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The following Committees submitted a written report.

Circulation Manager's Report - F. R. Dammont

Polymer Preprints: Vo. 48-1, Spring 2007

We have shipped to library subscribers a total of 239 copies of POLYMER PREPRINTS Vol. 48-1. Of these, 204 were paid-up and complimentary subscriptions, and 35 copies went to good risks, in expectation of settlement, although at a delayed date. All shipments originated in Newark.

We are also pleased to report that sometime in February, we have passed a landmark of sorts: The circulation office, under the current management, collected, up to date, a total of $ one million from library subscribers. Although this sum is not very impressive at current rates, we have started when a yearly library subscription cost $ twenty. In retrospect, we have observed with its present position as the undisputed premier publication in polymer science, and we could not be happier, that we were able to contribute, though in a minor role, to this impressive achievement.

INTERSOCIETY POLYMER EDUCATION COUNCIL (IPEC) - F. Jones

IPEC (www.uwsp.edu/chemistry/ipec/ipec_sp.htm) promotes and supports teaching about polymers and polymeric materials in K-12 curricula. Its main goal is to interest students in science and technology, not just to attract students to polymer and materials science. Substantial anecdotal evidence supports the belief that polymers are an excellent medium for catching the interest of students at all grade levels. Students have everyday experiences with polymeric materials, and it is relatively easy to stir their curiosity about what polymers are and why they work.

Most of IPEC's activity involves the Polymer Ambassadors. The Ambassadors (www.polymerambassadors.org) are about 20 talented and dedicated K-12 classroom teachers, located coast-to-coast. They conduct workshops at local, regional and national teachers' meetings, where the Ambassadors teach other teachers to use polymers in classroom instruction. These workshops are popular with teachers, who obtain practical and effective materials for use in their classes. Ambassadors also visit K-12 classrooms and participate in training of pre-service teachers in universities. Since the start of the program in 1992, well over 50,000 teachers attended the workshops. Snapshots from some of the workshops can be found at the Polymer Ambassadors website.

As examples of recent activities, Polymer Ambassadors presented fifteen workshops at National Science Teachers Association conventions in October-December, 2006. Some of the topics were sports helmets, how toys are made, polymers in automotive, polydensity tubes, basic polymer science, solids, and integrating polymers into high school chemistry courses.

Polymer Ambassadors have received numerous major awards including five Presidential Awards for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.

The Polymer Ambassadors extend their reach using electronic media. Practical lessons and activities for Kindergarten through High School students are now available to anyone on the World Wide Web. The Ambassadors website also has other examples of their teaching materials. Publicity for the website includes a 2006 note by Mary Harris published in the Journal of Chemical Education.

Akron Partnership. In 2002, IPEC and the Polymer Ambassadors formed a partnership with the Akron Global Polymer Academy (AGPA), whose mission is to use on-site and distance learning to support K-12 science instruction. Ambassadors have played an important role in establishing the program, participating in teacher training workshops and developing over 50 new lessons, some with video clips. Ambassadors Sandra Van Natta, Joyce Brumberger, Becky Knipp, and Suzanne Hall were instructors at AGPA teacher workshops in July-August, 2006. Ambassadors also participate in design and refinement of curricula for directors of in-service programs for science teachers. The program will continue in summer, 2007.

"Polymer Science of Everyday Things" (PSOET) Workshops and Symposia at National ACS Meetings. As reported previously, the first and second PSOET events were highly successful. PSOET-3 is planned for the fall, 2007 ACS meeting in Boston. Organizers are Ken Wynne and IPEC Board members Ann Salamone and Anne Padias. The topic of the workshop and the subsequent two-day symposium will be Medical Devices. Polymer Ambassadors Joyce Brumberger, Mary Harris, and Jon Valasek will present workshops for teachers during the ACS "High School Day" associated with the meeting.

Sandra Van Natta has served as Polymer Ambassador Chairperson since March, 2005. She continues the progression of highly effective Chairpersons. Previous Chairpersons Joyce Brumberger and Lynn Higgins remain very active as Polymer Ambassadors, and the contributions of all three are greatly appreciated. Ambassador Mary Harris continues to do an excellent job of maintaining the web site.

Recent publications: In 2006-07 Mary Harris published two articles in the Journal of Chemical Education and also a note publicizing the Ambassadors web site.

IPEC is a 501(c) not-for-profit corporation supported by the American Chemical Society Divisions of Polymer Chemistry, Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering, and Rubber. Its volunteer Board of Directors comprises two voting representatives from each member organization. Organizations are encouraged to appoint additional Board representatives to increase the workforce and assure attendance at meetings.

IPEC's core activities are constrained by a shortage of funds. The original idea was to pay travel expenses for Polymer Ambassadors for one training year and three active years. Now a growing pool of Emeritus Ambassadors has completed their three years but want to continue doing workshops and other IPEC activities. These master teachers are recognized to be among the finest in their profession. A priority goal for IPEC is to find sufficient travel funds to enable the Emeritus Ambassadors to continue their work.

Member funding is the flywheel that drives IPEC's ongoing core activities. About 85% of IPEC's budgets support of Polymer Ambassador travel expenses. With more dues-paying members, the corps of Ambassadors could be enlarged and activity could be expanded. In addition, more member organizations would add more members to the IPEC board, increasing its capacity for new initiatives and fund-raising. IPEC's board continues searching for additional funding sources. During this period, the Plastics Pioneers Association contributed $5000 (arranged by Vivian Malpass) and the Akron Global Polymer Academy contributed $3000 to support an Ohio Polymer Ambassador.

IPEC member organizations can be proud of what IPEC accomplishes and can look forward to more high-impact activities.

The next meeting of the IPEC Board of Directors will be at Chicago during the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, Tuesday, March 27 at 9:30 AM at Room N131 of the Hyatt McCormick Place Hotel. The meeting is open to all; representatives of member organizations are especially encouraged to attend.

IPEC Mission Statement

To significantly increase student interest and participation in science and technology subjects by incorporating the teaching of polymers and polymeric materials into K-12 curricula by utilizing the combined resources and infrastructures of the participating scientific societies.

Membership - J. Pickel

The Membership Committee currently consists of the following members:
1. Alan R. Hopkins (The Aerospace Corporation)
2. Erica Martin (Rohm and Haas Co) - Member-at-Large
3. HN Cheng (Hercules) - Councilor
4. Janelle Ulik, (Philip Morris) POLY Secretary
5. Deanna L. Pickel, (Eastman Chemical)_ Membership committee
6. Frank Blum (UMR)_ POLY web editor
7. Jeffrey P. Youngblood (Purdue University) Membership committee
8. Theresa Reineke (U. Cincinnati)- Alt. Councilor
9. Derek Schorzman (BD)- Publicity Chair
10. Dahlia Haynes (Clemson) Membership committee
11. Stephen Budy (Clemson) Membership committee
12. Scott Iacono (Clemson) Membership committee
13. Sam Tucker (USM) Membership committee
14. Greg Tew (UMASS) Alt. Councilor
15. Joseph Pickel (ORNL) Membership Committee Chair

Introduction

The membership committee herein reports the recent activities and discussions that have occurred since reporting to the POLY board at the last ACS meeting (San Francisco) and indicates future plans for actions. Otherwise the membership committee continues to serve the division through the execution of several long-standing efforts. (Pin recognition, hospitality suite, travel awards) in addition to other new initiatives aimed at recruiting and retaining members including the formation of a graduate student affiliates program.

Activities of the Membership Committee

- Graduate Student Chapters- Following significant discussions during and after the fall meeting in San Francisco, it was recognized that there was interest on the part of many student groups, as well as the poly board, in the formation of student organizations with direct ties to the Division. Based on these discussions, it was determined that a reasonable path forward included the formation of student groups at universities, who would benefit by association with the Division and could serve to promote the Division and its activities to students of polymer sciences. Benefits offered by the division have not been solidified at this point but could include: "kickbacks" on membership fees, space on POLY website, allotment of programming time at meetings, control of functions during national meetings (i.e. hospitality suite, Saturday night event, etc). Students from the University of Michigan are the first chapter to be included, and will help us to develop this program. Other programs are being developed at Clemson and the University of Southern Mississippi. Lead: Erica Martin.

- TRAVEL AWARDS (Sponsored by Industrial Sponsor's Committee) - The membership committee actively solicits membership and participation of graduate students by offering two-500$ awards at each national meeting to offset travel costs. For the Chicago meeting our winners were Ms. Debby Chang from Duke University and Ms. Yali Li from Washington University, St. Louis. A total of 8 applications were received for Spring 2007 and 6 for Fall 2007. Awardees for the Fall 2007 meeting (Boston) will be Camila Garces from the University of Akron, and Diana Smirnova from Cal Tech. Ways to improve this award have been a topic of discussion within the committee. The Membership committee regularly sends letters to polymer faculty representatives to promote this award. There is discussion as to how we could make the process more competitive (i.e. recruit more applicants). Suggestions included earlier announcement of the award and direct communication to professors. More discussion on this topic will occur at future meetings. The deadline for the spring 2008 awards will be announced in the near future. Lead- Alan Hopkins, Target- Students, recruitment and retention, Timeline- prior to National meetings (spring/fall).

- Orientation Packets (Started 2005): In 2005 and 2006, the business office sent out ~100 welcome packets to students at 6 major polymer schools (Akron, UMASS, Virginia Tech, Southern Miss, Florida and Michigan) as a way of introducing the POLY division to new students of polymer sciences. This year, a POLY pen and additional information on POLY events were included in the packet. It was suggested that we entice a Professor at these schools to distribute the packets and give a POLY testimonial to give further support to our cause. We should also solicit feedback from students and program administrators with regards to value of the orientation packet distribution. Possibly seek to improve content and distribution of packet for next year, and solicit greater funding from ACS membership committee. Lead- Erica Martin/Joe Pickel; Target- Students recruitment; Timeline- annually, August

- Student webpage- The Division web page (www.polyacs.org) is probably the most recognized and utilized benefit of division members. The bulk of the content of the webpage is available to members and non-members alike, and therefore is not useful with respect to the retention of members. However, the webpage does serve to show all those in the polymer community the benefits of membership in our division and there is a section of the site dedicated to this facet. Currently the membership committee actively maintains the students' page and has setup the jobs site as a member's only benefit (since early 2005). The jobs site has received nearly 22,000 hits since January 2006 and the resumes posted on this site have received ~1500 hits. Future efforts will go towards keeping the content of the web page current, while recruiting the contribution of more postings (jobs and resumes). Lead- Deanna Pickel; Timeline- Ongoing

- Member recognition (Ongoing Program)- Anniversary pins are sent out to members with 5, 10, 20 and 30 years of service to the organization along with surveys to determine what these dedicated members think of the status and directions of the division. The member names are also listed on the POLY website. This year, anniversary pins were sent out in February by the Business office under the guidance of Erica Martin. There has been an extremely positive response with the pin recognition program. This program will be continued into the foreseeable future.

Noting that the Polymer division has been incorporated with the ACS for 37 years, but actually existed well before the incorporation date, there are several members whose service to the Division has been greater than the pin program recognizes. Therefore a "foundation" members pin will be developed and given to members who have been active since the date of ACS incorporation. In addition, in the near future a 40 year pin will be needed for recognition of "non-foundation" members with that amount of dedication to the division. Lead- Erica Martin/Business office; Target- Current members, Recognition; Timeline- annually, spring

- Retention Letters to 1st, 2nd yr members- each fall encouraging renewal of membership letters to 1st, 2nd yr members each fall encouraging renewal of their membership. We need a new database 'manager' on our routine recruitment activities which require data on renewals, current memberships, and first and second-yr memberships.

- POLY/PMSE Hospitality events (Saturday and Tuesday evenings of National meetings) - Used as an approach to recruit new ACS members, especially graduate students and post-docs. Also this is an opportunity to reach out to current members of the division. Past two POLY sponsored events have been coordinated by business office and Membership Chairperson. Atlanta meeting had large attendance (60+) and nearly ran out of refreshments, while Chicago meeting had lower attendance with notable absence of PMSE membership. Future plans should include better advertisement of event, possibly with help of student members.

- Promotional Items: At the Atlanta meeting Polo shirts bearing the POLY logo were distributed to board members and people who signed up at the meeting. Because the cost of the polo shirt (near $20?) was close to membership dues, we gain very little by giving the nice shirts out to new members and their recruiters. Therefore the idea of making cheaper T-shirts to give out to new members was brought up.

At the Chicago meeting that it was noted that T-shirts are bulky to carry between meetings and storage space in the VA Tech business office is at a premium. Therefore it was suggested that smaller promotional items (luggage tags?) be instituted for the sake of convenience. Publicity and business office should take the lead on this item. Lead- Derek Schorzman; Target- New members, Recruitment and publicity; Timeline- continuing basis.

Future Directions.

- POLY poster displays (new proposal): In the past, chairs for POLY sponsored symposia at national and regional meetings were asked to put up a transparency slide in between talks to highlight the benefits of POLY membership. As this is not easily done with computer/projector systems the idea of placing a Poster and membership applications near the door was floated. Derek Schorzmann of the Publicity committee is helping to design these reusable posters, and we will ask the business office to make sure that these posters appear at the necessary symposia. Following the spring meeting in Atlanta it was decide to create new posters displays which contain membership application and can be reused at various events. The intention is to display this poster at POLY sponsored events (because the old method of putting a POLY transparency up between speakers is no longer a valid option). Lead- Derek Schorzman; Target- Students and Jobseekers, recruitment and retention; Timeline- Continuous following major renovation in 2004

- Information analysis: Surveys of the POLY membership are carried out on a regular basis as part of retention efforts (part of membership flyer, website, and pin program). In addition a vast amount of information is available in the form of the POLY membership database and various ACS databases. The membership committee is actively looking for a person who would like to help sift through the data and use it to our benefit

Treasurer - R. Advincula

The table below outlines the summary and status of the 2007 budget with respect to the current income and expenditures through February 2007 and is compared to the end-of-year figures for 2006.

*Total Budget reflects the balance for the entire budget and not the sum of the highlighted categories in this report. Other categories can be obtained from the official POLY Division Financial Report to the ACS.

We continue to balance the budget and ensure that the expenditures are within the allocated figures agreed upon in the last 2007 Ex-Com meeting. Any questions may be directed to Rigoberto Advincula, POLY Division Treasurer, radvincula@uh.edu

Workshops - D. Smith and N. Byerly

The following workshops and meetings have been approved by the executive committee and locations are confirmed for 2007 and 2008:

February 18-21, 2007, Advances in Materials for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Systems, Location: Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, CA, Organizers: Tom Zawodzinski and James E. McGrath, Total Attendees: 162 , Notes: Total Poly Overhead (to date):+$24,579.14, with an anticipated +$24 to +$26K as the final

June 3-7,2007, National Graduate Polymer Research Conference, Location: University of Tennessee, Organizers: Joe Pickel, Jimmy Mays and Jamie Messman, Notes: POLY office receiving registrations through web site, And processing applications (payments, etc.), Brochures is available to membership booth

June 10-13, 2007, Macromolecules for a Safe, Sustainable and Healthy World, Location: Polytechnic University, Brooklyn New York, Organizers: Kalle Levon, Chris Oper, Anthony Guiseppi-Elie, Dennis Smith, Richard Gross, Notes: 157 speakers/organizers participating (appears to be around 80% academic). Seven of this group has actually registered, 7 Participants and 3 students have registered to date, 125 FULL Paying participants needed to break even, Richard Gross has requested that POLY offer Polytechnic University students and faculty "discount registrations". We recommend no further discounts, Organizational aspect of meeting in Business Office is on track.

June 17-20, 2007, Polymers in Medicine and Biology 2007, Location: Sonoma Hilton, Santa Rosa, CA, Organizers: Kathryn Uhrich, Buddy Ratner and Judy Riffle, Notes: There are 39 speakers/organizers, 4 participants, 4 students, 3 guest/staff registered to date for a total of 50. Program is published and available on-line and for pick up at membership booth.

September 23-26, 2007, 6th Advances in Polyolefins 2007, Location: Sonoma Hilton, Santa Rosa, CA, Organizers: Pal Arjunan and James E. McGrath, Notes: Program is published & available on-line and for pick up at membership booth.

November 4-7, 2007, Current and Future Opportunities in Microelectronic Applications, Location: Harrah's Lake Tahoe, Stateline, Nevada, Organizers: Kenneth R. Carter and James L. Hedrick

Notes: Brochure with a listing of speakers is available. A budget approval is needed from chairs & treasurer.

March 2-5, 2008, Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Materials II, Location: Marriott, Ventura Beach, CA, Organizers: Frank D. Blum and Richard M. Laine, Notes: Flyer is available for pick up at the membership booth.

WORKSHOPS PROPOSALS FOR 2008-2009

Written proposals are available for review by the Executive Committee in Chicago for the following workshops:

May 2008, Biennial '08: INNOVATIONS IN INDUSTIRAL POLYMER SCIENCE, Location: Galveston, TX, Organizers: Dennis Smith, Kathleen Havelka, and industrial team.

Summer 2008, Water Purification with Polymeric-Membrane Materials, Location: Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, CA, Organizers: Benny Freeman and James E. McGrath

Fall 2008, Fluoropolymer 2008 "Current Frontiers and Future Trends", Location: St. Pete, Florida, Organizers: Dennis Smith and Team

February 15-18, 2009, Advances in Materials for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Systems 2009, Location: Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, CA, Organizers: James E. McGrath and Tom Zawodzinski