Our local section Councilors have just returned from the 256th ACS National Meeting, held August 19–23, 2018, in Boston. Bearing gifts. Well, a gift. Thanks, Ted Gast, for being the first to do this document dump.
The document Councilor Talking Points is intended to serve as a springboard for Councilor reportage to members and discussion of actions taken at the Council and Board of Directors meetings. We usually make a subjective attempt to pull out a few items likely to be of widest interest. Here goes:
- The theme of the 256th ACS National Meeting was “Nanoscience, Nanotechnology, and Beyond.” As of Tuesday evening, August 21, attendance was 14,235, including 8,294 regular attendees and 1,181 exhibitors.
- ACS President Peter Dorhout led a special discussion on what role ACS should play in preventing sexual harassment in the sciences. Some suggestions were floated. Some poll results were presented, but only a very slim sliver (less than 3%) of attendees submitted answers, so it’s hard to know how much credence to give the stats.
- And we quote, “In light of the recent financial performance of the technical-meeting component of our national meetings, the Board voted to approve an advance member registration fee of only $490 for national meetings held in 2019.” If you didn’t know what the fee was this year, you’d be forgiven for assuming, from the wording, that this represents a fee decrease. Sorry, no. It represents the normal inflation escalation over the current year. Better hurry and get emeritus status.
- There’s a list of links to ACS officers, committees, member service offices, and resources available to members.
But hey, don’t rely on this subjective selection of highlights. Have a look for yourself.
“Computers and the physics of complex biological systems”
