MILWAUKEE SECTION
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Councillors' Report

The main issues considered by the Council at this meeting included several items.

1. The 232nd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society was held in San Francisco, CA from September 10-14, 2006.  New this year was a volunteer project on Saturday, Sept. 9 for attendees.  The event was well attended by the ACS Board of Directors, and from the Milwaukee Section, Tom Holme participated, replanting native plant seedlings at the Nursery of Fort Funston.  Our gang of volunteers transplanted 1700 plants (and the local coordinators expected only 1100, so they were quite impressed by the energy and dedication of a group of chemists.)

2. The Milwaukee Section  was awarded the Greatest Community Involvement in Chemist Celebrate Earth Day. The award recognized the local activities of the Milwaukee section for the Earth Day celebrations.

3. The Council Meeting itself was held on Wed., the 13th.  Initial business was the elections of committee members for the Committee on Committees, the Council Policy Committee and the Nominations and Elections Committee.  This was followed by the report from ACS President Ann Nalley.  She emphasized her efforts (a) to build international collaborations, (b) to build and recognize volunteer opportunities within the Society (and included her service as president as the ultimate volunteer experience), and (c) that she is keeping memoirs and is looking to publish a book after her time in the presidential succession. She also presented  information on an ACS supported  NOVA (PBS) program “Forgotten Genius”, a biography of Percy Julian, an accomplished chemist.

4. The President-elect Katie Hunt presented next and noted her interest in sustainability as a programmatic theme for the Chicago ACS meeting next spring.  Her plans are still in development, but include the possibility of bringing in policy experts from national and regional levels.  The focus areas for the sustainability theme will be food, energy and water.  She also noted the new Leadership Development program being developed (she participated in a trial of one component in late August).

5. Past-president Bill Carroll then presented, making his last presentation to the Council in his presidential succession.  He noted his many travels on behalf of the Society and indicated a scaled-down version of his NCW Extreme Tour would be conducted this fall.  He was given a standing ovation from the Council in honor of his dedicated service as President.

6. Chair of the Board of Directors, James Burke, spoke next and pointed out the areas of effort the Board has undertaken during his leadership.  New efforts in Leadership Development, investigation of executive compensation and the issues associated with Open Access and the challenge it could present to ACS Journals and Chemical Abstracts Service.

7. Chief Executive Officer, Madeline Jacobs reported next with three major themes. (1) She first addressed the web presence of the Society and noted that a preliminary launch of myacsweb.org was associated with the National meeting.  It will continue to be on the web for the next 60 days. The site is expected to be launched  mid 2007. (2) She then noted the role of evolving technology for communication and information and that ACS is assessing the impact of communication trends on the Society.  (3) Finally, she expanded on the communication issue to note the importance of communicating to others about ACS.  This idea included an encouragement for all on Council and all members to participate in the Member-get-a-member campaign.

8. The Council Policy Committee reported next.  Again the role of the new ACS Leadership Development program was noted.  They then reported on the work of their Governance Review Task Force.  Several ideas were considered important and should be advanced, including discussions (a) addressing the definition of Student Affiliates members, (b) membership requirements, (c) international membership, (d) additional staff support for local section and regional volunteers, (e) dissolving Secretariats, (f) centralize national meeting program coordination, (g) establishing a process for creating and dissolving focused interest groups, (h) additional staff support should be provided to technical division volunteers, (i) enhance the role of Alternate Councilors, (j) enhance communication about ACS operations, (k) revise the process for becoming a petition candidate.

9. The Committee on Committees reported next and the Council took action on a petition to change the status of the Committee on Community Activities.  Responsibilities of this committee include the planning of National Chemistry Week and the Earth Day celebrations carried out within the Society and Luminary Award recognition.  The Council approved the change to make this committee a Joint Board – Council Committee.

10. The Committee on Nominations and Elections (N&E) Report covered  electronic voting  for National elections and brought up a petition before the Council related to Rules for nominating members that are currently serving as members of N&E.  The concern is that the appearance of a conflict of interest exists when members on the nominating committee end up running for elected offices.  Comments from several Councilors on both sides of this issue were made before debate was cut off by President Nalley due meeting time constraints.

11. The Committee on Budget and Finance reported that the finances of the Society in the past year have been very positive.  The probable year end results for 2006 are predicted to be a net contribution of $7.9 million which is a favorable variance of $3.5 million dollars compared to the budget for 2006.  The favorable condition is a result of lowered IT costs, strong sales of electronic services (particularly in Chemical Abstract Services), lower health care costs, and higher investment revenue.  Several future funding items were covered including 2007 and 2008 support of the Green Chemistry Institute.

12. The Society Committee on Education (SOCED) reported on its meeting.  SOCED has passed a new position paper on scholarship that has been forwarded to the Board of Directors for approval.  They also discussed the upcoming Strategic Plan and the role of Education within it.

13. The Committee on Science noted it is considering topics for the Boston ACS meeting and expects that three topics will be included, (1) Stem Cell research, (2) “Maintaining an edge in a flat world”, (3) “success or failure of research initiatives”.

14. The next activity of the Council was a 30 minute discussion on “Ensuring our Future: Engaging Tomorrow’s Leaders Today”.  There was general agreement that efforts to improve the participation of younger members in leadership of the Society, and several innovative ideas were suggested.  Like other such discussions, no actions were taken as this discussion was expressly for the purpose of expanding the idea base for building leadership in the Society.

15. The remainder of the meeting included oral reports from several committees.  (1) The Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs reported on activities related to Code of Conduct and Career Services.  Included in this report were numbers for the ChemJobs services at this National Meeting.  There were 1,202 candidates at the ChemJobs, 290 positions and 104 employers.  This is the largest number of employers to attend the meeting in 3 years. (2) The Local Section Activities Committee emphasized the activities a Local Section Summit in May of 2006.  The role of communication and connecting chemists to the community were key foci of this summit. (3) The attendance as of Tuesday at the San Francisco meeting was 15603 – and the conference had the largest number of papers ever. (4) Membership Affairs reported that there have been 12137 new applicants this year.  There are petitions in process one of which involves the definition of student membership. (5) The Committee on Meeting and Expositions report included the statement that there will be no increase in fees for 2007 National meetings. (6) Chemistry and Public Affairs report included a summary of lobbyist status and Congress fellowships. (7) The SEED Committee report said that there were 321 students in the Summer 2006 program. (8) The Chemical Safety  Committee reported on the College safety and accident prevention updates in the 7th edition, which includes a Spanish language version. (9) Nomenclature and Terminology Committee reported on the status of potential changes in weight (Kg) and moles definitions.

Submitted by Tom Holme and Tom Thornton