The 228^th National Meeting of the ACS was held in Philadelphia, PA from August 22 - 26, 2004.  The Chicago Section was fully represented by 12 councilors and 2 alternate councilors.  The councilors who attended for the Section were:   Allison Aldridge, Cherlyn Bradley, Charles E. Cannon, Nathaniel L. Gilham , Russell W. Johnson , Fran K. Kravitz , Thomas J. Kucera , Claude A. Lucchesi , Barbara E. Moriarty , Seymour H. Patinkin , Marsha Anne Phillips and Stephen Sichak .  The two alternate councilors were Susan Shih and Mark Cesa. Jim Shoffner was also present at the meeting.

Two Chicago Section councilors were recognized for completing their service on ACS governance committees; they were Cherlyn Bradley (Project SEED) and Barb Moriarty (Economic and Professional Affairs).  In addition, Ken Fivizzani was recognized for his service as Chair of the Committee on Chemical Safety.   Steve Sichak was recognized for his 25 years as a member of Council.

Budget:  ACS is projected to end 2004 $60,000 favorable to the approved budget, with a net contribution of $1,531,000 from operations.  The Budget and Finance Committee is proceeding with the 2005 budget process.  The Board of Directors have approved funding for ChemCensus 2005 and the PROGRESS project.  In addition, they announced the decision to sell the Belmont Conference Center.

Education:  At this meeting the first Academic Employment Initiative (AEI) poster session was held as part of SCI-MIX.  This provided 126 candidates seeking faculty positions to interact with recruiters before a more formal campus interview.

Local Section Affairs:  The Chicago Section was awarded the Outstanding Local Section Chemluninary Award for Very Large Sections.  In addition, the first Local Section/ Division Collaboration Chemluminary Award was won by the Chicago Section and the Division of Professional Relations.  The name of the Peoria Local Section was changed to the Illinois Heartland Local Section.

Membership Affairs:  As of 6/30/04, the Society’s membership was 159,945, representing a decline of less than 1% in overall membership.  We are continuing to see a 50% increase in the number of recent graduates who join the Society.

Meetings and Expositions:  Attendance at this meeting was reported to be 13,805 registrants, including 7,741 regular meeting attendees, 1929 exhibitors, 2919 students and 482 guests.  The 2005 advance meeting registration fee for members will be $295.

Economic and Professional Affairs:  As of the end of Tuesday, there were 1556 job seekers at Chemjobs Career Center (formerly NECH); there were 107 employers with 303 posted positions available.  The number of interviews conducted in Philadelphia, as of the end of Tuesday, was 1639.  In addition, there were 150 mock interviews, 206 resume reviews and 30 workshops held in Philadelphia.   Council approved an updated edition (7^th) of the Professional Employment Guidelines (PEG).

Constitution and Bylaws:  Council approved three amendments to the ACS Constitution.  The petition for electronic balloting will allow the option of electronic balloting.   The petition to change the annual report deadline for divisions will make the deadline for submitting annual reports by divisions consistent with the deadline for Local Section annual reports.  The petition to change the membership requirements for pre-college teachers allows experience to be a factor in their consideration for membership.  A proposal to form an Ethic Committee as an Other Committee of the Council was sent back for further study.

Multidisciplinarity Opportunities:  At the Spring meeting, President Casey began the idea of spending some time discussing a topic of interest to the ACS.  The topic of this meeting’s discussion was multidisciplinarity.   This topic is of interest to ACS since many members, especially recent grads, are not focusing on traditional fields of chemistry (organic, inorganic, physical or analytical).  Between 1970 and 2002, the number of PhD graduates in traditional fields of chemistry dropped from 2,238 to 1,922, while the number of PhDs in chemistry-related fields (i.e. biochemistry, materials science) increased from 1,391 to 2,739.  This may mean that new members do not have a strong identity as a “chemist”.  The ACS wants to make sure that they provide a home for multidisciplinary chemists.  A taskforce has been set up to assess the challenges and identify opportunities.  If you have feedback for this taskforce, including comments on what areas are underserved, and/or do we need new structures, send an email to multidiscipline@acs.org.

Bill Carroll’s presidential agenda for 2005 will be Chemistry Enterprise 2015.  A white paper on the Chemical Enterprise 2015 is available on the web.

Strategic Alliances:  At the spring meeting, there was a lot of discussion about a potential merger with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE).  A merger will not be pursued.  However, instead, the ACS and AIChE will work together on some programs to achieve the goals provided in each organizations strategic plan.  For instance, the Spring 2008 meeting of each organization will be co-located in New Orleans.  In addition, developing the guidelines for initiating strategic alliances are being pursued.

If you have any questions and/or comments about the above actions, please contact me by email (bmoriarty@nalco.com) or one of the other councilors.