Section election results announced

At the November Board of Directors meeting, Chair Jeff Cornelius announced the results of the balloting for next year’s officers, which took place during October. Valid ballots were cast by 146 members of the section. That is just under 10% of eligible voters, which might not seem like much, but it is actually quite good by our historical standards. This e-voting thing seems to be working out pretty well. But if you’re one of the other 90%, please consider voting in the election next year. We’ll remind you.

Candidates elected and serving in 2012 are:

• Chair-elect: Ziad Ramadan
• Treasurer: Vic Lewchenko
• Secretary: Sean D Dingman
• Directors (two-year term): Samir El-Antably, Eric Ressner, Keith Stine
• Councilor (three-year term): Donna Friedman
• Alternate Councilor (three-year term): Hal Harris

Member survey results announced, too

Eric Bruton, Chair-Elect (eric.bruton@gmail.com)

Over 250 chemists filled out the member survey this past summer, enabling us to focus our resources and better serve your needs. The results showed the following:

• The most commonly cited reasons for lack of involvement included not being aware of activities, no interest in activities, or too busy.
• Most survey respondents want to be informed about activities by e-mail. (Note that the survey was distributed by e-mail.)
• While members said they preferred being contacted by email about upcoming events, many respondents also heard about events from colleagues and on the local section website.
• The most heavily attended activities by survey respondents were technical talks. Additional talks were requested on pharmaceutical chemistry, analytical chemistry, and careers.
• Over 117 respondents were interested in participating in activities, especially outreach activities.

This has been an outstanding year for the local section, with the Joint Regional Meeting in St Louis in October and numerous other events, but we cannot stop moving forward. If you are interested in participating in our programs, or have ideas for new programs that will impact the careers and lives of our members, feel free to send them to me, or bring them to a board meeting. We would love to hear from you!

Keep informed about upcoming events by checking the calendar on our website (www.stlacs.org) in addition to looking out for email announcements. I am always happy to answer any questions as well.

Come to the Continuity Dinner

You still have a few days (until Dec 5) to reserve your seat at the Continuity Dinner, a fancier than usual Board meeting to celebrate the year’s achievements, recognize certain members, announce the Distinguished Service Award (conferred in March), and pass the gavel to the incoming section officers. There will be a special Salute to Excellence announced here; come find out who! Finally, the Henry Godt Memorial Lecture recaps the past year, and is given by a surprise speaker. There are some members we see only once a year, and this is usually that once. Please join us.

Thursday, December 8
C J Muggs, 101 West Lockwood Ave, Webster Groves, MO 63119 (map)
Free covered parking in municipal garage behind restaurant, entry off North Gore Ave
5:30 pm social hour with cash bar
6:30 pm dinner, meeting, and Continuity events

Please send your reservation by December 5th to:

Dr Jeff Cornelius
Department of Chemistry
1 Maybeck Place
Principia College
Elsah, IL 62028
618.374.5296
jeff.cornelius@principia.edu

Make checks payable to St Louis Section–ACS
Name(s) ____________________________________________________
Number attending _____ × $20 each = amount remitted $___________
Choice of entrée (number of each): salmon _______ or steak _______

Reaching out, big time

Sheryl Loux reported to the Board on the Chemistry is pHun program for elementary schools. Not counting the one program still to come in December, there has been a 38% increase in the number of students Sheryl reached with these programs: 1,403 students in 36 programs, including several schools hosting for the first time. Wow! Just ... wow. If you’d like to share in the action and bring Chemistry is pHun to a school district near you, contact Sheryl J Loux, sjloux@gmail.com or 636.237.5149. She has established activities and offers training.

The transmogrification of chemjobsstl

Lisa Balbes, our Career Services coordinator, wants you to know that the Yahoo! group, chemjobsstl, has been reincarnated as the LinkedIn group, Chemistry Careers in St Louis. Join the group and keep on top of career information and job postings for St Louis area chemists.

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: Dec 8 (special Continuity Dinner)
Social hour: 5:30 pm
Dinner, festivities, and meeting: 6:30 pm
Future meetings: Jan 12, Feb 9

Saint Louis University

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

Dec 9
Mike Harmata
University of Missouri–Columbia
Aspects of Serendipity in Organic Chemistry

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.

Dec 5
Dana Baum
Saint Louis University
Using Nucleic Acids as Catalysts and Sensors

Washington University

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

Dec 1
Emily Weiss
Northwestern University
Exciton Delocalization and Splitting at the Quantum Dot-organic Interface

Dec 6
Bo Li
Harvard University Medical School
TBA

Dec 8
Alison Ondrus
Stanford University
TBA

Dec 13
Ke Zhang
Northwestern University
TBA

Dec 15
Mingji Dai
Harvard University
TBA

Dec 20
Noah Burns
Harvard University
TBA

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.

If you use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to our  RSS feed, which includes notices of Chemical Bond issues and timely postings about chemistry-related events in the Saint Louis area.

Editor	Eric Ressner	314.962.6415 editor@stlacs.org
Assistant Editor & Advertising Manager	Sue Saum	314.513.4808 advmgr@stlacs.org
Business Manager	Donna Friedman	314.513.4388 bizmgr@stlacs.org