Ithaca College

It saddens me to inform the campus community of the passing of Heinz Koch, a beloved member of the Department of Chemistry for many years, who died peacefully at his home in Ithaca, surrounded by his family, September 7, 2018.

Heinz joined the IC community in 1965 and spent the next 42 years sharing his love of chemistry with students in the classroom, in the laboratory and, through the publication of scholarly articles, with the world. Heinz was a staunch advocate for undergraduate research. A review of his publications shows more than 55 Ithaca undergraduate students as co-authors. He believed that students learned chemistry by doing chemistry, as evidenced by his teaching practice and research program. He was a founding member of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) and continued to publish scholarly research with undergraduate students well after his retirement in 2007. In recognition of his tremendous contributions to Ithaca College and its community of learners, Heinz was awarded the highly esteemed title of Professor Emeritus in 2009.

Please join me in keeping Heinz’s family and friends, his former colleagues in the chemistry department and in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and the many alumni he mentored as students, in our thoughts. He will be remembered fondly as an Ithaca icon and a teaching legend.

Funeral arrangements are pending and will be shared when they are finalized.

La Jerne Terry Cornish
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs