Claude E. WintnerOrganic Chemistry Reference Lectures

Claude Wintner was widely acknowledged as one of the most effective communicators of organic chemistry of his era.  He had a gift for explaining complex ideas in simple terms, and he considered it a vocation to search for new and better ways to transmit them.  Essentially from the beginning of his career, and at every institution where he taught, whenever there was a college-wide course critique or evaluation procedure, his courses consistently would appear in the top rung, even while being rated as difficult.  His success is well encapsulated in a little story.  Two graduate students were discussing the merits of their respective undergraduate organic chemistry professors, each — one from Haverford, the other from Harvard – insisting that his was the best.  As it turned out, they were arguing about the same person: Claude Wintner.
 

At the end of his career my husband prepared this set of reference lectures on organic chemistry specifically for streaming video on the internet.  He was well ahead of his time in envisioning and carrying out this large project in 2000-2001, for this was just at the dawn of the era when it became possible to do this in a college/university setting.  He considered these lectures to be the summation of a life’s effort to communicate the essence and the beauty of the subject he so loved.  He lives on in them.  Use them, and enjoy them!

—Martha C. Wintner