Research Center which became a world we known for their work on bio-based polymers made from vegetable oils such as soybean

oils and sunflower oils and oils like that, all the way to finalize products in sophisticated polymers such as polyuretines. What was missing was the component in chemistry and a very smart proposal was made to the state of Kansas to combine these two unique capabilities that Pittsburgh State had and add to that an educational component in the Department of Chemistry to put this real egg its tool as I like to call it and to create that third leg in the Department of Chemistry that was going to make it complete. The legislators of the state of Kansas realized the value of the proposal and funded it with the Polymer Chemistry Initiative as we call it right now which is $1 million a year worth program for Pittsburgh State University coming directly from the state budget and which now strengthens the chemistry education component in polymer chemistry with the addition of new or four new faculty lines there and puts together a bachelor of science program

and the masters of science program in polymers chemistry that really started just about with this last semester. What advantages and different opportunities does this program give students involved? Some big advantages if you take for example the fact that the American Chemical Society which is by the way the biggest professional society in planet Earth with about 160,000 thousand members worldwide estimates that over 50% of all chemical jobs sooner or later during the careers will encounter problems to deal with polymers in the development of those careers. It makes you feel how important the area is and how important for our graduates will be to have polymer component in their knowledge and to compete for those high level jobs which could be research areas could be in production areas or if they want to continue their studies in some major schools towards final or its ultimate degrees in polymphd degrees in polymer

chemistry for example have some good chance of passing the qualifiers and getting involved into those programs. So for our graduates those would be the benefits for PSU. I think that we have every opportunity to put PSU on the national map in chemistry world and particularly in the world of polymer chemistry and for the state of Kansas in our immediate area it feels the gap which we had before that no education in that particular discipline and this particular area of science but now becoming a prominent center in the country. And how will the new polymer chemistry program branch out and involved the university as a whole at Pittsburgh State University? This is also a very inclusive program for polymer chemistry initiative. We would like to have it open for everybody at PSU who is involved and who is interested in polymers that would include departments of physics, departments of biology, departments

of mathematics and other engineering departments from college of technology. We believe that this needs to be a truly university wide program and such becomes a trailblazer for new programs of that sort that we could develop at PSU. Our guest today has been Peter Dornick, chair of the chemistry department and he also coordinates the new polymer chemistry initiative at Pittsburgh State University. I'm Kelsey Renfrow.