Highlights

• how to have your voice heard in the national ACS
• the upcoming joint regional meeting
• our section's community outreach

Comments from the Chair

By Brian Eklov

Things are really starting to warm up now that spring is finally here. In this installment of our newsletter we are highlighting a few upcoming events. First, we will have one outreach event for Chemists Celebrate Earth Day at the Oshtemo branch of the Kalamazoo Public Library on 25 April from 1-3 pm.

Our annual awards gathering will be on May 11th at 6 pm. Please join us to honor our competitive exam winners, outstanding high school and college chemistry students, our high school teacher of the year, and 50- and 60-year ACS members (RSVP details below).

To top off the spring schedule, we have the Joint Great Lakes / Central Regional Meeting May 27-30 in Grand Rapids. Please plan on joining us for this special event - more details are below, but I'd like to draw attention to the request from the national ACS office. ACS is asking for feedback from industrial chemists during our regional meeting. I'd like them to hear from members in our region, and especially from our section. See below for more details about how to make your voice heard, and help shape the direction of our Society and the services it provides.

Brian Eklov, Ph.D. (KACS Chair)

Industry Member Input Sought at 2015 ACS Regional Meetings

By Lydia Hines

Immediate Past President Tom Barton is interested in hosting a session at the 2015 ACS Regional Meetings to hear from industrial chemists on how the ACS could better serve their needs. Topics for discussion might include specific changes in education, safety training, understanding industrial goals and restrictions, publications, providing functions and facilities after graduation, etc.

Those interested in attending and participating in one of these sessions should notify Tom Barton at president@acs.org. Needed information is:

• that you definitely plan to attend a session at the Joint Great Lakes Central Regional Meeting
• on which areas you would like to see ACS direct its focus

If enough interest exists, ACS staff will provide meeting attendees with advance notice of the day, time and location for the session.

The Joint Great Lakes-Central Regional Meeting will be held in Grand Rapids on May 27-30 so if you, as an industrial chemist, are interested in attending a session as indicated above please respond soon to the contact address given.

JGLCRM – Grand Rapids

By Lydia Hines

Be Part of the Joint Great Lakes-Central Regional Meeting in Grand Rapids! It is now less than 5 weeks away…

Mark your calendar for this ACS Meeting to be held at the Amway Grand Hotel/DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids from Wednesday through Saturday, May 27-30, 2015. Registration is now open, and the lesser fees are in place only until April 26 so please plan to register soon and then participate along with other chemists in our two regions in the professionally rich program being planned. Discounted rates for rooms at the Amway Grand will also be available until April 26.

We would love to hear of your offer of assistance during the meeting time as well as before, in several ways:

• Encourage vendors with whom you have interactions to agree to exhibit at the Meeting and to sponsor one or more of our symposia or a social event (visit the Expo page for more information).
• Help with the layout of our Program Book - abstract submission closed on March 30.
• Help during the on-site registration process.
• Recommend to your or your friends' children's/grandchildren's teachers that they register (form at our website) to participate in our Teachers' program on Saturday, May 30, starting with breakfast at 7:30 am followed by workshops and other hands-on learning opportunities until 12:30 pm.

Lydia E. M. Hines, who is co-General chair of the Meeting, looks forward to hearing of your offers to assist.

Dr. Scott Denmark (University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign), Dr. Joan Brennecke (University of Notre Dame) and Dr. Dustin Mergott (Eli Lilly) will be our keynote speakers. Dr. Tom Lane (Past-President, ACS) will be giving the address at the Awards banquet on Friday evening, Dr. Diane Grob Schmidt, current ACS President, will be the featured speaker at the Women Chemists Committee luncheon and Dr. Bill Carroll (Past-President, ACS) will be speaking at the Younger Chemists Committee luncheon. Other ACS Board representatives will also be on hand to interact with the members - an Ice Cream Social has been planned for that purpose on Friday afternoon from 2-3 p.m.

Also, please respond to the invitation (see a related paragraph in this newsletter) from Tom Barton, Immediate past-chair of the ACS, regarding ACS's interest in having special focus group sessions with chemists who work in industry.

Continue to visit the meeting website to see how many of our colleagues are already involved in the planning, and for updates on the program and other news…

Miscellaneous

Education Committee News

Fifteen High Schools in our Allegan-Kalamazoo-Van Buren county Local Section area accepted our invitation to give their students the annual Competitive Chemistry examination, the first exam of two which we use to determine winners for our Section scholarship awardees each year. That exam was given on March 17; the students who had the top 10 scores overall, along with those who received the three top scores in their school's cohort, were invited to a take a second examination on the WMU campus on April 25.

The awardees are identified based on the results from the second examination; they, along with their parents are invited to an Awards Gathering, which is to be held once again at 6 pm in the atrium of the Chemistry Building on the WMU campus on Monday, May 11, 2015.

Section members are invited to join the award winners and their families at that event – we want to encourage these young people as they proceed in their studies. At that time we also recognize outstanding high school chemistry students as identified by their respective chemistry teachers, an outstanding HS teacher, outstanding college chemistry students from our 2 local 4-year post-secondary chemistry departments, as well as 50-year members.

These events would not be possible without the able and diligent assistance of Mrs. Robin Lenkart, and Drs. James Kiddle, Sherine Obare and Andre Venter, all of WMU's Chemistry Department. To ascertain that we have enough refreshments available, we request that you let us know by May 4 whether or not you will be present at this gathering. Mrs. Lenkart can be reached at 387-2922 or robin.k.lenkart@wmich.edu.

CCED (Chemists Celebrate Earth Day) 2015

The theme for Chemists Celebrate Earth Day (CCED) this year is “Climate Science: More Than Just a Weather Report”. We have scheduled two outreach events in April, the first was at the Kalamazoo Nature Center on April 18 (10 am – 4 pm) during their Earth Day celebration (with free admission) where age-appropriate information and hands-on activities were offered to the patrons. Maren Zanotti (maren.c.zanotti@wmich.edu) continues as our KACS coordinator this year.

Our second outreach will be at the Oshtemo branch of the Kalamazoo Pubic Library on West Main Street during their outdoor Earth Day event on 25 April from 1-3 pm. Brian Eklov and Lydia Hines have offered to interact with the young people and their parents at that location, but your offers of help will not be turned away! You may contact Lydia Hines if you would like to join the fun. Due to the limited interest in past years in the illustrated poem contest, we will not be pursuing that opportunity this year.