2011 Committee Reports:
2011 Spring ACS National Meeting in Anaheim

March 27-31, 2011

Councilor's Report

Membership Report

Polymer Preprints

Elections

POLYED Report

AkzoNobel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Chemistry Report

POLY – Councilor’s Report Anaheim 2011

R. Advincula , F. Blum, H. N. Cheng, W. H. Daly

At the Anaheim National Meeting (March 26-31, 2011), POLY was represented at the ACS Council by Bill Daly, H. N. Cheng, Frank Blum, and Gobet Advincula.  The following account summarizes some selected activities in the committees and groups that POLY Councilors are involved in.

General Topics: 
1.  In spite of the economic challenges in 2010, the ACS did well financially in 2010, with total revenue of $463.7 million, up +0.8% from 2009, and $2.4 million (+0.5%) higher than the 2010 budget.  This resulted largely from cost containment initiatives and lower-than-budgeted salaries and fringe benefits.

2.  The ACS Anaheim meeting attracted 14,047 registrants.

3.  The Council voted to set the member dues for 2012 at $148, with a slight increase to adjust for inflation. 

4.  The Council voted to authorize the formation of two new international chemical sciences chapters at Shanghai and in Thailand.  The ACS already has three international chapters in Hong Kong, Hungary, and Saudi Arabia. 

5.  A major initiative on entrepreneurship is being discussed, stimulated by the report of a task force appointed by 2010 ACS President Joe Francisco and headed by George Whitesides of Harvard.  The task force has made four major recommendations:  a) ACS should develop a “technological farmers’ market”, offering affordable (or free) help to entrepreneurs.  b) ACS should increase its advocacy of policies at the federal and state level to improve the business environment for entrepreneurs and startup companies. c) ACS should partner more vigorously with academic institutions and other relevant organizations to promote awareness of career pathways and educational opportunities that involve or include entrepreneurship.  d) ACS should increase public awareness of the value of early-stage entrepreneurship. 

6.  Council selected Drs. Marinda Wu and Dennis Chamot to be Candidates in the 2011 election for President-Elect 2012.  The election will be held in the Fall and decided by Member vote. 

Committee on Committees (H. N. Cheng)

The Committee on Committees (ConC) is responsible for the effective and efficient operation of Council-related committees.  At this meeting, a mini-review of committees was conducted.  In addition, the ConC handles specific tasks.  Several tasks of interest may be mentioned here:

1) The ConC Task Force on Senior Chemists is now headed by George Heinze.  A symposium on “Aging –A Trend and An Opportunity for the ACS” was held at Anaheim, which has been recorded.  The Tuesday breakfast meeting (with Harry Gray of Caltech as speaker) was sold out. 

2) A reimbursement policy for non-councilors participating in committees was approved by Council Policy Committee (CPC) and ConC.  More information will be available later.

3) ConC has approved the change in wording from "Chemical Technicians" to "Applied Chemical Technology Professionals" in the charter of the Committee on Technician Affairs.  This recommendation was accepted by the Council.

 
Meetings and Expositions Committee (W. H. Daly)

In spite of discreditably inclement weather and long transportation times from the hotels to the convention center, 88.8% of the attendees surveyed recommended that we return to Boston for future ACS meetings.  Thus the site selection subcommittee recommended that we retain our commitments to return to Boston in Fall of 2015 and 2018.  Pending Board approval the meeting will be held in San Antonio in Spring 2021 and will return to Boston in Fall 2021.

The Electronic Dissemination of Meeting Content (EDMC) continued to record sessions for distribution to the membership and meeting attendees.  In Anaheim, 825 presentations were targeted, 54% agree to have their presentations recorded, 29% declined and 17% did not commit prior to the meeting.  The presentations will be available at http://www.soft conference.com/ACSchem/.  Funding the project, which is well received by the membership, was discussed. Although the recommendation from the EDMC task force was to add the EDMC cost to meeting registration fees, the committee voted to use a subscription model, where those who access the presentations will pay for them.

Poster no shows continue to plague Sci-Mix and division poster sessions.  POLY has one of the highest percentages of poster no shows.  Program information can now be downloaded to smart phones so the need for printed programs is reduced. 

Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs (H. N. Cheng)

This committee deals with employment, career development, salary surveys, and public policy involving workforce issues.  Currently the unemployment is high, especially among new graduates.  The ACS is trying to help, with webinars, virtual career fair, and career fairs at national meetings.  ACS Career consultants are also available, if needed, to ACS members. 

MEMBERSHIP REPORT

The Membership Committee has been very active over the past year in developing new initiatives to attract new members and retain our exisitng membership.  Here is a brief summary of some of these activities.

A survey was undertaken in the fall of 2010 to gauge the importance of the current POLY activities to members, assess where they stand on certain issues and better understand how to grow and maintain the membership.    In all, 1,187 members (over 20 % of POLY members) completed the survey.   Findings show that, in general, members are active and involved in attending, presenting and organizing symposia at national meetings.  Participation in workshops and regional meetings is an area that can be improved.  The survey also showed that members still value resources like Polymer Preprints, and traditional networking at poster sessions, but are open to new opportunities for virtual networking and web based content.  Survey respondents also provided new insights and ideas for new activities through more open ended questions.  These suggestions are under consideration for new initiatives.

Newer members who responded to the survey tended to be less informed about services and benefits available to members.   At the same time, demographics show that POLY loses a significant number of members in their first 3 years.  Hence, we are targeting ways of engaging newer members.  Since this demographic indicated the most comfort with using social media as a form of communication, we are in the process of upgrading our presence on LinkedIn and Facebook. 

At the Spring 2011 National Meeting, we sent out e-mail invitations to newer POLY members inviting them to the POLY/PMSE Hospitality Suite to meet POLY Officers and find out how they can get more involved in the Division.  The event was a big success and we are working with PMSE to host a special reception for newer members at the Fall meeting. 

Kevin Cavicchi has replaced Deanna Pickel as coordinator of student chapters for POLY while she is on maternity leave.  Currently there are four active chapters:  the University of Michigan, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of South Carolina.  Kevin is working diligently on re-establishing the chapter at Clemson University, and forming new chapters at Virginia Tech, the University of Akron and the University of Massachusetts.  The goals this year are first to provide support to the existing chapters, and second to continue to expand new chapters to increase engagement of graduate students with POLY.  Student chapters provide networking and career development opportunities to their members. Currently we are accepting proposals from existing student chapters for financial support of their activities by the POLY Division. For those interested in starting a new chapter, further information and the necessary forms are available at http://www.polyacs.org/833.html.

Finally, POLY has initiated a membership drive for 2011-12. We are offering half-price memberships to members of the PMSE and Organic Divisions who are not currenly POLY members.  We also plan to reach out to individuals who have let their membership lapse to offer them the same deal.  Please pass the word.  

POLYMER PREPRINTS
Reddy Venumbaka, Editor

Polymer Preprints [52 (1), 2011] represents the sixth issue added to our ever-increasing web library on MIRA Digital Publishing company’s web-server. This issue of Polymer Preprints and the previous issues [Vol. 49 (2), Vol. 50 and Vol. 51] are available online at: http://submissions.miracd.com/acspolymer as well as through the ACS website. POLY members may access the content online at anytime using their user ID and a password.

It is also the third issue to be submitted, retrieved, and posted through the new ACS Program and Abstract Creation System (PACS). We continue to work with the staff at ACS to improve the process, applications, and options within. ACS continues to be accommodating and accepting of our evaluation of the new system. 

This issue contains preprints from 11 symposia for a total of 339 papers published on 625 pages. As we continually strive to elevate the stature of Preprints in the world of scientific publishing, we would appreciate hearing opinions and/or requests regarding accessibility and utilization of the online version as an aid in making improvements to future issues.

Texas State University-San Marcos continues to sustain the in-kind support of the Polymer Preprints editorial functions. We will be requesting funding at a level of $18,000/year.

The following table outlines the publication costs for Preprints:

ELECTIONS

The on-line POLY election was held Fall 2010 with a success of over 18% membership participation.  POLY anticipates a repeat performance with our 2011 on-line election.  The slate of candidates for the fall election has been selected by the nominating committee and approved by the Executive Committee and listed below for your review.  

An e-mail will be sent to all voting members this fall which will contain a web site address and login instructions for the on-line election.   If you do not have an e-mail address on file, a postcard with the information will be sent by mail.  If you would like to update your membership address or e-mail contact information, please contact ACS membership services at 1-800-333-9511 or e-mail: services@acs.org 

Vice Chair:
Kathryn L. Beers                 

      Polymers Division, NIST
Jeffrey Linhardt                  

      Bausch & Lomb

 

Treasurer:
Mark Dadmun
     University of Tennessee
Robson F. Storey
     University of Southern Mississippi

 

Councilor:
William H. Daly
     Louisiana State University
Warren Ford
     Oklahoma State University

Alternate Councilor 1:
Rigoberto Advincula
     University of Houston
Dana Garcia
     Arkema, Inc.

 

Alternate Councilor 2:
MaryAnn Meader
     NASA Glenn Research Center
Robert S. Moore
     Kodak (retired)

 

Alternate Councilor 3:
Christine Landry-Coltrain
     Eastman Kodak
David Germack
     Brookhaven National Lab

POLYED Report

John P. Droske and Charles E. Carraher, Jr. (POLYED Co-Chairs)

Detailed information about POLYED programs is available on-line at www.polyed.org 

Cliff Cockerham is this year’s winner of the  POLYED Award for Excellence in 6-12 Polymer Education. Dr. Cockerham is the Science Department Chair at Whites Creek High School in Nashville, TN. In his nomination materials, Cliff said “Polymer chemistry is literally everywhere in our daily lives…Polymer science is an ideal way to present chemistry to that “hardest to reach” audience that populates my school.”  Mary Harris and Anne Padias, co-chairs of the award committee, also have announced that they have begun accepting nominations for this year’s award. Applications are available at www.polyed.org. Congratulations, Cliff!

The ACS-Committee on Professional Training (CPT) recently has issued new guidelines for bachelor’s degree programs.  At CPT’s request, POLYED has organized a special task force to develop supplements to help faculty incorporate macromolecular science topics into the five foundational undergraduate chemistry courses. To date, two supplements have been provided to CPT. One addresses macromolecular science/polymer topics in Organic Chemistry courses and the other is for the Inorganic Chemistry foundational course. A physical chemistry supplement also is in preparation. The integration of polymers into these courses has long been a goal of POLYED. We ask all members of POLY and PMSE to help us communicate to CPT and others in ACS about the importance of including polymer/macromolecular science topics in the undergraduate chemistry curriculum.

A symposium entitled “Incorporation of Macromolecular Science/Polymeric Materials into the Foundational Course in Organic Chemistry” is being organized for the Philadelphia meeting. Contact Warren Ford or Bob Howell for more information about this symposium.

Dr. Rong Tong is this year’s recipient of the AkzoNobel Outstanding Graduate Thesis Award. Dr. Tong’s Ph.D. dissertation on growth of polylactide from active drugs for polymeric nanomedicine particles and subsequent nanomedicine research was carried out at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Prof. Jianjun Cheng. Dr. Tong is now a postdoctoral researcher with Profs. Robert Langer and Daniel Kohane at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The award will be presented during a symposium in honor of Dr. Tong in the Division of Polymer Chemistry at the ACS National Meeting in Denver in August, 2011. Eric Amis is now chair of this award. We thank Guy Berry and Warren Ford for their previous service on this award committee.

The POLYED Undergraduate Award for Achievement in Organic Chemistry continues to recognize undergraduate students, who are planning a career in a chemistry field, for their outstanding performance in sophomore Organic Chemistry courses. Last year, approximately 175 colleges and universities recognized a student on their campus with this award.

POLYED also continues to recognize outstanding research posters by undergraduate students at the national meetings. Anyone willing to assist with evaluation of the posters should contact Bob Howell or Sarah Morgan.

POLYED treasurer, Reddy Venumbaka reported that the POLYED committee finances are in good order.

POLYED is successful because of the contributions of many. We thank all who lead POLYED’s programs and especially POLY and PMSE for all of their support. Any member of POLY and PMSE who would like to become involved in POLYED should contact John Droske at the POLYED Center, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, jdroske@uwsp.edu  or Charles Carraher, Jr., Florida-Atlantic University, carraher@fau.edu .

AkzoNobel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Chemistry

Warren T. Ford

Report to PolyEd, POLY, and PMSE, March 24, 2011

The winner of the 2011 AkzoNobel Award for Outstanding Graduate Research in Polymer Chemistry is Dr. Rong Tong. His 2010 Ph.D. dissertation on growth of polylactide from active drugs for polymeric nanomedicine particles and subsequent nanomedicine research, carried out at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Prof. Jianjun Cheng, appears in sixteen refereed articles and two pending patent applications. Dr. Tong is now a postdoctoral researcher with Profs. Robert Langer and Daniel Kohane at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The award will be presented during a symposium in honor of Dr. Tong in the Division of Polymer Chemistry at the ACS National Meeting in Denver August 28 – September 1, 2011.

The chair of the selection committee for the award is now Dr. Eric Amis of United Technologies, who replaced Prof Guy Berry of Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Rama Chandran, the research director at AkzoNobel who has facilitated the award since National Starch & Chemical Co. began its sponsorship in 2006, retired recently and has been replaced by Dr. Keimpe van den Berg. We thank Guy Berry and Rama Chandran for the long-term success of the award.