MILWAUKEE SECTION
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Councillors' Report

1. Report from the President. Dr. Katie Hunt noted that her term as ACS President has been largely organized around three themes (1) Education; (2) Collaboration and (3) Innovation. She described how the Presidential Theme for the Boston ACS meeting, ?Biotechnology for Health and Welfare? had participation from 50% of the technical divisions making for a strong component of the meeting. One key component of this theme was recorded and will be available on the president?s site on the ACS Web Page. Finally, Dr. Hunt emphasized that the Society is making progress in it?s focus on sustainability (theme of the Chicago National Meeting) and she described a proposed pact between the ACS and 5 sister chemistry societies from around the world that would help accentuate efforts towards sustainability.
2. Report from President ?elect. Dr. Bruce Burnstin described his thoughts about thematic programming for the New Orleans ACS meeting next spring. He noted that this will be the first time the ACS will be back to New Orleans since the tragedy of Katrina, and quite importantly that our meeting will be held in conjunction with a meeting celebrating the 100th anniversary of the American Institute for Chemical Engineering (AIChE). He noted that education will be a major theme during his term as President, and this theme will be part of the program in New Orleans with a symposium honoring the 10th anniversary of the Beckman Scholars program. He also noted his theme of ?Communication? and indicated that the recent passage of legislation in congress to enhance funding of science and science education was partly due to the communication skills of the Office on Legislative and Government Affairs (OLGA). He described his view of the ?centrality of chemistry? among the sciences and indicated that enhanced communication is an important theme because we need to break down ?silos? that arise between and within scientific disciplines and sub-disciplines.
3. Report from Past-president. Dr. Ann Nalley emphasized the work of the task force that helped organize the ACS Committee Summit. This group has been looking into the committee structure for the governance of ACS. She also feels that ACS can do more to involve high school chemistry teachers and challenged the Society to find ways to support 50 high school teachers to attend the next ChemEd meeting (in the summer of 2009).
4. Report from Chair of the Board. Dr.Judith Behman talked about the new strategic planning process being undertaken by the Society. She noted that a number of people provided feedback that the Society needs to be prepared to go beyond strategic planning to arrive at an actionable plan. The Board has worked on a draft document that seeks to encompass this perspective that has four key themes; (1) passion for chemistry; (2) focus on members; (3) professionalism and (4) diversity and inclusion. This process has led to 6 goals within a strategic planning document and feedback is being sought and can be sent to strategicplan@acs.org
5. Report of the Executive Director. Madeleine Jacobs spent the majority of her time for her report describing the new web presence for the Society that will ?go live? on September 30th. A number of new features, including enhanced search engines, better navigation, better prioritization of information, etc., were described.
6. The Council Policy Committee- This group described more about the nature of the Summit on Committees mentioned by Past-President Ann Nalley. They noted the three key goals of the summit were to (1) examine possible changes of committees; (2) attempt to limit duplications of efforts and (3) identify synergies between various committees. They also discussed the grid of offerings in the ACS Leadership Development System.
7. The Committee on Committees had two key items that required votes from Council. The first was to change the meaning of the acronym for Project SEED from ?Summer Educational Experience for the Disadvantaged? to ?Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged?. This change was approved by voice vote and is designed to better reflect the nature of the program. There is no intending to change the basic operations of the program. The second action by the council was to change the status of the Committee on Disabilities which has been changed from an ?other? committee to a joint Board-Council committee. This change enhances the visibility of this committee and also means that it can attract more members who are not on the Council.
8. Committee on Nominations and Elections held elections for those committees of the Council that require elections and announced winners of those elections. Councilors from Milwaukee were not involved in running for these elected offices.
9. The Budget and Finance Committee reported that the ACS would probably end 2007 with a net contribution of $ 7.5 million, which would be $139,000 favorable to the approved budget. They also reported that funding for a pilot program to establish State Government Affairs Programs was approved. The process of identifying program that are not performing well enough (called PRAG) is ongoing and some programs are being cut as a result. Finally, the Committee on Professional Training (CPT) asked for a one-time allotment for working with primarily minority serving institutions to be deferred from 2007 into 2008 to leverage other activities that will be taking place in 2008.
10. Society Committee of Education (SOCED) noted that 2007 has been a favorable year for science funding in Washington. They also noted that the pilot program for high school chemistry clubs has been a success and this program was voted to become an ongoing activity of the ACS Education Office. SOCED voted to support international efforts to designate 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry (a program being spearheaded by the United Nations and UNESCO.) Finally it was noted that SOCED is looking into the issue of virtual laboratories.
    A Special Discussion was held about the role of ACS in advocacy for science policy. The discussion spoke to issues relating to enhancing participation by members in science policy debates; to enhancing participation in legislative action networks (and barriers to participation) and finally to ways for ACS as a Society to be a more effective leader in policy activities (relative to the larger science and technology community.)
11. Committee on Economic and Professional Affairs (CEPA) reported that the issues of Health Care and Health Insurance continue to be key ideas of concern to the membership, so it will be working on was to build a suggested policy statement for the Society on this topic. They also noted that the most recent employment and salary survey looked into how people look for work in chemistry and results show a paradigm shift away from print based advertisement towards on-line searching. Because print based position wanted advertisements have become less helpful, CEPA has voted to eliminate the subsidy for these ads in C&EN and to shift that funding to more useful, online tools within ChemJobs. Finally, it was noted that at the Employment Clearinghouse there were 1520 Job Seekers, 126 employees who were seeking to fill 911 jobs.
12. Committee on Meetings and Expositions reported that they undertook a survey of attendees at the spring National Meeting held in Chicago and found significant concerns about the venue ? particularly the issue of long lines for transportation from the Convention Center to conference hotels. The Committee and the Society elected to remove the next National Meeting in Chicago, scheduled for 2011 and hold it in Denver instead. Significant discussion of this action occurred. Attendance at the Boston meeting was announced as 15,344 total with 8792 attendees, 3518 students, 1676 exhibitors, 574 guests and 784 exposition only registrations. The exposition had 509 booths from 324 companies. A meetings fee increase of $10 for advanced registration was announced for the 2008 National meetings. Finally, the issue of people withdrawing papers or not attending meetings to give papers was discussed.
13. Committee on Membership Affairs. Membership is running 1100 higher than last year in August. This includes 13905 graduate student members which is the highest level of graduate students since 2000. The committee voted to increase the dues of society affiliates from 75% to 100% and this action will require bylaw and constitutional changes, so it will be reappearing in subsequent Council meetings and reports..
14. Committee on Divisional Affairs: This committee also noted the growing success of thematic related programming at ACS National Meetings. A new planning group called the Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group (MPPG) has been formed to help coordinate thematic programming.
15. Committee on Constitution and Bylaws: This committee noted that they are currently reviewing bylaws changes from 9 local sections and divisions. Changes in the Milwaukee Section bylaws are among those being considered.
16. Chemical Abstracts Service noted that it exceeded budgets for revenues and contributions to the Society in 2006. It has enhanced the ability to carry out patent searches within CAS. It is also working on ways to enhance the use of SciFinder Scholar in education.
17. The Committee on Public Affairs noted it?s emphasis has been on the recently passed authorization of the American Competitiveness Act, but they noted that this must now be turned into appropriations. They also noted that OLGA is working to help establish more local based government affairs groups.
18. The Committee on Environmental Improvement has developed a new web portal for students on the environmental aspects of sustainability. This new portal will be part of the new web presence.
19. The Committee on Ethics noted that they will be initiating programming in New Orleans on ?Decision Making Before, During and After Natural and Human-caused Disasters? among many activities of this relatively new committee.
20. The Committee on Professional Training (CPT) noted that there are now 643 approved programs for undergraduate chemistry. New guidelines for approval are still under development with an anticipated release in early 2008.
21. The Committee on Public Relations and Communication announced the launch of weekly pod casts on current chemistry based research. They encouraged all local sections to consider working with local outreach avenues, such as museums to maximize the impact of this new resource.

Submitted by Thomas Holme and Dimitri Gorjestani