Midwest Regional Meeting 2011

Focus on Awards

by Donna Friedman, Awards Liaison

As you know, the St Louis Section is hosting the 2011 Midwest Regional Meeting, jointly with the Great Lakes Regional Meeting, October 19-22, 2011. One of the significant agenda items at these regional meetings is always the award presentations. Members of the St Louis Section are thoroughly familiar with the Midwest Award, which our section administers. But there’s more....

ACS Division of Chemical Education Midwest Region Award for Excellence in High School Teaching, in Honor of John E. Bauman, Jr.

To recognize, encourage, and stimulate outstanding teachers of high school chemistry in the ACS Midwest Region

E. Ann Nalley Regional Award for Volunteer Service to the American Chemical Society

To recognize the volunteer efforts of individuals who have served the American Chemical Society, contributing significantly to the goals and objectives of the Society through their regional activities

Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences

To recognize individuals and/or institutions that have advanced diversity in the chemical sciences and significantly stimulated or fostered activities that promote inclusiveness within the ACS Midwest Region

ACS Regional Industrial Innovation Award

Sponsored by the ACS Corporation Associates and celebrates the successful innovations of industrial chemists and chemical engineers who contribute to the health of their local and regional economy.

and, of course, there’s the Midwest Award

Established by the St Louis Section in 1944 to publicly recognize outstanding achievements in chemistry in the Midwest region. The award is conferred annually on a scientist who has made meritorious contributions to the advancement of pure or applied chemistry, chemical education, and the profession of chemistry.

These award announcements, along with eligibility criteria and nominating guidelines, are summarized on the Midwest Region website, www.midwestacs.org/awards/awards.htm. Take a look especially at the awards you seldom think about, and consider nominating a colleague for well deserved recognition.

Message from Shelley Minteer, Past Chair

Greetings!

It seems like yesterday that I was writing my incoming chair message and now I am writing my outgoing chair message for the Chemical Bond. This year has gone speeding by. It has been an exciting year and I would like to take this time to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication to the St Louis Section of the American Chemical Society. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Ted Gast for his service as our Section Treasurer for the last several years and wish good luck to Vic Lewchenko who will be the Section Treasurer for the coming year. Until I became chair, I did not realize all of the work and dedication that goes into to being the Section Treasurer, but I can tell you that it is probably the most time consuming of all of the Section jobs. Ted, thank you!

The St Louis Section has provided very valuable programming to both our own members (many fantastic YCC career programs, Chemistry of Birds presentation, St Louis Award Symposium, etc) and to the community (including Boy Scout and Girl Scout Merit Badge Clinics, Battle of the Burets, Earth Day activities, “Chemistry is pHun” programming in the schools, National Chemistry Week at the Science Center, etc). If you didn’t participate in any Section activities last year, I encourage you to attend a Section activity in 2011. 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry, and the St Louis Section will be hosting the Midwest Regional Meeting in October. These exciting activities will definitely be of interest to Section members. I hope to see you all at a St Louis Section event in 2011.

Shelley Minteer, 2010 Chair

Jeff Cornelius, 2011 Chair, Looks Forward

Happy New Year 2011 to all the St Louis Section members. I find it hard to believe that I am beginning my year as Chair of the local Section. The activities of the last year have gone by very quickly. It is hard to believe that we are about to start another year of activities. The United Nations has designated 2011 as the International Year of Chemistry and coincidentally, our local section is hosting the Midwest-Great Lakes Regional ACS meeting here in St Louis in October. People in our area should hear a lot about the positive role that chemistry plays in our world. We have a great opportunity to get the word out. We have quite a program lined up and I am so grateful to have many experienced people helping out with the activities of the local section! I am particularly excited to see chemistry interest growing at my own Principia College where eight people just recently joined ACS and reactivated our dormant student ACS chapter. I look forward to getting them involved in more of the St Louis section activities.

Our section has a schedule full of activities spread throughout the year. I suppose people have come to expect that from us. Our website already has a number of science fairs listed that you, our members, can help judge. The Younger Chemists Committee has grown and has been active with a number of meetings including their sponsorship of a popular series of career workshops. Chemical Progress Week in April includes awards for high school and college students. National Chemistry Week will be in October. We are still working to schedule a General Topics Lecture in March and a second in the fall. Watch for information about the Midwest Regional Meeting and the International Year of Chemistry. More information on these activities can be found on our website: www.stlacs.org.

I hope that we can encourage more people to participate in our activities. The St Louis section encompasses about 1700 chemists. We hope that you will come join us and participate in our activities. Maybe you can help out with a Science Fair or at Earth Day this year.

Jeff

Continuity ... continues

It was a dark but not particularly stormy night when, on December 9th, the Section hosted its special Continuity Night dinner/meeting. This is the occasion of the final Board meeting of the year, a transition point for incoming and outgoing officers, a time for some important announcements, and ... yes ... even more fun than the other eight Board meetings.

After a pleasant social hour with some new faces showing for a first time, and some old faces we haven’t seen in a long time, the first order of business was a General Meeting of the Section to approve changes in the Bylaws. But, no matter how many times we counted, we still came up exactly one short of a mandated quorum to conduct business. That will mean a General Meeting do-over later in 2011 to try again.

The meat (or fish) of the Board meeting was consumed with year-end reports and business. Particularly poignant were reports of our topical discussion groups, which are very active and highly successful at bringing in both attendance and industry support. If you are missing out on these, check out the current listings at www.stlacs.org/meetings.html, find one that meshes with your interests, and take advantage.

The Big Three events of every Continuity Dinner are reserved for last:

1. The winner of the Distinguished Service Award was revealed. It is Lisa Balbes. We wonder how we could have delayed so long in conferring this honor upon our founding webmaven, former chair, long-time Councilor, and Career Resources star.
2. After much shuffling of the To Tell the Truth variety, Alexa Serfis stood to deliver the Henry Godt Memorial Lecture. She returned to the rhyming motif popularized by Greg Wall. The full text of her address can be found here.
3. Finally, outgoing chair Shelley Minteer passed the book and gavel to Jeff Cornelius, our 2011 Chair. Both Chairs share their thoughts with us elsewhere in this issue.

 Who You Gonna Call? Officers, 2011

Do you have a question about a specific section activity? Want to get involved, and you know where your niche is? Have an issue or suggestion about section governance, policies, activities? Here are the people in charge for 2010. Get in touch.

Elected officers
Chair	Jeff Cornelius
Chair-Elect	Eric Bruton
Immediate past chair	Shelley Minteer
Secretary	Pat Burrell-Standley
Treasurer	Vic Lewchenko
Directors	2010-2011: Samir El-Antably, Eric Ressner, Sue Dudek 2011-2012: Bill Doub, Bruce Ritts, Steve Kinsley
Councilors	2009-2011: Donna Friedman 2010-2012: Lisa Balbes, Alexa Serfis 2011-2013: Lawrence Barton
Alternate Councilors	2010-2012: Ben Outlaw 2011-2013: Ted Gast, Chris Spilling 2011: Hal Harris
Committee chairs
Awards	John Gleason
Education	Ziad Ramadan
Investment	Hal Harris
Professional Activities	Brent Znosko
Program	Dana Baum
Publicity and Public Relations	Ben Outlaw
Special Event chairs
Chemical Progress Week	TBA
National Chemistry Week	Greg Wall

 It’s Science Fair Season: Judges Needed

Will you be a judge for the St Louis Section’s Science Fair awards? Volunteer for any or all of these opportunities by contacting Sheryl J Loux at 636.237.5149 or email sjloux@gmail.com.

• Missouri Tri-county Regional Science And Engineering Fair, Saturday, February 26
  St Charles Community College, College Student Center. Judging 9 am–noon. K-4 participation awards distributed. Judging for grades 5-8, 9-12, and honors 9-12.
  Free breakfast for judges 8–9 am.
• Illinois Junior Academy of Sciences Regional Science Fair, Saturday, March 26
  Morris University Center at SIU–Edwardsville (#8 on campus map, park in Lot E). This regional fair hosts over 200 5th–12th grade student projects from a ten county area. Meet at 9:30 am; judging from 10 am to 1 pm in divisions grades 5-8, 9-12, and honors 9-12.
• Greater St Louis Science Fair, date in early May to be determined
  Greensfelder Recreation Complex, Queeny Park, Weidman Rd, Ballwin, MO
  — Elementary (K-5): Participation Awards distributed to chemistry-related projects. Three people needed for about one hour each between 3 and 8 pm. No Judging involved.
  — Secondary (6-12): Judging of chemistry-related projects 3–8:30 pm. Please volunteer for at least 2½ hours. Free dinner for judges (5–6 pm). Judges must be present at 8:30 to pick winners.

Your participation as a judge would be greatly appreciated!

Board of Directors

St Louis Section–ACS Board of Directors meets the second Thursday of each month, usually at the Glen Echo Country Club ( map). Meetings are open to all members, and all are encouraged to attend. Elected officers and chairs of major committees vote on questions put to the Board; others in attendance have voice but no vote.

If you want to attend for dinner, please contact the section Chair at least a week in advance. Usual cost of the dinner is $24 ($12 for post-docs and unemployed members). Members wishing to become active in section activities are welcomed for their first dinner as guests of the section.

Date: Jan 13
Social hour: 5:30 pm
Dinner: 6:30 pm
Business meeting: 7:15 pm
Future meetings: Feb 10, Mar 10

Saint Louis University

Seminars are on Fridays at 12 noon in Carlo Auditorium, Tegeler Hall, unless noted otherwise. Refreshments follow. For more information, contact Dana Baum, dbaum1@slu.edu.

At publication time, there were no seminars scheduled for January.

University of Missouri–St Louis

Mondays at 4 pm in 451 Benton Hall, unless otherwise specified. Refreshments 15 minutes prior to seminar time. For more information, contact the Chemistry Department, 314.516.5311.

Jan 24
Brent Znosko
Saint Louis University
Predicting RNA secondary and tertiary structure from sequence

Jan 31
Matthew Holden
University of Massachusetts–Amherst
Building Biology Drop-by-Drop

Washington University

Seminars are in McMillen 311 at 4 pm unless otherwise noted. For information, contact: Liviu Mirica, mirica@wustl.edu.

Jan 10
Matthew Bush
Oxford University
Gas-Phase Structural Biology of Protein Complexes

About the Chemical Bond

The Chemical Bond is published at www.stlacs.org January through May and September through December by the St Louis Section–American Chemical Society. If you would like to receive email notification when each issue is posted, you can subscribe to the bond.remind listserv. You can also follow the link to “Manage bond.remind options” from the home page at www.stlacs.org.

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Editor	Eric Ressner	314.962.6415 editor@stlacs.org
Assistant Editor & Advertising Manager	Sue Saum	314.513.4808 ssaum@stlcc.edu
Business Manager	Donna Friedman	314.513.4388 dfriedman@stlcc.edu