Approved Minutes 03.12.05
American Chemical Society's Division of Chemical Information (CINF)
Executive Committee Meeting
Saturday, August 21, 2004, Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA
1:05 - 5:05 PM
The Executive Committee was called to order by Chair, Pamela Scott, at 1:05 PM. The agenda was distributed. Two changes on the agenda were made: ‘salary survey’ moved in section 1, and a guest presentation added for 3 PM
Those present for the meeting were as follows:
Executive Committee voting members:
Ms. Pamela Scott, Chair 2004
Ms. Eileen Shanbrom, Chair Elect 2005
Mr. Chuck Huber, Past Chair 2003; Nominating Chair
Ms. Svetlana Korolev, Secretary 2004-06
Ms. Marge Matthews, Treasurer 2003-04; Finance Chair
Ms. Bonnie Lawlor, Councilor 2004-06
Ms. Joanne Witiak, Councilor 2003-05; Audit Chair 2003-04
Dr. Alan Engel, Membership Chair 2004-06
Dr. Osman Güner, Program Chair 2003-05
Committee Chairs and visitors:
Dr. William Town, Awards Chair 2003-05
Dr. Philip Barnett, Careers Chair
Ms. Andrea Twiss-Brooks, Constitution, Bylaws & Procedures; Salary survey 2004
Ms. Leah Solla, Education Chair 2003-05
Dr. Guenter Grethe, Fundraising Chair 2003-05; Biotechnology Secretariat Liaison
Mr. Bruce Slutsky, Publication Chair 2003-05
Susan Cardinal, Salary survey 2004
Terry Wright, incoming Program Chair 2005-06
Erja Kajosalo, incoming Program Assistant Chair 2005-06
Patricia Kirkwood, incoming Treasurer 2005-06
1. Introductions
The new functionaries were introduced:
· Terry Wright, incoming Program Chair 2005-06,
· Erja Kajosalo, incoming Program Assistant Chair 2005-06,
· Patricia Kirkwood, incoming Treasurer 2005-06
a. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting.
The minutes of the Spring 2004 Executive Committee meeting were approved with
a minor correction: in Programs the division received $700 for contributing to the ACS Presidential program.
Action item: The Secretary will obtain the ACS guidelines for minutes from Grace Baysinger.
b. Election results
The 2004 election results were announced:
· Osman Güner - the Chair Elect 2005,
· Patricia Kirkwood - the Treasurer 2005-06.
The question was raised whether these results could be accepted because of the member complaints on listing only one candidate for each position on the ballot. (Note: the unusual situation happened because of one candidate withdrawing at the last minute). The committee voted to accept the 2004 election results, as there was no demand for re-election and the Executive Committee felt that we had the very best candidates.
Action item: To avoid having only one candidate for an office in the future, the Nominating Committee Chair will include more people on the committee so that a larger pool of candidates can be confirmed and placed on the ballot.
c. Salary survey (Susan Cardinal)
Associate Research Institute was contacted to do the 2004 salary survey. There were 367 responses, 330 of which were valid. The mean salary was $80,500, which is up 23% in comparison with the 2000 survey. The project will be completed in about six months.
Action Item: When the results of the Salary Survey are complete they will be available on the CINF web site free for division members and for print-on-demand purchase. The Treasurer will help in distributing it.
2. Division Business
a. Regional Meetings (Osman Güner)
In 2004 CINF is participating in three Regional Meetings in Programs at:
1. CRM [Central Regional Meeting, Indianapolis, IN] - Gary Wiggins,
2. NERM [Northeast Regional Meeting, Rochester, NY] - Susan Cardinal,
3. SWRM [Southwest Regional Meeting, Fort Worth, TX] - Dr. Rita
Wilby, $500 sponsorship will be given for a lecture and travel;
Also, the Education committee will be conducting a Workshop at:
4. SERMACS [Southeastern Regional Meeting, of the Two-Year College Chemistry Committee, Research Triangle Park, NC].
In 2005 CINF will be contributing to one Regional Meeting in Programs at:
MARM (Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting, New Brunswick, NJ) - David Martinsen.
b. Local Sections/Divisional activities (Pamela Scott)
· Marge Matthews is the editor of ‘Catalyst’, Philadelphia Local section magazine.
· An invitation to participate in the ACS “Minority Affairs” committee was received. Let Pamela know if interested.
c. Communications (Pamela Scott)
The ‘Yahoo!’ discussion group for CINF Functionaries was established in May 2004. A problem on a “Reply-to” function was reported. The communication functions of the CINF web site need to be expanded: each Committee should be able to manage its web pages. The problem is that ‘Microsoft Front Page’ must be used to edit the site, while many people at academia use ‘Dreamweaver.’
Action Item: Pamela will set up a conference call with Alan, Andrea, Kerryn and Leah to discuss the management of committee web pages.
d. Other business (Pamela Scott)
The society is seeking feedback on the best communication channels and practices to work with divisions and co-sponsoring organizations.
Comment: Perhaps, the ACS could make a separate list of all divisional meetings as it receives a ‘co-sponsorship agreement’ form, post the list at the ACS ‘Meetings’ web site, and keep it current. Also, the approval time for a ‘co-sponsorship agreement’ form needs to be reduced.
3. Committee and Officer Reports
a. Audit (Joanne Witiak)
The division finances are in order. The 2004 report is available at the Committee web site.
b. Awards (Bill Town)
· A recipient for The 2005 Herman Skolnik Award was selected. This year the Award Jury worked differently: the number of jurors was increased by awardees from the previous years, and the selection process was communicated via email. The announcement will be made after confirmation of its acceptance, and after the 2004 Herman Skolnik symposium on Tuesday.
· A revision of The Herman Skolnik Award criteria was proposed.
Action Item: Bill will send the revised Herman Skolnik Award criteria for review and vote of the Executive Committee.
· It was also proposed and accepted that nominations for the Herman Skolnik award be valid for three years automatically without re-submission.
· Lucille Wert Scholarship criteria - a change from ”chemistry” degree to “chemistry and related disciplines” was proposed and accepted.
· The nominations for the 2005 Meritorious Service Award are being sought, and are due March 1, 2005.
· New Committee members were named: Marge Matthews, Bartow Culp and Guenter Grethe. The Executive Committee voted to name Guenter Grethe the Assistant Chair 2005, and the Awards Chair 2006-08.
c. BTEC [Biotechnology Secretariat http://acs-btec.org] (Guenter Grethe)
The division is contributing on ‘Genomics and proteomics’ theme at the present ACS Meeting in Philadelphia. It will not be participating for the next two years due to the lack of relevancy in programming on ‘Biological chemistry in extreme environments’, ‘Biosensing technology’ and ‘Nanobiotechnologies.’
d. Careers (Phil Barnett)
· Starting 2004 the Careers symposium will be held every third National meeting instead of every fall to alternate presentations to the East and West coast audiences. The call for abstract submission for a symposium in San Diego will be placed shortly. In the past ACS has been having their spring meetings in the west and the fall meetings in the east. In 2006 they are reversing the locations of the two national meetings, meaning we may have to change our schedule to accommodate our goal of alternating east and west locations.
· A website on ‘Careers in Chemical Information’ was launched. Please send additional resources to Phil.
· SANDRA issue – For a few years Phil has been trying to get permission from the MDL Information Systems (and Beilstein Institute) for SANDRA software to make it publicly available, i.e. at the Chemical Information Clearing House web site. Dr. René Deplanque, Managing Director of FIZ CHEMIE Berlin, volunteered to contact Dr. Martin Hicks of the Beilstein Institute to try to obtain permission for public mounting of SANDRA.
· A poster is being postponed for a year while Patricia Meindl is on a leave.
e. Constitution, Bylaws & Procedures (Andrea Twiss-Brooks)
· Bylaws: two areas need to be addressed:
§ To make a more general description in referring to an ‘old’ Journal of the Chemical Information and Computer Science,
§ To adopt of the Society’s statement on certification for ‘Retired and Emeritus’ membership categories.
The Executive committee voted to approve the nature of the proposed changes.
· Procedural manual: revisions will be made in individual sections by a committee or a group consisting of the present Committee Chair, Assistant Chair, & Past Chair.
Action Item: Andrea will send sections of the Procedural manual for revisions via CINF Yahoo group shortly.
f. Council (Bonnie Lawlor, Joanne Witiak)
An electronic version of a report on the Council Agenda was sent to the Executive Committee members in July. All items on the current agenda were discussed at the previous meeting in Anaheim. The petitions to be voted upon by Council are for:
Electronic Balloting: to allow ACS to issue ballots electronically to ACS members for ACS National elections.
Change Division Annual Report Deadline: to change the deadline from March 15 to February 15 to put the Division deadline in alignment with that of Local Sections and give the Committee on Divisional Activities time to evaluate the reports in making selections for the ChemLuminary Awards.
Membership Requirements for Teachers: to allow pre-college chemistry teachers to become
ACS members based upon their status and experience. It will also allow pre-college chemistry or allied science teachers to become associate members.
Section Name Change: to change a name from the Peoria Local Section to the Illinois Heartland Local Section, to reflect geographic region coverage much beyond Peoria.
The CINF Executive Committee voted in support of Electronic balloting, Change Division Annual Report Deadline, and Membership Requirements for Teachers.
Request for CINF Councilors: please inform if the LABA (Division of Laboratory Automation) adoption by CINF would be discussed at the Council meeting.
g. Education (Leah Solla)
· Programs: a symposium on ‘Scholarly publishing: initiatives and electronic publishing’ is organized on Sunday at the present Meeting in Philadelphia. A symposium on ‘Intellectual property’ is planned for a National Meeting in Washington, DC. It may be possible to expand the program format beyond symposia, i.e. a panel discussion.
· Workshop: Seven people registered for a workshop at the National Meeting in Philadelphia. In November a workshop will be presented at SERMACS (of the Two-Year College Chemistry Committee) in Texas. Next year, a more practical base session is planned for the Spring National Meeting in San Diego. The options to publicize a workshop are being explored.
· The committee’s web site is done almost off line. Also, the structure and revisions for the materials at the Chemical Information Clearing House were examined. The committee will work with the Journal of Chemical Education, which has a grant. In addition to a workshop, vendors offering classes will be listed.
· Committee Membership changes: Susan Cardinal and Song Yu will be the Assistant Chairs 2005 and co-Chairs 2006-08.
h. Finance (Marge Matthews)
· Dues for ‘retired’ members: ACS is already collecting it.
· LABA: the Division of Laboratory Automation was dissolved in June 2004. In response to the Society’s call, CINF put a proposal to adopt ~314 LABA members. CINF is supposed to receive $1 per a new member, which has not happened yet. [This item will be discussed in Membership, too].
· 2005 budget: a spreadsheet was distributed. A few changes were made in expenses:
§ ‘speaker registration’ increased for $1000 total, which is spent to cover registration fees for invited speakers, who are non - ACS members, $75/person.
§ ‘luncheon equipment’ entry moved to the ‘social events’ category, under ‘fundraising allotment.’
§ ‘Meritorious service award’ reduced to $ 200.
§ ‘free brochures’ $200 added.
§ ‘Herman Skolnik Award travel’ removed.
Action Item: The Committee Chairs need to review the budget and send changes to Eileen within two weeks. A revised version of the 2005 budget will be sent for approval shortly.
Marge was thanked for her outstanding work as the CINF Treasurer for ten years.
i. Fundraising (Guenter Grethe)
The committee business is in an excellent shape.
· Since 2004 the committee is operating on a separate budget within the division budget to build –up funds. The division gets two kinds of donations:
§ Associated directly with an event (either a sponsoring organization pays to ACS directly or CINF receives a bill);
§ A discretionary fund, which can be used for a general support in programming, young scientists, etc.
This year the division got $14,000 (last year it received $10,000) with a surplus of about $15,000, reaching a goal for discretionary funds - $20,000.
· A new Fundraising Chair is needed. It should be a person with good industry contacts. Guenter will be chairing the committee for one more year in 2005.
Guenter was thanked for his excellent job as the Fundraising Chair.
j. Historian
Val and Pamela planned a visit to the Chemical Heritage Foundation on Monday, 08.23.
k. Membership (Alan Engel)
· A draft of a revised brochure was distributed. A few comments were made, i.e. on adding a ‘retired’ members category, information on education and careers resources.
Action Item: Additional comments to the revised membership brochure need to be sent to Alan within ten days.
· LABA: a proposal to adopt the Division of Laboratory Automation membership was sent to ACS in May. The proposal included three points in support:
§ The mission statements of both divisions are similar. CINF is revising its mission statement to be more inclusive;
§ CINF programming strongly supports the inclusiveness toward LABA topics;
§ CINF will encourage the LABA membership to become involved in all aspects of the division, including the corresponding committees.
Action Item: A welcome letter, highlighting the CINF mission, opportunities in programming and future plans, will be sent to the LABA membership. Additional suggestions for a letter need to be sent to Alan within 10 days.
l. Program (Osman Güner)
· Membership: Brian Vikery, David Evans and Osman are retiring. Chuck Huber and Jan Williams are joining in 2005. Terry Wright will be the Chair 2005-06, Erja Kajosalo - the Assistant Chair. There is one opening.
· Ninety-eight papers in twelve–and-a-half day symposia will be presented at the present National Meeting in Philadelphia. For contributing to a presidential initiative on ‘graduate education’ poster session CINF received $700 (plus $350 left from the previous contribution), which was used for twelve (a record!) registrations of invited speakers. This year the division is contributing to BTEC.