Vern Ostdiek was an Associate Professor at Benedictine College, where he had a joint appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. In addition to teaching courses in physics, mathematics, and computer science, he oversaw the Computer Discovery Lab. Vern was named Benedictine College's Educator of the Year in 1999. His research interests centered on the nocturnal dynamics of the lower part of the Earth's atmosphere. Past research topics include noctilucent clouds and frontal zones.
Don Bord is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. Prior to his appointment ay UMD in 1984, he taught at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, where his collaboration with Vern Ostdiek led to the development and publication of INQUIRY INTO PHYSICS, now to appear in its 7th Edition. Don has an abiding interest in physics and astronomy education, particularly as it pertains to laboratory instruction, and he has published several articles in The American Journal of Physics, The Physics Teacher, and Sky and Telescope in this area. He was also co-editor, with Clint Sprott, of the first edition of Great Ideas for Teaching Physics. Don's research focuses on determining the abundance of heavy and rare-earth elements in chemically peculiar stars and the Sun using high-resolution spectra. To support this effort, he has also performed ab initio atomic structure calculations to determine energy levels, oscillator strengths, and partition functions for many of the ions of interest. This work has involved collaborators from around the world, particularly those at the European Southern Observatory and the University of Vienna, as well as UMD undergraduates, and it has appeared in such journals as Physica Scripta, Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Solar Physics. He has been a recent participant in a reverberation mapping project lead by colleagues at The Ohio State University to establish black hole masses in active galactic nuclei. Don has also been active in campus administration, having served as department chair, associate dean for planning and faculty development, and interim dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters. In 2008, he was named Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at UMD, and currently serves as Associate Provost. He was the first recipient of the University of Michigan's Jacqueline Lawson Award for his contributions in the area of faculty governance.
