Faculty Focus – Dr. Ed Osborne

Faculty Focus, Dr. Ed Osborne
Chemist and Professor.
B.S., University of North Carolina. M.S., University of Maine. Ph.D., Northwestern University.
North Carolina native.
Northwestern Wildcat.

How did you join the faculty at Northeast State?
I spent forty-four years working at Eastman Chemical Company and retired in 1999 to have free time. After three months of free time, I was totally bored (laughs). So I applied here to become a tutor and a lab instructor. A position came open later for an adjunct faculty chemistry instructor so I applied. In 2004, I went full-time as a faculty member.

What was the transition like from the chemical industry to the classroom?
For me, it was very easy. I’d spent my career as a lab chemist. Today, I primarily teach Organic Chemistry I and II, both second-year level courses and a one-semester freshman course, Introduction to Chemistry, for students entering allied health-care fields. My whole life has been geared toward trying to impart the subject to other people. A chemistry background prepares students for health-related professions such as physicians’ assistants and medical technologists which are in high demand today. I would also say our chemistry students are well-received by the professional schools they attend after graduating. I talk to professors and ask them how our students perform, and they are very complimentary of our graduates.

When did you decide chemistry was a subject you wanted to study?
I became fascinated with it while I was in high school. When I went to college I started taking serious science courses and that’s when I truly became drawn to it. I was always interested in nature.

Has the passion for the study of science diminished nationally?
You have to understand when the atomic bomb was dropped in World War Two, I was a junior in high school. The interest in sciences intensified greatly thereafter right through to the Space Race. The reason for being a scientist is finding something new. You have to give up some of your pre-conceived notions and learn new things. I think we’ve lost that sense of challenge.

Are incoming college students afraid of chemistry as a subject? Why should they not be?
A lot of kids are scared to death of chemistry and, honestly, I think the fear gets set on them in high school. I tell every class upfront, ‘You don’t need to memorize the periodic table of elements’ because the whole table is available on the classroom wall and your textbook. You need to learn how to think for yourself! For instance, you will hear TV advertisers insisting a product is great because it is “natural.” But arsenic, cocaine, and poison hemlock are natural but are deadly. Antibiotics are often synthetic but can cure you of terrible diseases. Use your own mind to decide what is true and what is false. I want them to know chemistry is the basis of everything. It is not hard if you approach it with the right attitude because it is fascinating to study.

Why is chemistry a good and important discipline in our world?
We try to teach young people about science. In the Scientific Method, you ask a question, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, change the hypothesis when it does not explain the all the facts and continue until the phenomenon is explained by the hypothesis. Then, you have a theory. An important thing to understand is, a theory is not set in concrete. It is open to change when new facts come out.