CMA Council Report
[Slide 1]
Mr. President and members of Council:
The Committee on Minority Affair (CMA) has revised our vision and mission statement in alignment with the joint subcommittee on diversity and the society’s strategic plan. Our goals are focused on increasing membership, recognizing pioneers from underrepresented groups and educating the Society on the issues facing underrepresented groups.
CMA has identified 4 minority serving institutions to work with and to recruit new members. They include Native-American, Hispanic and African-American serving institutions. We plan to activate new ACS student chapters by partnering these inactive institutions with successful ones. For example, currently Morehouse does not have an active ACS student group, but Spelman has a thriving group. Spelman will partner with Morehouse to form an active ACS student group. We hope to increase ACS membership and minority participation with this model.
Committee members also attended SciMix with the intent to recruit new members.
CMA published an article in Leading Together highlighting CMA activities and the ChemLuminary Award criteria. I encourage you to discuss the article with members of your local section.
We have also identified several ACS national awards that we will target for enhanced minority participation. We will identify potential nominees and candidates for each of the award selection committees. CMA is also compiling a list of stellar scientists for consideration as ACS journal editors.
CMA has formed the Marie Daley Task Force with the women chemists committee. Marie Daley was the first African-American Woman to receive a Ph.D. This task force is charged with creating a product to tell the story of this scientist and educator that will honor her and inspire others in much the same manner as the celebration of Percy Julian a few years ago.
[SLIDE 2]
2010 is the 15th anniversary for the ACS Scholars Program. The CMA luncheon this past Monday featured Dr. Daniel J. Mindiola who was the first ACS scholar to complete a Ph.D. He recently won the National Fresenius Award which was presented to him during the ACS awards gala in San Francisco. The celebration continued with a Presidential event symposium organized by Carlos Guitierrez entitled, “ACS Scholars Program Results: Stories Highlighting 14 Successful Years.” All the speakers were former ACS scholars. The data for the ACS scholars over 15 years is very impressive as shown on this slide. There have been over 2300 total scholars and 70 confirmed Ph.D.s.
Mr. President, this concludes my report.