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Jorge Ibáñez, Professor, Department
of Science, Iberoamericana University, Mexico
Lecturing: Instrumental Analysis Lab, General Chemistry,
Environmental Chemistry Lab
Research: Electroosmotic Transport and Monitoring
of Pb in Soils
Host: Loyola University Chicago, IL
July 2000-July 2001
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Chemistry
professor Jorge Ibanez says a year of teaching and lab work at
Chicago's Loyola University kept him even busier than his demanding
schedule at his home institution in Mexico City-yet it was "one
of the best years we have had as a family."
Ibanez was a little surprised by his family's enthusiasm for
life in the States. He was accompanied not only by his wife Luz
Teresa and their daughters Lucia, 10, and Georgina, 14-but at
various times by his nieces Anali, 15, Urzula, 12, and Tania,
11, and his nephew Juan Carlos, 16, as well. Their parents had
asked Ibanez and his wife to provide the youths with "exposure
to U.S. culture and language," and they readily agreed, in
the belief that international understanding starts at home. Not
only did the children improve their English and enjoy exploring
Chicago; they also threw themselves into table tennis, basketball,
volleyball and swimming at Loyola's Sports Center. In fact, Ibanez
entered a university-wide table tennis tournament himself, and
made the finals!
But the indefatigable professor spent most of his time teaching
(four courses in microscale environmental chemistry, analytical
chemistry and general chemistry) and pursuing research in the
electrochemical monitoring of lead in soils at Loyola, where he
developed an environmental chemistry lab at the microscale level
from scratch. He also made time for guest lectures at colleges
in West Virginia and Texas, traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan and
Cleveland to present papers to the Chemical Education Biennial
Meeting and the International Association of Jesuit Schools of
Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and had one paper published.
He is now working on a book that he says will include some of
the experiments he conducted at Loyola.
There were several unexpected bonuses, as well: As a result of
his Fulbright affiliation, the Rockefeller Foundation invited
Ibanez to submit an application for an expense-paid month at its
Study Center in Italy. And he has forged close personal friendships
with several Loyola colleagues, two of whom have already visited
him in Mexico City; he also plans to welcome a Loyola student
researcher to his home institution, the Universidad Iberoamericana,
in the near future.
Ibanez also considers himself lucky to have found a congenial
parish and a school for his children in Chicago that shared his
values. He was completely overwhelmed by the generosity of a parishioner
who not only rented a house to Ibanez, but furnished it with items
borrowed from his friends and family, and even threw in a car!
"He allowed us to use the car for free for two months, then
sold it to me very cheap, and signed a contract to buy it back
(at the year's end) so that I would not have to hassle with selling
it."
Looking back over his Fulbright year, "I'm proud and awfully
satisfied," he says.
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