2015 Committee Reports:
2015 Fall ACS National Meeting in Boston MA, August 16-20, 2015

View previous reports 

Councilor's Report

Membership Report

IAB Report

Treasurer's Report 

POLY – Councilor’s Report, Boston

F. Blum, M.A. Meador,  J. Pochan, R. Moore

Council selected members for the elected committees of council including the petitions on Member Expulsion and Preferential Voting for National Office along with the Council approved procedures for the above. Council also approved International Chapters for Australia, Brazil, Nigeria, Peru, and United Arab Emirates.  Ballots for President-Elect, Members-at-Large (only Councilors vote), and Districts I and V will be on the fall ballots.  Council also selected members for the Committee on Committees (CoNC), Council Policy Committee (CPC) and Nominations and Elections (N&E).  

Meetings and Expositions (M&E) (John Pochan): M&E accepted 9,271 papers for the 250th National Meeting in Boston, MA.  The total attendance for this meeting was 13,660. The Exposition had 475 booths with 325 exhibiting companies. 

ACS was recognized in Convene Magazine’s August 2015 annual Best in Show issue for “Best Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives”. In our continuing efforts to green the national meetings, M&E confirmed its conversion to electronic versions of the program book starting with the Spring 2016 meeting.   The hard copy program book will be available for attendees to purchase (at cost) when they register for the meeting and onsite. The PDF version of the national meeting program will be more prominently displayed on the ACS website for those who would like to print portions for themselves.

M&E has established a new sub-committee titled “operations” which is responsible for monitoring the financial success of the national meetings, compliance with the National Meeting Long Range Financial Plan and the recommendations of the 2015 Task Force on Implementing National Meeting Financial Targets.

Council Policy Committee (CPC) (Frank Blum): CPC finalized the language for the Member Expulsion bylaw change and is also working on some long range planning for consideration of how Council is partitioned with Division and Local Section Councilors. Currently, 20% of Council is represented by Division Councilors.  This may be an important topic for Divisions in the future. 

 
Divisional Activities Committee (DAC) (Mary Ann Meador): recently completed a review of a white paper to help Divisions identify, evaluate, and pursue international engagement opportunities, and also voted to fund 14 Innovative Project Grants (IPG) totaling $77,050, including one submitted by POLY IAB to engage industrial members.

The Multidisciplinary Program Planning Group is proposing the following 2018 national meeting themes to the Divisions for their consideration: Nexus of Food, Energy and Water (Spring/New Orleans), and Nanotechnology (Fall/Boston).

Membership Affairs Committee (MAC) reported that as of July 31, the ACS membership was 156,561; 2,055 fewer than on the same date in 2014.  The number of new members who have joined this year is 14,457; 147 fewer than this time last year.  The Society’s overall retention rate is 84%.  The number of international members has increased to 25,989; 1,014 higher than in July, 2014.  The international retention rate is 85%. 

 Membership Report, Boston

Greetings POLY members. I am happy to report a new POLY/PMSE student chapter has been formed at the University of Minnesota and advised by Prof. Theresa Reineke. We look forward to their participation in POLY activities. In other news, the POLY membership committee is looking for new members. Anyone interested in volunteering should contact Kevin Cavicchi (cavicchi@uakron.edu) or Michael Meador (michael.a.meador@nasa.gov). The committee is especially interested in getting members interested in working on two targeted membership areas: industrial members and local section membership.

 POLY Treasurer's Report

This table outlines the summary and status of the 2015 budget with respect to the current income and expenditures through September and is compared to the end-of-year figures for 2014 and approved 2015 budget.  We continue to balance the budget and ensure that the expenditures are within the allocated figures agreed upon at the last 2015 Executive Committee meeting.  
 

Any questions or requests may be directed to the POLY Division Treasurer, Derek Patton, derek.patton@usm.edu .  All annual requests for funding should be submitted to the Treasurer by December 1, 2015 and will be reviewed for consideration at the POLY Executive Committee in January 2016.

IAB Report

The Polymer Division Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) continues to support on-going polymer-related initiatives for education, awards and programming. The IAB also provides a forum to make the needs and views of the industrial community known to POLY.  In particular, we continue to provide recommendations to POLY on future programming topics and structure.

In addition to programming, the currently funded activities of the Board include the Industrial Polymer Scientist Award, Student Travel Awards, Undergraduate and Graduate Research symposia, and special events. The IPS Award recognizes outstanding industrial innovation and creativity in the application of Polymer Science, conducted by individual scientists or research teams and will be recognized at a symposium Fall 2016. For more details.

The Graduate Student Travel Awards are organized by the Polymer Division Membership Committee and sponsored by the POLY Industrial Advisory Board. The Travel Awards are given at each ACS meeting to provide funding for polymer graduate students for travel to the National ACS meeting to present the results of their research.

The Fall 2015 awardees include Olivia Durham (Clarkson University) title: “Functional Polymer Particles Prepared by “Click” Thiol-Ene and Thiol-Yne Suspension Polymerizations”, and Keren Zhang (Virginia Tech) title: “Nucleobase-Functionalized Acrylics with Enhanced Mechanical Strength and Processability:  From DNA to Superamolecular Adhesives”.  The deadline for future Travel Awards are spring and fall prior to each ACS meeting. For specific dates and information visit: http//www.polyacs.org/649.html/.
 

The IAB continues to grow its programming in an effort to increase value of ACS  Meetings for its industrial members. For the 2016 spring ACS Meeting in San Diego, CA, a symposium titled Industrial Research at the Interface of Inorganic Chemistry with Polymer Science and organized by Laura Stratton and Nora Radu is planned for Sunday afternoon. A Monday afternoon session of Industrial Innovations in Polymer Chemistry: Innovations in Sustainable Industrial Practices for Polymer Production and Formulations, organized by Louis Pitet and Andy Meyer will be followed by an expanded Monday afternoon networking event.
 

The IAB Meeting will be held Tuesday morning (7:30am – 9:00am). We are always interested in new ways to serve the POLY industrial community and welcome your suggestions and attendance at our networking event or Tuesday morning board meeting.
 

For more information on the Industrial Advisory Board, contact Co-chairs: Travis Baughman (DSM) travis.baughman@dsm.com  or Diana Gerbi (3M) djgerbi@mmm.com