North Jersey Section ACS 2006 Annual Report Narrative

Stephen Waller, 2007 Section Past-Chair

 

The North Jersey Section is the largest section in the ACS.  Being so, we see many of the national challenges of the Society at a local level.  One of the biggest challenges has been the relocation of jobs from layoffs and from off-shoring.  Even local academic professionals are at risk from state budget decreases and reductions in scientific research grants.  These challenges can not be addressed with simple monthly section meetings.  They require a large effort by one hundred dedicated volunteers in all areas of the section, resulting in 94 section meetings with open attendance and countless hours of work on special projects and focused committee sessions.  These meetings spanned the boundaries of academia, industry, government, and the Society.

 

To insure that everyone is working together in 2006, the section held regular planning and programming meetings with leaders from every interest.  This provided the communication needed to accomplish cross-boundary event.  Thus, academicians and industrialists were hailed at award symposia supported by local industry, and legislators spoke about the benefits of chemistry and chemists in our society.  This made 2006 in our section a special year, a year where meetings were not considered to be self-contained, but were venues for creating a larger dialog.  It is this dialog that brings a chance for change in opinions about the value of chemistry to our country.  Without this positive shift in opinion in the executive leadership in companies, in the debates in government, in the hall of academia, and in the minds of the public, we will not be able to counteract downsizing, off-shoring, brain-drain, and negative public perceptions.

 

Our topical groups again organized many important meetings along these lines.  The Small Chemical Business group explored how these factors affected local companies.  The Younger Chemists Committee went outside the section to organize a dinner at the Middle Atlantic Regional Meeting 130 miles and two local sections away in Hershey, PA.  The Chromatography group integrated industrial sponsor presentations with academic speakers.  The Mass Spectrometry group reached out to students during their meetings and presented awards to leaders in industry, academia, and ACS volunteers.  The Organic group initiated a new major award, supported completely with funds from industry and academia, an award with enough prestige that it may rival ACS national awards in a few years.  They also reached out to executive leaders from major pharmaceutical companies to make them feel a part of our Society.  The NMR group had meetings focused on the interests of academia and industry.  Additionally, more effort was placed on communicating events to government officials and getting them to come speak and commit for future presentations.

 

The section’s committees made it a point to reach out to all groups in the section.  The Minority Affairs committee posted scholarship opportunities on the web page and promoted the accomplishments Percy Julian.  The Women Chemists Committee went beyond talking about the careers of women and offered career advices to all student affiliates in the section.  The section helped pay travel expenses for some of our student affiliates to go across the country to San Francisco for the national meeting.  The Project SEED committee worked hard to gain publicity for Project SEED on New Jerseys Public TV news, NJN News (video report included on DVD and CD-ROM), and then had NJ government officials speak to the SEED students as well.  This took the very successful SEED program in our section to a higher level of success this year.

 

Our Teachers Affiliates and Student Affiliate groups did numerous programs during the year.  From workshops to help teachers teach chemistry to fun chemistry demos to fellow students, they accomplished everything with enthusiasm.  Additionally, these groups came together with volunteers from industry to hold a great NCW chemistry expo with dozens of hands-on activities and hundreds of attendees from every part of our society.

 

This year also saw the seeds of a new Polymer group for the section.  With a new interest in how polymers and materials can be used in medicine, companies and colleges in the area are moving into these areas of research and product development.  Nearly 800 members of the section list themselves as polymer related chemists.  With a committee put in place in 2006 and an energetic chair for 2007, the section is excited about what this group will be doing to support this component of our membership.

 

Of course, we accomplished a lot this year in our section.  We had hugely successful symposia, recognized volunteers with awards, provided extensive programs for teachers and students, and supported our colleagues in search of professional assistance.  But the biggest and most important thing our section did this year that can be a model for the ACS as a whole is that we crossed boundaries whenever possible.  Each group and committee had a sense of working for more than just their meeting.  They reached out to more groups and more ideas to provide leadership where they normally would not.  This accomplishment can not be captured on paper as a list of meetings and events, but it can be captured as part of the culture of a successful section and can change the landscape of chemistry at least in North Jersey.