Report to Council

Report to Council

Divisional Activities Committee

2010 Boston National Meeting

Mister President and Fellow Councilors:

At this meeting, the Divisional Activities Committee (DAC) approved 15 Innovative Project Grant (IPG) proposals from 13 divisions totaling $102,400. DAC will consider another set of IPG proposals at the Anaheim national meeting in March. In order to have their proposals considered by DAC in Anaheim, divisions must submit them no later than February 1, 2011.

Operating as a DAC subcommittee, the Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group (MPPG) has approved the following themes for upcoming national meetings:

·  For the Spring 2013 meeting in New Orleans: “Chemistry of Energy and Food”

·  For the Fall 2013 meeting in Indianapolis: “Chemistry in Motion”

As a reminder, the theme for the 2011 national meeting in Anaheim is “Chemistry of Natural Resources.”

Progress is being made to improve the Program and Abstract Creation System (PACS), which had challenged a significant number of San Francisco and Boston program chairs and session organizers. The majority of the shortcomings in this software have been corrected, and those remaining are being addressed, which makes it likely that the experience of Anaheim program chairs and session organizers will be markedly better. Face-to-face training sessions for the revised version of PACS are being held here in Boston with program chairs and session organizers. In addition, user guides have been revamped, and a number of webinars will be run throughout the fall. DAC will closely monitor this matter.

DAC was briefed on the recent activities of the Electronic Dissemination of Meeting Content Task Force. The committee supports the work of this task force, and believes making meeting content available online holds great promise for ACS. At this meeting, approximately 350 presentations are being recorded. The presentations will be available online to Boston meeting registrants soon after the meeting. Those who registered for this meeting will receive an e-mail from ACS to alert them that the content has been posted. Before year-end, the task force will report its recommendations for managing this initiative with respect to ACS meetings, including how to select content to be recorded, and how to disseminate it.

In a recent poll, the membership of both the Division of Petroleum Chemistry and the Division of Fuel Chemistry expressed strong support to investigate a merger between these two divisions. DAC and the Committee on Constitution and Bylaws (C&B) are working together to identify an expedited, bylaw compliant process to permit these two divisions to merge.

The probationary Division of Catalysis Science and Technology, CATL, is making good progress in meeting the criteria to become a regular Division of the Society. DAC and C&B are working with the leadership of CATL to facilitate its growth and to bring the issue of recognizing CATL as a regular Division in front of Council for a vote in 2011.

The committee considered the petition up for action during this Council meeting and concluded that it does not have any significant impact on divisions.

Mister President and fellow councilors, this concludes my report.

Final CPC Approved

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