NESACS Board of Directors Meeting
Thursday, November 6, 2006
UMass Boston
Present: Morton Hoffman, Robert Lichter, Mary Burgess, Doris Lewis, Liming Shao, Don Rickter, Laila Dafik, Ivan Korendovych, Michaeline Chen, Dorothy Phillips, Esther Hopkins, Mary Mahaney, Vivian Walworth, Jim Piper, Gary Weisman, Tom Gilbert, Mukund Chorghade, Marietta Schwartz
Chair-Elect Mukund Chorghade called the meeting to order at 4:45 PM.
Ø The minutes of the October meeting were approved as written.
Ø Reports from Officers
o Chair – no report (Pam Mabrouk not present)
o Chair-Elect – reported o n plans for the Life Sciences Symposium, to be held March 30th. E.J. Corey has been added to the list of speakers. The venue will be the Kendall Square Marriott. The symposium will be largely funded by area pharmaceutical companies.
§ We had a very successful monthly meeting in October. Ann Nalley, ACS President, expressed great pleasure in joining us and getting better acquainted with the many, varied and intellectually stimulating activities of our section.
§ Plans are under way to attend leadership training and career services conferences in Dallas, Texas and Baltimore in 2007
§ The Life Sciences Symposium is in the final stages of planning. The meeting will be held on March 30. Robert Grubbs, (Caltech) and Steven Ley, Cambridge University have already accepted the invitation to speak.
o Secretary – no report (Michael Singer not present)
o Treasurer – budget requests are past due (still missing some). The budget committee will meet on December 21st. Income was $9,000; expenses were $26,000.
o Archivist – no report (Myke Simon not present)
Ø Report from Trustees – no report.
Ø Report from Councilors –
o in the national elections, no candidates from NESACS were victorious. It was also noted that there will be a runoff between the top two candidates for President-Elect of ACS (there were four candidates; no one had a majority). Everyone was reminded to vote. R. Lichter suggested a ranked form of voting in future – the national committee will be discussing that and other similar ideas.
Ø Membership Committee - M. Chen
o A total of 205 “Welcome New Member” letters were sent on 22 August 2006. There were 124 new members and 81 transfers from other sections to NESACS.
o 2 new members will attend Norris Award Dinner Meeting
Ø Education: Ruth Tanner
o Grants-in-Aid
§ The Education Committee has awarded Grants-in-Aid of $250 each to four undergraduates at colleges and universities within the Northeastern Section to enable them to attend the ACS National Meeting in Chicago, Illinois to present a paper at the Undergraduate Research Poster Session in the Division of Chemical Education on Monday, March 27, 2007. Matching funds have been committed by the institutions to support the students’ travel. The recipients are also required to participate in the Northeast Student Chemistry Research Conference (NSCRC) in April 2007.
§ The awardees, their research supervisors, and the titles of the papers are as follows:
§ Richard Hughes, Jr., Boston College, (Prof. Lawrence Scott) Towards the Synthesis of Armchair Carbon Nanotubes
§ Paresh Agarwal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Prof. Christopher Cummins)
§ An Isolable and Monomeric Phosphorous Radical that is Resonance-Stabilized by the Vanadium (IV/V) Redox Couple
§ Taryn Palluccio, Bridgewater State College (Prof. Stephen Waratuke) Hydroaminations of Alkynes, Enynes and Dienes Using Titanium Catalysts
§ Chaoyuan Kuang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Prof. Graham Walker) Regulation of Activity of E.coli Proteins UmuC and UmuD
§ Applications for the travel stipend are accepted from students majoring in chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering, or molecular biology who are in good standing with at least junior status, and are currently engaged in undergraduate research. Abstracts for the Undergraduate Research Poster Session must be received by electronic transmission at the ACS National Headquarters by November 14, 2006 (11:59 pm EST).
o Connections to Chemistry
§ The Connections to Chemistry program took place at Burlington High School (Burlington, MA) on Wednesday, October 18th, 3:30 – 8:00 PM. Each registrant participated in two of the five different workshops that were scheduled including a workshop on engineering in chemistry, a National Chemistry Week workshop on paints and coatings, and a workshop on starting a high school chemistry club, one of the new initiatives of the Education Division of the ACS. Terri Taylor, the Manager of the ACS Office of High School Chemistry in Washington welcome the participants on behalf of the American Chemical Society at the opening meeting and also gave the workshop on high school chemistry clubs. (Her office donated 150 of the canvas CHED bags for the program from the BCCE program held at Purdue University this past summer.) Dr. Daniel Nocera, Professor of Chemistry and W. M. Keck Professor of Energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave a very spirited evening address: The Energy Future of Our Planet which was followed by a raffle of American Chemical Society items (mugs and laser pen pointers), subscriptions to the Journal of Chemical Education (2 of which, were donated by the Journal) memberships in CHED (donated by CHED), and memberships in CTC (Chemistry Teacher Connection).
Ø
o Northeast Regional Undergraduate Day
§ The 15th ACS Northeast Regional Undergraduate Day scheduled for Saturday, November 4th at Boston University, to be hosted by the Chemistry Department and by the ACS Student Affiliate Chemia, was cancelled due to lack of student registrations. The Education Committee is trying to determine why there was no response to the usual announcements and registration materials sent to the various college and universities in the northeastern region. A preliminary announcement appeared in the September issue of THE Nucleus and an announcement was sent via e-mail using the student affiliate database being established by Ed Brush.
§ New England Undergraduate Environmental Research Symposium
§ The 5th annual New England Undergraduate Environmental Research Symposium was held at Bridgewater State College on Saturday, November 11, 2006. NESACS was a sponsor. A report on the symposium will be at the Board meeting in December.
o ACS Scholars
§ Robert Lichter will be joining the Education Committee as the ACS Scholar’s contact person. He will most likely take over for Mort Hoffman starting with the December NESACS meeting. An effort is being made to arrange for mentors for the Scholars.
Ø NCW Report: Christine Jaworek-Lopes
o Approximately 3000 individuals learned about NCW through the events held this year. The breakdown is as follows: ~450 individuals attended the kick-off event at Wellesley College, ~1500 individuals visited the Children’s Museum and ~1000 individuals visited the MOS on October 28, 2006.
o Over 100 volunteers from 12 different organizations (ACS members, Phyllis A Brauner Memorial Committee, Emmanuel College, Gordon College, Malden High School, Mass General Hospital, Merck Chemical Company, Northeastern University, Simmons College, Suffolk University, Tufts University, Wellesley College) contributed to the successful week.
o The NCW committee would like to offer Salutes to Excellence Awards to the following:
o Merck Chemical Company for financial support of the events as well as providing all the materials for the chromatography demonstration performed at the MOS-Boston.
o Boston Children’s Museum
o Museum of Science Boston
o Wellesley College
o As of November 14, 2006, only two puzzle solutions and 0 posters have been submitted as part of the contest.
o NCW 2007 will be from October 21 – October 27, 2007. The theme is The Many Faces of Chemistry. The kick-off event on October 21 will be held at the MOS as well as an outreach event on October 22. A third event will be held at the Children’s on October 27.
Ø Career Services – Professional Development: M. Chorghade
o The newly restructured Department of Career Services and Professional Development has finally agreed to the following symposia at National meetings from now on. Three standing symposia have been added: these will be presented in conjunction with CEPA, IUPAC
o .“To Ph. D. or not to Ph. D.-A Guide to the Perplexed Student?"
o “What does it take to succeed in the Pharmaceutical industry?"
o "Careers in Chemistry-Are there alternatives to working at a laboratory bench?"
o Experts will discuss job prospects and career success for chemists at various degree levels and various professional levels. Panelists include several professionals from the Northeastern section
o As an inaugural event, in collaboration with the Speaker’s bureau, we organized a program of resume reviews and short lectures focusing on current topics at the Section meetings in September and October. Two distinguished recruiters in our area offered valuable perspectives and 1:1 career counseling to members. The members were able to benefit from such networking: this will be a regular feature of section meetings in 2007.
o In general our members have provided positive feedback. Reproduced below are comments from one of our members who benefited from our programs:
o “My career counseling session with Dr. Chorghade began with some basic questions designed to engage me and focus me on clearly stating my objectives. The process of reviewing my CV began with an examination of its overall structure and an assessment of the impression of prospective screeners. This overview was followed by a detailed review focused on content, wording and vocabulary. I have read several books on resume writing and attended many workshops. The assistance that I received through ACS career services has been the most knowledgeable and helpful that I have experienced. While the improvements to my CV are significant, the feedback I received on my qualifications and search strategies were profound. The best part of the process is the quality of assistance and sincere caring of the counselor.”
Ø Awards – no report
Ø Brauner Lecture Committee – D. Lewis informed the Board that we have not yet heard the outcome of the proposed constitutional amendment regarding this committee. Also, no action was taken earlier regarding the Brauner book award after comments were received back from National. It seems better to resubmit both Brauner items as a package. She will continue working on it.
Ø Continuing Education – no report
Ø Corporate Funding Committee – D. Phillips had nothing to add to the written report.
Ø Esselen Award Committee – no report
Ø Health & Safety – no report
Ø Heyn Award – will be presented tonight to Vince Gale. Two of Arno’s children will attend the meeting.
Ø Medicinal Chemistry Group – the December meeting has been planned, with four speakers. Sepracor has donated $5,000 to help defray costs. The meeting will be held at Wellesley College.
Ø National Chemistry Week – no report
Ø Norris Award Committee – M. Schwartz reported that tonight’s meeting is all set to go – the awardee is in the building and hopefully everything will go smoothly.
Ø NERM – M. Hoffman reported that the event was held and was reported on in detail last month. There is still interest in holding a joint NERM/MARM meeting in a few years.
Ø Project SEED – no report.
Ø Richards Award – no report.
Ø Speakers’ Bureau – no report.
Ø Summerthing – no report.
Ø YCC - Laila Dafik was introduced as the new chair of the YCC. They are gaining membership. YCC expects to be quite active with the German exchange program this year.
Ø Old Business –
o there had been a question about the propriety of putting a picture of a candidate for national office on the cover of The Nucleus, especially when that candidate may be in a runoff ballot. The Board of Publications decided not to put the photo on the cover (especially since the person in question was not the speaker at the monthly meeting). M. Hoffman inquired as to whether any direction on the issue was received from National. He thought that general guidelines were normally sent to the Section Chair and to the Editor. V. Walworth will investigate. It was felt by the Board that decisions of this sort could be made by the Board of Publications in consultation with the Editor. M. Hoffman also noted that neither the October nor November issues of The Nucleus are on the web page as PDF files. D. Phillips pointed out that the October issue was supposed to be delayed until after the national election, that may explain it.
Ø New Business –
o M. Chorghade reported that he has applied to National for a grant to hold a Science Café in the Section. He also reported that the International Activities Committee of National is very impressed with NESACS for the Germany program. Work on similar programs with India and China is in progress; local sections (quite likely NESACS among them) will be involved. More information on this at a later meeting. R. Lichter reported that a symposium at the San Francisco National meeting premiered a film on the life of Percy Julian (produced by Nova). It will be shown again at the Washington meeting – tickets are required, but are available to anyone who asks. The entire film will be shown on Nova the week of February 6th. M. Chorghade asked if details could be sent to Marilou Cashman, who would then circulate it to the entire Board. [Note: this has been done.] M. Hoffman suggested purchasing a copy from WGBH after it has been shown and perhaps use it at a local program of some sort. R. Lichter noted that more information can be found at the Chemical Heritage website. (http://www.chemheritage.org/scialive/julian/index.html)
Ø The meeting adjourned at 5:15 PM.
Ø Respectfully submitted,
Ø Marietta Schwartz (Acting Secretary)
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