Greetings fellow chemistry educators! I hope your spring semester is going well. As your Member at Large, I have been working on a few things related to the Division over the last few months and staying busy teaching my 10th grade girls in Houston. Regarding DivCHED, a review of the operations manual is underway, and I am asking committee chairs to review the operations manuals for their respective committees; in addition, I was part of the Strategic Planning team that met at ACS headquarters in January to develop the new strategic plan. It was a very interesting and engaging experience to work with people from all over the country who are active in all areas of chemical education, and to get their perspectives, hear their ideas, and generate a living document to help guide the Division into the future. During that process, we outlined several goals and strategies, which members then agreed to champion. The goals and strategies on which I chose to focus were G1S2 and G3S2.
Goal 1 is to create welcoming and responsive chemical education communities and strategy 2, toward that end, is to create three social networking opportunities by Fall 2025. We are off to a strong start on this goal already, with some fun things planned for a mixed social with SOCED and the Committee on Professional Training. Thanks in advance to the blended committee that put this together! We are thinking in terms of some online socials as well, so stay tuned. Goal 3 is to build and communicate the unique benefits and role of DivCHED and strategy 2 is to work with the public relations committee to develop two branding strategies by the end of 2025. The members of the strategic planning team had a lot of ideas, but I would encourage you, as a member, to share any ideas or special talents or skills you have that would help us progress toward completion of either of these strategies and beyond.
If you missed the Town Hall Meeting about the strategic plan you can view it here and please reach out with any questions or suggestions you might have. Additionally, if you are committee chair, please take a few minutes to look over the operations manual for your particular committee and let me know if anything needs to be updated or changed. Part of my job as Member at Large is to serve as a liaison between the executive committee and the membership, so bring it on! I look forward to hearing from you. Also, please watch your email and social media for notices about the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education coming up in July at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and other items related to chemistry education. There are some great things out there for all of us to experience.