Executive Committee Meeting Minutes

San Diego California
March 31, 2001, convened at 5:01PM

Present

Washington Minutes

Minutes from Washington Meeting were approved unanimously.

Chair’s Report

• Shawn Kenner will be PR chair for 18 months, taking over from Andy Holder.
• The Divisional Caucus passed an increase in dues for membership in that organization from $40 to $60.
• Attila Pavlath (ACS President) noted that an e-mail will be sent with a survey of wants and needs to all ACS members with e-mail addresses on file.
• ACS has defined three focal points for long term emphasis: 1) individual needs, 2) outreach through the internet, and 3) international expansion in membership and influence.
• Pavlath wants Divisions to sponsor symposia at regional meeting as a way of having local sections and Divisions cooperate.
• ACS will be emphasizing internet and ChemCenter to service members more completely.
• David Spellmeyer is still working on a slate of candidates for the next election, which will be held in June/July.
• Motion for Chair: Curt Brenenman will extend his term as Treasurer by one year. (This will allow election of Secretary and Treasurer to be done in staggered years.) Vote: Unanimoius with one abstention
• The EC will discuss in Chicago increase of Chair’s term to two years as a manner of increasing continuity and keeping momentum.
  

Secretary’s Report

• Annual Report filed (slightly late) on March 26, 2001.
• Total membership at 2355 in 1999 and at 2668 in 2000, +13.3%.
  

Treasurer’s Report

• Two sheets attached (Att. #1 and Att. #2) with details on cash flow and financial position. Report approved unanimously.
• Assets: Division has $164,206 in assets at market value spread over several accounts and the ACS Investment Pool. This represents roughly 2.4 times our annual expenditures, and is quite healthy.
  
• Cash Flow: The report shows income at $67,578 from a variety of sources. Expenditures for the year were $69,175, for a deficit of $1,595. CB indicates that this is a calendar year figure and that some expenses were moved into the calendar year (late billing from ACS) whereas reimbursements/payments were not. When all the dust has settled, the Division will have taken in more than it spent for activities in the past year.
  

Councilor’s Report

• Divisional Activities Committee (MF) – Pavlath noted to the Committee that he was worried about finances of local sections and Divisions and has asked for $300,000 in stopgap funding. This seems to have been or will be approved. There are issues on how the money might be divided, as no clear mechanism has been stated. A presidential task force will be formed to investigate funding mechanisms at ACS. Note that 60% of members are both involved in local sections and in Divisions, but that Divisional membership is an opt-in process whereas any new ACS member is automatically assigned to a local section. (See below for discussion on report of previous task force.)
  
• ACS will post Divisional directories on web sites by member opt-in only.
  

Program Chair’s Report

Report attached (Att. #3). Highlights:

• PG reported that Pharmacopiea will sponsor the ACS Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research for the next five years at $60,000.
• There are 299 presentations of posters and papers scheduled for San Diego. This is in contrast with around 170 for the last two meetings.
  

JMGM Report

Report attached (Att. #4). Highlights:

• The journal has a sufficient number of papers to complete 2001 issues, but there is a heavy reliance on special issues resulting from symposia. The turn-around under Don Boyd’s leadership has been startling, with less that 10 papers submitted in 1998 and almost 90 submitted in 2000! The EC thanked Don with a round of applause. He noted that JMGM was an excellent forum for symposia of the size that COMP usually runs, as an issue of JMGM can be made up with many fewer papers than an ACS Monograph.
  
• Don Boyd will be stepping down as editor. The reasons that DB stepped down include poor, one-sided editorial decisions made at Elsevier by new personnel (Swan Go) without discussion with Ron Hubbard (European Editor) and/or DB (North American Editor). Some of these decisions may run counter to the COMP-Elsevier contract and resulted in compromise of the Journal’s integrity and timeliness of publication. The offending actions include elimination of the "News and Views" section and reordering of papers that DB had committed to publish in a particular order. Also, there have been persistent problems with Elsevier's inability to maintain a correct subscription database.
  
• The Division must also nominate a new North American editor. D. Spellmeyer is in consultation with a particular candidate.
  
• D. Spellmeyer will meet with Elsevier representatives and express our concerns, requiring a plan for redress of the problems we have identified. Elsevier should make a report at the EC meeting in Chicago. The Division must make a decision about remaining affiliated with JMGM by November of 2001, or a new five-year term will automatically commence. This decision will be made at the Chicago meeting in August 2001.
  

Website Contract

Andy Holder reported that Lisa Balbes has sent a quote (Att. #5) for $4000 for next year’s maintenance of the Division’s web page. Given her excellent work on the page, he moved that we approve the quote for payment. The vote was unanimously in favor. EC members suggested that additional historical records might be interesting. Supervision of the web page will be turned over to Shawn Kenner in her role as Publicity Chair from Andy Holder.

Financial Support for EC Member Travel

It was noted that some EC members don’t have travel funding from external or ACS sources to attend ACS Meetings. DS moved that EC member travel be covered for those needing support to ACS Meetings for a total of $1,000 in 2001. Claims would be made to CB. It was noted that we may need to adjust and revisit this issue each year. Vote: passed unanimously.

CCG Awards

• The procedure for submission for awards did not go smoothly for this meeting, as some students submitted applications for travel grants but did not submit abstracts to ACS prior to this. The result is that too few abstracts were submitted for the available awards, and fewer than the maximum were awarded. EC members should encourage students to submit, although there is some rumbling that too many EC member students were awarded travel grants. Ralph will send e-mails to students who submit abstracts informing them of the potential travel awards.
• Ralph Wheeler, George Famini and David Spellmeyer reviewed applications for this round.

Report on Local Sections and Divisions

Andy Holder led a brief discussion on the "ACS Presidential Task Force on Society Support to Divisions and Local Sections" report. The recommendations from that report were:

• Additional funding from National Meetings should be directed to Divisions (5% currently) and per member and base allotment funds be increased.
• Provide financial and other incentives for local sections and Divisions to work together.
• No change in proportion of governance, but help Divisions "maximize" their voices. States that no data shows disproportionate representation and requests a member survey.
• The dissenting report doesn’t accept these recommendations as solutions, noting that the main report does not address core issues of governance and representation.

Andy Holder made the following motion: The EC authorizes the Chair to prepare on behalf of the Division an appropriate letter indicating substantial support of the dissenting report from the "ACS Presidential Task Force on Society Support to Divisions and Local Sections" and to forward Attila Pavlath, president of ACS. David Spellmeyer will also send a letter about the Division’s opposition to the stopgap funding measures requested by the President. Vote: Unanimous approval. It was noted that this must be done quickly.

Strategic Planning Retreat

The EC feels that our off-site planning event at Stone Mountain was VERY productive last year. David Spellmeyer is looking at Las Vegas in June or July for another event.

Contracts

Andy Holder as Secretary requests that signed originals of all contracts be forwarded to him for inclusion in the official records of the Division.

Meeting was adjourned at 7:05PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Andrew J. Holder, Secretary

Revised 4/27/01