Catherine Boczkowski Papers

Catherine Boczkowski was born in Ireland in 1938. She received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1963 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1967 from the University of Wales. She was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship for her post-doctoral research at the University of Notre Dame.

Catherine began her tenure at Lawrenceville in 1977 as a math and physics teacher. She moved to chemistry the next year. She became the first women to serve as a department head at Lawrenceville. She chaired the Science Department from 1980-1990, served as the School's dean of faculty from 1995-2004, and then returned to full-time teaching.

Her contributions to Lawrenceville were wide ranging and helped to shape the character and future of the School. From 1985-1987, she was part of the Steering Committee for Coeducation, which led The Lawrenceville School in its transition to s coeducational institution. She also served on an assortment of long-range planning, curriculum development, and other institutional committees; and she founded and directed the Lawrenceville Summer Science Institute, a program funded by corporate grants for talented area youth.

In 1992, Boczkowski won a scholarship to the corporation-sponsored Partners in Science Program to undertake two summers of research in chemistry at Princeton University. This experience inspired her to develop a Chemistry Research Seminar for advanced science students at Lawrenceville, allowing them to participate in research with professors and graduate students at Princeton. It also inspired her to develop, with help from her Lawrenceville colleagues, the School's research-based science curriculum. In collaboration with Princeton Teaching Associates Inc., she also developed software to help teachers meet the demands of upper-level courses.

Boczkowski's work with students was not restricted to the classroom. She was an advisor to the Dickinson, Kirby, McPherson, Reynolds, Stanley, and Upper East houses during her Lawrenceville tenure. She was the advisor to the National Chemistry Olympiad and State Science Day teams, co-founded the student Harlem Renaissance Club, and was the first advisor to Women in Leadership at Lawrenceville. Boczkowski received numerous honors. She was given citations from MIT and Stanford universities as the teacher "most influential in guding the science career of outstanding university student"; was one of only nine U.S. educators to receive an award from the College Board for Outstanding Teaching in the Advanced Placement program; was the first secondary school teacher ever to be asked to join the Advisory Board of Reseach Corp., a private scientific research firm; was recognized by the League of Women Voters of Lawrence Township as one of the community's most outstanding women; and was presented with The Rider University Sigma Xi Award.

She died on November 28, 2011.