MONTANA SECTION - AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
October 19th, 2002 Executive Committee Minutes
Montana Tech, Butte, Montana
The Montana Section of the ACS Executive Board met at Chico Hot Springs on
Saturday, October 19th. Board Members present:
Steve Holmgren-chair; Cyd McClure- past-chair; Donna Minton –
chair-elect; Dick Holmquist – chair elect in-waiting, Andrea Stierle-secretary
and Events chair; .Doug Coe-Councilor; Don
Stierle-past chair and NORM program co-chair.
Chair Steve Holmgren
welcomed the Board:
Treasurer Doug Cameron gave
the treasurer’s report and reported that, as usual, the section was doing very
well, with > $8000 in checking. Andrea
reminded him that would change when he received the Bill for the Fall Social.
Councilor Doug Coe reported
from the American Chemical Society's 224th National Meeting
held in Boston from April 18th - 22nd, 2002. There were 17,121 attendees
at this meeting. This was the largest event in
Boston since 9/11!
The following actions were taken on petitions before the Council at the Boston Meeting:
This petition would fundamentally change how the annual allotment for local sections and divisions is determined. Currently all local sections receive a base allotment of $2,400 plus $3.00 per member for the first 2000 members and $2.00 per member thereafter. These amounts were established in 1986. From 1987 onward this allotment has been multiplied annually by the same ratio (usually a ratio of CPIs) used in calculating the dues escalator for each year. This petition would replace this method of funding local sections with an annual allocation equal to 20% of the dues revenue generated by the number of members and National Affiliates of local sections. The Committee on Local Section Activities would determine how this dues revenue would be distributed among local sections. The distribution procedure would be approved by Council and would be reviewed by Council once every three years. The distribution method must include a base allotment, an allotment tied to local section membership, and distributions based on other factors such Society initiatives, strategic planning, and Board directives. The method for funding divisions would be essentially the same. This petition rather dramatically increases the allotment to divisions (from ~ $378,000 to $1,171,000, using FY 2002 figures). While the allotment for local sections also increases, the increase is considerably smaller (from ~$1,318,000 to $1,431,000, again using FY 2002 figures). Under the current system may divisions are experiencing financial difficulty, e.g., the Division of Colloids and Surfaces was reported to have a current deficit of $20,000. It is not clear how individual local sections would fare under this petition.
In an effort to improve the nomination and election process the ACS will provide web sites for candidates and will host a Nominee Town Hall Meeting at National Meetings. Candidates will no longer visit each of the regional caucuses. Eli Pierce reported that 25% of current and 50% of new ACS members are women. Items on the ACS Board of Directors agenda include:
There has been on average 1 SciFinder Scholar installation per day at academic institutions with 815 installed at the time of the meeting.
The Committee
on Chemical Safety announced that the 7th edition of Safety in Academic
Chemistry Laboratories will be available at the end of the year.
The Committee
on Minority Affairs will award 100 new scholarships in the Fall of 2002.
This program, which has attracted more than $3M in outside funding has provided
support for 1,200 students of whom 430 have graduated. The Committee plans
to sponsor a symposium at the annual meeting for the Advancement of Chicanos and
Native Americans in Science (SACNAS).
The Committee
on Patents and Related Matters continues to oppose the recent practice of
diverting funds generated by the Patent and Trademark Office to support other
government activities. A proposal in the works to increase the filing fee
for a patent application from the current $1,046 to $24,000, would effectively
decrease the access of the average patent applicant to the patent system.
Steve Holmgren discussed a new project “Posters on the Hill”. It will highlight undergraduate research at Montana colleges. Steve will coordinate it from MSU, and Andrea will be the Montana Tech contact.
Meeting- in-Miniature 2003:
Andrea and Don Stierle suggested that the Spring meeting be cancelled in light
of the NORM scheduled two months later. The
Board agreed.
NORM 2003:
Ed Rosenberg and Don Stierle have agreed to be program chairs.
Cyd McClure admonished the
group to get things moving. Andrea
reminded her that no one but Cyd had run such a meeting.
Could she provide some guidance in the form of tasks and timelines.
Cyd said she would provide that information.
Steve Holmgren agreed to
ask John Nagy of Oligocide to be the exhibit chair.
John Sophos promised to
send the huge email BLAST program to allow Don to send out announcements to the
NORM sections. Symposia and special
sessions must be decided and registered by Dec, 8th.
Call for papers should go out in January, and the registration will close
April 8th – two months prior to the conference.
For the January deadline, we must have
Symposia include:
Sessions include:
Special Events include an Awards
Banquet, Women Chemists luncheon and Exhibition.
There was discussion of selection
of specific keynote speakers.
Registration fee will be
approximately $75.00. There was
discussion about raising it to $80.00.
Cyd agreed to get information
together to give an idea of what a typical budget would look like.
Meeting ended at 2PM