Councilor Talking Points, Fall, 2024

The national ACS Council publishes their “Councilor Talking Points” after every national meeting, intended to help Councilors inform the members of their Section or Division.

The Fall 2024 meeting in Denver (August 18 – 22) just concluded, Councilor Donna Friedman has provided the document for our edification. In no particular order, and using entirely subjective criteria, here are the highlights. If you want to see the whole thing, it’s here (pdf, 296 kB).

• Attendance at the fall 2024 meeting was: 10,245 in‐person and 1,324 online.
• Selfsame Donna Friedman was elected to the Council Policy Committee. Of the ten candidates, Donna received the greatest number of votes. Yay, Donna! (or sorry, Donna, … depending).
• A petition was approved allowing for the creation of Global Electoral Zones for the election of Councilors by ACS members living outside the territory of existing Local Sections. This wasn’t the highlight. The highlight was a provision (not yet finalized) for determining the number of Councilors allocated to Divisions. The math works this way: add up the number of Councilors for all the Local Sections and Global Electoral Zones. Multiply that total by 0.25. That is the number of Councilors to be elected by the Divisions. One wonders why it wasn’t done by number of members, like for the Local Sections and (presumably) the Zones. But one wasn’t privy to the heated debate, so one expects there was a very good reason.
• The Committee on Younger Chemists (YCC), in celebration of their 50th anniversary, encourages early‐career chemists to join ACS. Through September, new members can join ACS for a 50% discount off their first year of annual dues by using discount code YCC24 when joining online. The wording seems to suggest that you don’t have to be a Younger Chemist to avail yourself of this deal. Because, after all, younger than what? or whom?
• The Board of Directors approved a new post-doctoral fellowship in organic chemistry, to be supported by the Arthur C Cope Fund. The award provides up to $85,000 per year for two years.
• Council approved the updated Chemical Professional’s Code of Conduct as well as amendments to the Academic Professional Guidelines.