The Regional Meetings Committee (RMC)is charged by the Division to:
- Provide oversight of the ACS Division of Chemical Education Region Awards, which includes the development and maintenance of Award Guidelines, participation in the selection and presentation of the Region Award winners;
- Insure that a Chemical Education Program is part of each Regional Meeting;
Promote the purpose and work of the ACS Division of Chemical Education.
In this Report we wish to address issues related to A.1 and A.2. RMC continues to promote the Division (A.3) by having DivCHED Representatives present the annually revised Division Poster and FAQ cards at each Regional Meeting.
1. 2023 Region Awards:
Nine of the ten ACS Regions held meetings in 2023 providing opportunities to recognize and reward excellence in high school chemistry. Awards given at meetings in the Spring/Summer 2022 were in our last report. All pertinent individuals from each Region have been contacted regarding DivCHED support and award guidelines. It was also reported to the same individuals the plans to revise the guidelines which we hope to have in place for meetings held in 2025. We list below three Awards presented at the 2023 Regional Meetings. Biographies, accompanied by photos, will appear in an issue of the DivCHED NEWSLETTER. The remaining awards will be in our next report.
REGION AWARD | AWARDEE |
Middle Atlantic Region Award | Dr. Roxanne Spencer Ranney School Tinton Falls, NJ |
Northeast Region Award | Dr. Parul Kumar Lexington High School Lexington MA |
Southwest Region Award | Cindy Welch Kingwood High School Kingwood, TX |
- Rework, refine, and streamline the Guideline Packet for ACS Division of Chemical Education Region Awards for Excellence in High School Teaching. This will hopefully make them more inclusive as well as increase the nominations for all regions.
- Continue to work with ACS staff to develop a better system for processing of regional and national awards including a central location to post awardee information.
- Develop a suitable process for recognizing an Excellence in High School Teaching award recipient in a year in which a Region does not host a Regional Meeting.
- Increase visibility of the committee and increase communication between the DivCHED representatives and the Regional Meeting organizers, but also the Regional Boards as well.
- Devise a plan for DivCHED representation at Regional Meetings in the absence of travel funding.
We put in a request for $10,000 for the 2024 budget.
We requested a total of $10,000 and as of this report had not heard back as to the status of our request.