The Boston meeting had ~16,000 attendance making it the 2^nd largest national ACS meeting.

REGION IV CAUCUS

The caucus meeting turned out to be a lively affair with emotions running high during the redistricting discussion. Region IV consists of: Washington D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.

Candidate Statements:We heard statements from the Region IV Director candidates: Maurice Bursey, Joe Hightower and Stephen Quigley; and the Director-at-Large candidates: Nina McClellan, Bob Soulen and Eli Pierce. Some of the themes which ran through the candidates statements are: the need for increased career services for industrial chemists, term limits for ACS offices, the need for a realistic view of ACS globalization efforts, the need for a strategic "business" plan to take the ACS into the next century, the desire to see more industrial chemists in ACS governance and the view that councilors are an underutilized resource in the society. The director elections will take place by mail ballot to the councilors later this year.

Task Force on Future Redistricting: Proposed Revision of Regional Boundaries: Due to the changing population of chemists in the US (decreases in NE compared to growth in SE and west), a change in the Region boundaries is required in order to keep the population of each region within 10 % of the average. The Regions are established for the purpose of electing Directors for ACS. The boundary changes were presented and propose removing Virginia (including Wash. D. C. area) from Region IV, putting them in Region II and adding ~1/2 of Texas and Puerto Rico to Region IV. This proposed change initiated a lively, sometimes emotional discussion, especially from the Virginia councilors who feel strongly that they should remain with Region IV and the other southern states. While this proposed change does not require the vote of the council to go into effect, the Task Force is anxious to receive councilor and member input before they make their final recommendation. Member population data and maps were distributed and alternative plans can be submitted to the Task Force by Dec. 1, 1998. A final proposal will be presented at the Anaheim Spring meeting.

COUNCIL MEETING

In his President’s Report, Paul Walter discussed efforts of international support of chemistry provided by the ACS. ACS provided financial support for students to attend an African chemistry meeting which was the first meeting including chemists from all of Africa. He believes good chemistry throughout the world will benefit everyone. The President-Elect, Edel Wasserman also continued this theme in his statement talking about the upcoming International Chemistry Week and other international chemistry conferences throughout the world. He also announced that Dupont would add support for ACS awards focusing on mentoring and colleague development to go along with their awards for research excellence. The Board of Directors report announced the initiation of a new ACS insurance benefit: long term care insurance open to all US members, their parents and in-laws. The premiums for this coverage can be considered as medical expenses for tax purposes. John Crum, Executive Director, reported on the creation of a new position, Director of Information Resources for the ACS. This person will be responsible for continuing expansion of the ACS web site (ChemCenter), the year 2000 readiness efforts of the society and other information related duties. The Society will experience a budget over-run this year due to investments in information technology, financial systems upgrades and year 2000 issue resolution. Overall, however, Society assets have increased.

Other committee report highlights are:

• A pilot program has been approved for the Inorganic Division to use electronic voting.
• A special symposium to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the Arthur C. Cope award is being planned. All living awardees will be included in the symposium.
• A new Division has been formed: Chemical Toxicology
• An ACS employment database will be on-line on the ACS web site in November.
• A proposal was made to raise national meeting registration fees. The Council voted to oppose the increase, however; this vote is not binding.
• The minority Affairs Committee reported that minority membership has doubled since 1995, however, we are still working with relatively small numbers. The ACS scholars program, which awards scholarships to under represented groups, reports a > 90% retention of students in the chemistry field.

C&E News is now available as a web edition with full text searching capability and links to company and journal web pages. The web edition will be free from Sept-Dec. 1998 and then will cost $15/ year for ACS members.
 
 
 

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Last Updated February 23, 1999.