Colleagues and students,
I am saddened to share the news of John Woolcock's death on Tuesday, January 29, 2013.
While I did not have the opportunity to get to know John until late in his career, I quickly learned that he was a great man, an inspiration to IUP's students, and an incredible colleague.
John was a member of the IUP Chemistry Department for 29 years, serving as department chair from 2005 to 2011. He had been very active at IUP and was especially involved in programs that promoted teaching excellence and mentoring faculty. That involvement included serving as co-director of the Reflective Practice Project and interim co-director of the Center for Teaching Excellence. He was also a member of the Project ChemLab Committee of the American Chemical Society's Chemical Education Division.
In recognition of his involvement in many university and College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics committees and projects, he received his college's Outstanding Achievement Award for service in 1999. Recently, he was honored by the Center for Teaching Excellence with a university teaching award named for him.
He was active in scholarship, with 12 publications, numerous presentations, and six funded external grants totaling more than $420,000.
Most important, he leaves a legacy of being dedicated to his students and helping his colleagues to achieve success.
In the words of one of his coworkers, “John was always helpful, always available, and always went out of his way to help. He was the kind of colleague who actually assigned himself to work at the Northpointe campus because he wouldn't assign one of his colleagues to a difficult job that he hadn't done himself.”
Friends will be received from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. and 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday at Robinson-Lytle Inc., Indiana. On Sunday, a celebration of life service will be held at 2:00 p.m. at Robinson-Lytle, with the Rev. Arthur C. Dilg officiating.
Memorial contributions may be made in John's memory to the Foundation for IUP, G1 Sutton Hall, 1011 South Drive, Indiana, PA 15705-1046.
Michael A. Driscoll
President
P.S. An obituary in the Indiana Gazette has more information about John.