POLY Councilors' Report - ACS Boston Meeting, August 2007
Bill Daly, H.N. Cheng, John Pochan, Greg Tew
All four POLY councilors attended the ACS National Meeting in Boston. The following account provides information of specific interest to the Polymer Division.
1. Highlight of Council Actions
Some selected items related to POLY are listed below.
a. The Boston meeting attracted 15,344 registrants. There were 784 exhibits with 1676 exhibitors.
b. ACS membership increased slightly (by 1100) as of July 2007.
c. The Council voted to continue the Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology and Symbols and also approved the change of the Committee on Chemists with Disabilities from a Board committee to a joint Council-Board committee.
d. ACS President Katie Hunt led a discussion on ACS policy development and advocacy efforts. More information is available on her website at www.acspresident.org.
e. ACS Board of Directors has approved a revised draft of the ACS Strategic Plan.
f. The new ACS website will be officially launched at the end of September and will feature a unifying global navigation and improved layout. The new URL is www.acs.org.
2. Meeting of the Division Activities Committee (DAC) - John Pochan
a. The DAC meeting focused on establishing the Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group (MPPG). The following is an excerpt from the charter of the group. The Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group (MPPG) is charged with selecting themes and planning Society-wide thematic and multidisciplinary programming for ACS National meetings. The MPPG will be a body representing all divisions, as well as pertinent governance units. Every division will have the opportunity to participate in selecting representatives, providing input and suggestions to the MPPG, and will decide for itself whether to participate in particular society-wide programming. It is intended that MPPG representatives will not be current division program chairs, but rather will be individuals with program chair experience, such as long-range program chairs. The intent is to create a representative group to promote and create the collaborative, multidisciplinary, society-wide programming.
b. The MPPG will provide 'thematic programming' topics for future national meetings and will work as a subcommittee of DAC for the present. The first decisions made by the group was for future thematic programming at Salt Lake City and Washington D.C.. These topics are Nanoscience and Globalization of Chemistry-E4: energy, environment, education, and economy, respectively.
c. John Pochan will serve a POLY representative on this group.
d. DAC also approved the Catalyst Secretariat request for temporary division status to ascertain if the secretariat can function as a division.
3. Meeting of the Committee on Committees (ConC) - H.N. Cheng
a. ConC monitors the activities of committees and provides recommendations on committee assignments. HN serves as ConC liaison to the Committee on Meetings and Expositions (M&E) and the Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology, and Symbols (NOM).
b. A Summit on ACS Committee Structure was held in Baltimore on July 6-8. A number of recommendations on committee structure, charges, and liaisons were made and will be discussed across the ACS governance groups.
c. Some committees have consultants and some have not. ConC has instructed each committee to provide specific assignments to each consultant.
4. Meeting of the Committee on Meetings and Expositions (M&E) - Bill Daly and H.N. Cheng
a. M&E approved a cost-of-living increase of $10 for the 2008 national meeting registration fee. This increase was later approved by the Council.
b. ACS and AIChE will cosponsor programming at the New Orleans meeting. ACS will have approximately 36 sessions and AIChE 49 sessions. The themes at New Orleans will be Environment and Energy.
c. There appeared to be a fair amount of unhappiness with Chicago as a conference site. M&E carried out a survey after the Chicago meeting, which confirmed the perception. Further, unusually high labor and transportation costs in Chicago lead to a net negative variance of $585,000 from the budget. As a result, the Fall 2011 meeting, initially to be held at Chicago, has been moved to Denver, Colorado on August 28 -September 1, 2011.
d. The Fall 2012 meeting was previously scheduled for New York City. Because the remodelling of Javits Center will not be completed at that time, we are forced to change location. Instead, we shall meet in Philadelphia on August 19-23, 2012.
e. Because of many last-minute cancellations of food and rooms prior to the national meetings, M&E is formulating a late charge policy. If cancellation of food or room is made beyond a certain date, specific penalty charges will be assessed. The details of the policy will be finalized in New Orleans.
f. A new regional meeting ChemLuminary Award will be given as recognition of outstanding performance in regional meetings. The criteria are being finalized.
g. A proposal for setting fixed times for showcase events associated with thematic program was considered. It was suggested that these events be programmed for Monday afternoon and the divisions may be asked not to program related symposium against them. The issue will be discussed further in New Orleans.
5. Meeting of the Committee on Nomenclature, Terminology and Symbols (NOM) - H.N.Cheng
a. This committee provides advice and consulting to ACS publications on nomenclature, serves as liaisons to other organizations related to nomenclature, and coordinates activities of divisions dealing with these issues.
b. Among the topics of committee discussion was the change in the definition of the kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole. Specifically, these units will be redefined so that they are linked to exact values of fundamental constants.
c. Another topic is a proposal to address nanotechnology terminology. The committee is exploring the use of Wiki technology to establish nano terminology.
