About Professor William H. Reusch

Professor William Henry Reusch devoted his life to chemistry, education, and the belief that knowledge should be shared freely. Long after most professors would have stepped away from academia, he continued to walk the halls of Michigan State University, spending quiet hours in his department office, attending seminars simply for the joy of learning, and exchanging ideas with colleagues and friends. Retirement, for Bill, was never an ending. It was an opportunity to continue building.

Education and early career

Born in 1931, Reusch's scientific journey began at the University of Michigan, where he earned a B.S. in Chemistry in 1953. He completed his doctoral work in 1957 at Columbia University under renowned chemist Gilbert Stork. He was an NSF Fellow (1957–58) at Imperial College, London, with Derek Barton, and an NIH Fellow (1965–66) at Stanford University with Carl Djerassi.

His early research focused on organic synthesis, strained-ring compounds, and novel materials chemistry. Over the decades, he guided dozens of graduate students and became known not only as a skilled scientist but also as a patient and deeply thoughtful teacher. His research interests included:

1. The development of new synthetic procedures and the application of these and other conventional methods to the synthesis of natural products or their analogs.
2. Using readily available compounds, both natural and manufactured, to prepare novel materials — for example, polyesters (either alone or as blends with polyethers) as components of polymer electrolytes; and poly-3-hydroxyalkanoates, natural polyesters that appear ideal for that purpose.

In general, this kind of work requires skilled experimentalists who have a broad knowledge of reactions, are well-versed in separation techniques, and can apply a variety of spectroscopic measurements to the characterization of new compounds.¹

An introduction to organic chemistry — on paper, then on the web

In 1977, Bill published An Introduction to Organic Chemistry, a traditional textbook written in an era when publishing was slow and errors were difficult to correct once a book reached print. That experience stayed with him. Years later, as digital technology began reshaping education, Reusch saw a new possibility: a living textbook that could evolve, improve, and remain accessible to anyone willing to learn. In the introduction to that book, he acknowledged a number of people — including Ronald Starkey, Peter Yates, Basil Wood, and Frank Lambert, and his wife Rosetta (Rose) Reusch — who were particularly helpful.

When he retired from Michigan State University in 2001 after more than forty years of teaching, many people expected him to slow down. Instead, he taught himself computer programming and began creating online organic chemistry problem sets.²

The Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry

What began as a small collection of interactive organic chemistry problems gradually grew into something remarkable — the Virtual Textbook of Organic Chemistry. Reusch spent years writing explanations, designing problem sets, and building interactive molecular visualizations. The project eventually expanded into thousands of problems and a complete online organic chemistry text, freely available to students around the world.

At a time when textbook prices were rapidly increasing, Reusch quietly created an alternative. Students could study aromaticity, alcohols, amines, reaction mechanisms, and spectroscopy without paying hundreds of dollars for a commercial textbook. Professors could adapt the material, reorganize chapters, and integrate it into their own teaching. Reusch believed that education worked best when barriers were removed.

He often described the project modestly, saying that after retirement he simply wanted "to keep busy doing something." But colleagues and students recognize the significance of what he had built. His work became part of the growing open-education movement and is praised not only for its accessibility, but for its clarity and depth.

Perhaps the most striking part of the story was how personally invested he remained in the project well into his nineties. Even decades after retirement, he continued revising chapters, updating content, and corresponding with educators who maintained and modernized the site. In emails to collaborators, he remained encouraging, curious, and generous. When portions of the site developed technical problems during the transition from older molecular applets to modern formats, Reusch immediately offered help, noting that he still had complete working files stored on his home computer and would gladly provide replacements.

He never treated the textbook as his possession alone. When a major educational publisher later approached him with an offer to purchase the content for a commercial platform, Reusch declined. He preferred seeing the work remain in the hands of the chemistry education community rather than turned over to "unknown authors." The openness of the project mattered to him as much as the chemistry itself. In 2022, he wrote the Organic Division web team leader: "Also, I am quite pleased to see it in the hands of the organic chemistry division of ACS."

A life of teaching, learning, and generosity

Those who knew Bill remember more than his scientific accomplishments. They remember a professor who continued coming to campus simply because he loved learning. They remember discussions about science, education, politics, and society shared between colleagues in department offices. They remember his humility, his precision, and the care he showed students and collaborators alike.

William Reusch passed away peacefully on May 3, 2026, at the age of ninety-four.³ By then, generations of students across the world had learned organic chemistry through the materials he created. His legacy lives not only in publications or research accomplishments, but in countless learners who encountered chemistry through a freely shared webpage, an interactive problem, or a carefully written explanation from a professor who believed education should be open to everyone.

For many educators, retirement marks the conclusion of a career. For Bill Reusch, it became the beginning of one of his most enduring contributions.