Fifty Years of the James Flack Norris Award. The Foundations of Physical Organic Chemistry.

ORGN and HIST along with the Northeastern ACS local section are sponsoring a Symposium at the Spring 2014 ACS National Meeting in Dallas on the topic “Fifty Years of the James Flack Norris Award.  The Foundations of Physical Organic Chemistry.”  The symposium will take place on Monday, Mar. 17, at the convention center hotel, the Omni Dallas. Since this hotel is connected by a second floor skybridge with the convention center where ORGN talks are scheduled, it should be easy for ORGN members to get there. The opening comments will be made by the Chair of the Northeastern section, Catherine Costello. There will be an opening talk on Norris himself by Arthur Greenberg, who has some previously unknown information on Norris. There will follow seven presentations by early Norris award winners Edward Arnett, Ron Breslow, Andrew Streitwieser, Jr., John Brauman, Paul Schleyer, Kendall Houk, and Mike Wasielewski. The symposium concludes with a panel discussion featuring four recent winners of the award: Matthew Platz (this year’s winner), John Baldwin, Ned Porter, and Hans Reich, plus additional panelists Jack Roberts and Mike Wasielewski. Besides the lineup speakers, the ACS President, Tom Barton, has supported this symposium with a presidential grant, and he has designated it as a “president recommends” event.