It was almost business as usual for the governance aspects of the Fall 2020 National ACS meeting, as councilors met virtually, in committees and en banc, to address their responsibilities.
The Councilor Talking Points document always reports national meeting attendance, and, somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t too far down in our COVID-19 era, possibly reflecting the reduced registration fee structure and the zeroed costs of travel and lodging for this meeting held totally in cyberspace. Across all membership categories, registrations were almost 6,500, and slightly over 4,000 presentations were uploaded to the program site.
Some actions of interest (subjectively) taken by the Council:
- approved formation of an International Chemical Sciences Chapter in Israel (who knew they did not already have one?)
- as reported by Budget and Finance, 2020 financial performance through July 31 yielded a Net from Operations of $55.7 million, or $25 million greater than the same period in 2019, due to a 5% increase in revenues and a 3% decrease in expenses
In other business, the Board of Directors held a strategic discussion on ways to turn the ACS core value of Diversity, Inclusion, and Respect into a prioritized action plan that would emphasize the urgency of “moving the needle” both within ACS and in the broader chemistry enterprise. Clearly an outcome — or an aspirational outcome — of the broader societal (not “Societal”) impetus in that direction.
The full talking points document is here for your perusal. You may find that other points are more interesting that those selected here.
“Computers and the physics of complex biological systems”
