James Bonk
American educator
James Frederick Bonk (February 6, 1931 – March 15, 2013) was an American university professor noted for eschewing a research career in favor of teaching introductory chemistry courses for over 50 years, primarily at Duke University. He did, however, also teach advanced and graduate courses, and wrote his own textbooks and laboratory manuals. His students fondly labeled his main chemistry class Bonkistry.
Education and career
Bonk obtained a B.S. in Chemistry in 1953 from Carroll College (Waukesha, Wisconsin). He obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1958 from Ohio State University.
While a graduate student at Ohio State University, he received a DuPont Lecturing Fellowship that enabled him to teach there and to coordinate the teaching of introductory chemistry classes at OSU's branch campuses. He also taught summers at Muskingum College.
In 1959 he joined the Department of Chemistry at Duke University as an assistant professor and rose to the rank of full professor.
Bonk was known for his sense of humor. One oft-repeated story regarding him is that a group of students went out of town for a party and got back late, telling Bonk that they were delayed by a flat tire and thus missed an exam.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Bonk” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.