Department of Chemistry, Columbia University

George Kessler Fraenkel, a pioneering physical chemist who helped steer Columbia University through the student unrest of the 1960s and New York City’s financial crisis of the 1970s, died June 10th in Manhattan. He was 87.

Fraenkel served as Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1968 until 1983 and as Vice President for Special Projects from 1983 to 1986. He joined Columbia’s Department of Chemistry in 1949 and became Chairman of the Department in 1965. He returned to the Department in 1986 and remained until his retirement in 1991.

Dr. Fraenkel attended Harvard College, receiving his B.A. in 1942, Magna cum Laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. While he continued as a graduate student at Harvard for a short time after graduation, his studies were interrupted by his involvement in a scientific research project for the National Defense Research Committee of the Office of Scientific Research and Development. This work started at Harvard and, in 1943, was moved to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Dr. Fraenkel was in charge of developing sophisticated electronic equipment for the measurement of the explosive power of bombs. In 1948 he received the Army-Navy Certificate of Appreciation for his work.

In the fall of 1946 he returned to graduate school at Cornell University, where he received the Ph. D. in 1949.

At Columbia University, Professor Fraenkel developed unique high sensitivity, high resolution equipment to study electron spin (paramagnetic) resonance (ESR). He was one of the first chemists in this field, which has had important applications in understanding fundamental chemistry and the properties of many biological systems. Professor Ronald Breslow of the Columbia Chemistry Department, who was his colleague for 35 years, recalls that “George Fraenkel was a leader of the exciting young group of physical chemists who brought sophisticated modern theory and elegant experiments together. He was an intellectually creative and critical scientist, and he brought these qualities to his research and to his inspiring skill as a teacher.” Professor Herbert Strauss of the University of California, Berkeley, who took his Ph.D. at Columbia under the direction of Professor Fraenkel, said in reminiscence: “George Fraenkel’s scientific projects were at the cutting edge of the application of electron spin resonance spectroscopy to chemical problems and his laboratory was an exciting place for a young scientist. He was deeply committed to both research and his students. Unforgettable were stays in the laboratory together until 2 AM, wrestling with balky spectrometers.” Professor Jack Freed of Cornell University, also a former Fraenkel graduate student, said “George Fraenkel was a great inspiration to me in his enthusiasm, dedication, and integrity as a scientist and teacher. He introduced me to the wonders of magnetic resonance, in particular electron-spin resonance, and its possibilities to study motions of molecules in liquids. This has continued to be my own scientific focus during many years at Cornell.”

Professor Fraenkel became Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy and Pure Science at Columbia on February 1, 1968, just before the unrest that affected Columbia and many other universities in May 1968, unrest arising in part because of graduate student discontent. One of his first administrative successes was the renaming of the three separate Graduate Faculties as the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the amending of their by-laws to include student participation, followed by their consolidation as a single faculty in 1979. During his term, the Dean of GSAS handled all faculty hiring and all budgetary matters for all the Arts and Sciences schools: Columbia College, the School of General Education, the School of International Affairs (now SIPA) and of course the Graduate School. In his own estimation only 10% of his time was spent on purely Graduate School affairs. During much of his term he dealt with the fiscal crisis of the 1970s: with other administrators and faculty he focused on the University’s financial problems and ensured the survival of the University. He worked hard to decrease duplication of faculty expertise in the College, GS and GSAS. Much resentment resulted from the Arts and Sciences being led by the dean of one of the units, resentment of which Dean Fraenkel was well aware. Indeed, in 1977 he commissioned the “Rice Commission” Report, which recommended the unification of the Arts and Sciences schools and the creation of a Vice President and Dean of the Arts and Sciences, to whom all the school deans would report. This became a reality in 1984 after Professor Fraenkel left the deanship. From 1983 to 1986 Professor Fraenkel held the position of Vice President of Special Projects.

Dean Fraenkel was President of the Association of Graduate Schools (AGS) of the Association of American Universities in 1980, during the time it issued a definition of the Ph.D. degree.

Professor Fraenkel was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Xi. He was awarded the Harold C. Urey Award of the Gamma Chapter of Phi Lambda Upsilon (1972), and was elected to the Title of Officer dans l’Ordre des Palmes Academiques (1981). At the time of his death, he also served as Director and Treasurer of the Atran Foundation in New York City.

He is survived by his wife of 19 years, Eva Stolz Gilleran Cantwell, by six stepchildren, Patricia Gilleran, William Gilleran, Louis G. Gilleran, Eva S. Gilleran, Mary Anne Gilleran and Charles H. Gilleran, and one grandchild, Maeve Austin Gilleran.

Memorial Service for George Fraenkel - Wednesday, 9/16/09, 3 PM. St. Paul's Chapel, followed by a reception in the GSAS Graduate Student Lounge, 301 Philosophy Hall