Council Oral Report March, 2005

President’s report

First of all, it is an unparalleled pleasure and honor to be addressing you as President of the American Chemical Society. Thanks to you and to all the members for giving me this opportunity.

You have my written report, and I will be speaking to you later prior to our time for discussion, so I will try not to be redundant. I would, however, like to highlight a few things about my activity since we last spoke.

We have been working diligently on programming for this year, centering on three themes of importance: Public service by chemists as a route to improved public perception of chemistry; secondary education, and enabling second-careers for chemical professionals in high school teaching; and envisioning the state of the chemistry enterprise ten years from now. The overall theme is opportunity, and I’ve tried to keep our efforts focused on finding opportunity in times of change. I hope you took advantage of the Presidential symposia at this meeting, and I can say with total confidence that we have an absolutely outstanding meeting for you in Washington.

As a highlight of this meeting, I would like to point to the announcement of “Chemistry Teacher Connections,” a new online product produced by an alliance between the Division of Chemical Education and the Journal of Chemical Education. CTC is an affordable, on-line program that provides high school teachers with priority access to high school tools on the ACS website, and a web-based version of the High School materials found each month in J Chem Ed. The electronic archive of those materials is included as well. CTC is an attempt to bring high school teachers closer to ACS, even if they are not quite ready to sign on for full membership.

As I told you last year, I feel strongly about visiting members and engaging the public at local section venues. To date in 2005 I have visited 16 local sections, and while doing so visited 19 colleges and spoken to 12 student affiliates. I have visited 11 high schools and spoken to just shy of 1000 students. With visits scheduled and available dates, I believe I can achieve my target of fifty local section visits one year early in my presidential term. Note to Dr. Pavlath: As pitcher Satchel Paige once observed, “Don’t look back, someone might be gaining on you.”

I am specifically asking that if having the President apperar at a local section meeting would help your attendance or programs, please feel free to invite me. I’m clean, engaging and relatively easy to take care of. I will do everything I can to accommodate all invitations in the next 21 months.

Finally, I wanted you to know that no matter what you’ve ever heard being ACS President is a hoot and I’m having a ball. It’s the best job in America working with the best people to address meaningful challenges for us all. Don’t let anyone ever tell you any different.

I will have a few more comments prior to the open discussion, but for now, this completes my report.