Professor Focus

Dr. Glenn Palmer Professor of

Dr. Glenn Palmer graduated from the University of Toronto with both Bachelor and Master degrees in Science. He completed his Ph.D. at Queen’s University and he also has a Diploma from Imperial College for his research in London, England.

While he did his research at Queen’s, Dr Palmer lectured at the Royal Military College for three years. Although he was not in the Military, he was essentially treated as an officer rank. His reaction to this new-found position was, "One gets sick and iired of people saying YES SIR!’ and saluting." One associates the Royal Military College with infinite miles of running and other physical exercises. Dr. Palmer sympathized with the students, "Kids go to sleep in class from exhaustion. I wouldn’t be hard on them, but I do wake them."

Dr. Palmer chose to be a professor because he likes working with people. "I really enjoy working with students. I think it keeps one from getting stuck in ruts, from getting old.” His chemistry classes are growing larger to his frustration. "I don’t get to know students by names. Last year I ended up having to apologize to students in my class because I don’t know what their names are.”

It is typical for professors to ask, "Are there any questions?" at the end of classes. Dr. Palmer remembers one student replied with another intriguing question, ’What’s for dinner? "The class broke up!" he laughed.

When asked, "Is there anything about university life that you miss now?", he replied, "I went to universities before the age of calculators, I can say that I miss the slide-rule." Besides that,

universities of all periods have one main thing in common: the influence of professors. With this in mind, Dr. Palmer recalled two professors he had in Organic Chemistry. One of them gave him the inspiration to do graduate work. "The other professor made every effort to ensure that the students are never made to feel totally inadequate. One can make some awfully dumb mistakes. He would always make one feel that there’s some good part to what one has done. He never NEVER was totally negative of anything no matter how silly it was." Dr. Palmer hopes that he is able to do the same to all his students. He said, "It is important to understand people who make honest mistakes."

Students today take it for granted that all professors have the ultimate wisdom for all things. Dr. Palmer said, "Subjects that we are teaching now, we didn’t take when we were students." Although their knowledge may be immense, they are still humans.

Lurking in his student days is a Glenn Palmer who was very active when he lived in residence. He chuckled as he revealed, "Everybody clse assumed that I was going to fail first year. No-one ever saw me doing work because I was out a lot. | did study at other times, but no-one noticed."

And what is university life without romance? Dr. Palmer went on a blind date with a girl, and fell in love. As of Saturday, September 15, that girl will be his wife for 28 years. Congratulations! We, the Students, wish both Dr. and Mrs. Palmer all the best.

They have two children. One graduated with a music degree, and the other is currently doing graduate work in chemistry. "Not my idea!” Dr. Palmer declared. He thought that his son was going to study history but he was proven wrong when his son said, "Science." Any speculations of two Dr. Palmers in the Chemistry Faculty are put

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September 13th, 1990