Montana Section – American Chemical Society
October 28, 2006 Executive Committee Minutes
Dawn Bregel – Interim Secretary
The Executive Committee of the Montana Section of the American Chemical Society met on Sunday, October 28 at Chico Hot Springs Resort as part of the agenda for the Fall Social.
Those present at the meeting were:
Kyle Strode – Chair
Earle Adams – Chair Elect
Tony Haag – Treasurer
Dawn Bregel – Interim Secretary
Doug Coe – Alternate Councilor
Doug Cameron
Gary Freebury
The meeting was called to order at 9:40 AM.
Specific Items of Discussion
1)Skeleton notes from the Spring Meeting (April 1, 2006, CarrollCollege, Helena, MT)
(a) Graduate and undergraduate outstanding presentation awards increased from $500 to $750.
Grad. student awards at the spring meeting went to John Deming (UM) and Mark Hughes (UM).
Undergrad. students award went to Lucas Meuchel (CarrollCollege).
(b)Discussed ways to use funds from NSF EPSCoR Innovative Grant, which provides seed money to jump-start projects. Montana Section has received funding through this program, but it hasn’t been used in the past two years. Steve Eversoll has expressed some interest in using Innovative Grant funds to run a summer workshop for high school chemistry teachers.
(c)Teachers involved in Chemistry Olympiad will receive a personal subscription to Journal of Chemical Education if their school library already receives the journal. Steve Eversoll is in charge of this, and will submit the names of teachers to the section.
(d)Discussed the idea of a section sponsored debate on coal liquefaction and gasification. Perhaps hold in the Billings area. The goal would be to inform the public about the topic.
2)Letterto student travel award winners
Kyle Strode proposed that Spring Meeting student travel award winners be provided with a letter explaining how to deal with their travel expenses. The rest of the meeting attendants supported the idea. Kyle will write the letter and have it ready to give to students award winners at the spring meeting.
3)Update on NSF EPSCoR Innovative Grant
(a)Earle Adams reported that Steve Eversoll will hold his summer workshop for high school chemistry teachers at CanyonFerryLake on August 8-9, 2007. At least 6 teachers have agreed to participate. There will be some college professor involvement (Cracolice and Deming from UM). Steve will receive some Innovative funds from MT ACS to help with the costs of the workshop.
(b)Earle made a request for new ideas for another Innovative grant. Doug Coe suggested a joint meeting between the Montana, Wyoming and Idaho sections. Alternative energy was suggested as a special focus of the meeting. Another suggestion was to focus on hot topics in chemistry common among the Rocky Mountain states (prions, alternative energy, environment…). There was discussion of when to have the meeting (fall and early May were two suggestions) and how long the meeting should be (one suggestion was Thu afternoon, all day Friday and the first part of Saturday to allow for some time for tourist activities). Earle and Doug Coe will work together to do the initial groundwork and contact the other sections. If there is significant interest in a joint meeting, it will be written up and submitted as a 2007 Innovative Grant.
4)Continuation of the discussion of a sponsored debate on coal liquefaction/gasification.
Doug Coe and Doug Cameron agreed to work together to assemble a committee to plan this event. Kyle Strode will send them an electronic copy of his PowerPoint presentation on coal liquefaction to bring them up to speed.
5)Treasurer’ report
(a)Tony Haag distributed copies of the treasurer’s report. The section is in good financial standing.
(b)Tony requested that an end of the year internal audit be conducted (someone else from the section looks over the financial documents). All present at the meeting agreed. It was decided that the Chair and Councilorwill do this because they sign off on the financial report each year.
6)NORM (Northwest Regional Meeting) board update – Doug Cameron
(a)The board wants a representative from each section within the region. Doug Cameron currently serves as the representative from the Montana section and will do so for one more year. His replacement will be Dawn Bregel, who will begin service at the June 2008 NORM meeting.
(b)The NORM board is working on the Excellence in Chemistry Teaching Award (for outstanding high school teachers). Each section chooses a winner, who then competes at the regional level for the opportunity to compete at the national level. The discussion at the executive committee meeting focused on how to effectively solicit nominations for the Montana award. Currently Micron notifies all teachers. It was suggested that members of the Montana section contact high school principals and general chemistry teachers at colleges (who would solicit students for nominations). Doug Cameron agreed to send an announcement to each school. The executive committee agreed on a February 1, 2007 deadline for submission of nominations. The executive committee will then vote at the 2007 Spring Meeting. Nominations for the regional award must be submitted by April 1, 2007.
7)Councilor’s report from the Spring 2006 National ACS Meeting – Doug Coe
Doug Coe served as councilor in place of Cyd McClure. His report is posted to the Montana ACS website. One item specifically mentioned by Doug was that number of signatures required to get a name on the ballot for ACS President has been increased from 300 to 1500.
8)Montana section website
The website for the section will soon have a new address: MontanaACS.org
The site will still be hosted by Montana Tech, but there will now be a minimal charge of $10/month to maintain the site.
9)Elections
The committee discussed nominations for three positions: treasurer, secretary and chair elect. Tony Haag was nominated as the candidate for treasurer (re-election). Dawn Bregel was nominated as the candidate for secretary. Janice Alexander (FlatheadCommunity College) was suggested as the top candidate for nomination as chair elect. She will be contacted to verify her willingness to serve in this position. Kyle Strode will send out ballots to section members.
10)2007 Fall Social
Kyle Strode suggested that the 2007 Fall Social be held at Chico Hot Springs at the end of October. Those present at the meeting concurred.
11)2007 Spring Meeting
Kyle Strode suggested that the Spring Meeting be held at UM. If not at UM, then the meeting would return to Montana Tech. Earle Adams offered to discuss the possibility of a holding the meeting at UM with his colleagues there.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 AM.
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