Greetings from Illinois! By the time you read this, I will have relocated to spend the AY21/22 as an ACE Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - but you can still reach me at my Miami email address below. My hope is that each of you found some time or some place this summer to step away from the stress of managing life in the pandemic to rest, restore, and rejuvenate. The next school year is just days away (or has already started for some of us!) If you’re looking for new ideas for your classroom, you’ve come to the right place! The Division of Chemical Education is filled with creative teachers and a supportive community of colleagues! Check out the hybrid programming for the ACS national meeting in Atlanta and start thinking about the spring 2022 national meeting in San Diego and the 2022 BCCE at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN! Your elected leaders in DivCHED have been working throughout the summer on a wide variety of tasks from conference programming to governance to navigating budget realities. I’ve highlighted below just a few of the many, many ways that DivCHED members contribute their time and talents. Please be sure to read the entirety of our newsletter for more detailed information about your Division of Chemical Education.
Sincerely,
Stacey Lowery Bretz
bretzsl@miamioh.edu
Happy 100th Birthday to the Division of Chemical Education!
2021 marks exactly one century for DivCHED! Irv Levy and Patrick Daubenmire (Program Chair) have co-organized a celebratory symposium for the fall 2021 meeting: “A Century in the Division of Chemical Education: Celebrating 100 Years of Promoting Knowledge and Skills in Chemistry.” Please mark your calendar for Monday, August 23 to celebrate this momentous occasion, to reminisce with colleagues, and to be inspired about what the next century might bring for chemistry education!
Atlanta (Fall 2021) Governance Meetings & CHED Social
As we did for the spring 2021 meeting, all CHED Governance Meetings will be virtual for the fall 2021 national meeting. Governance committees will convene the weekend of August 20-22, 2021. Committees will meet at their long-standing “regular” times, using the Atlanta eastern time zone. Please click here for information on how to register to receive the zoom link(s) for the committee meetings you wish to attend, including our social hour. The CHED social will be held on Sunday, August 22 from 6-7 pm (eastern). Here’s hoping that many of us will be able to gather face-to-face in warm and sunny San Diego, California in March 2022!
AACT Representative
Congratulations to Stephanie O’Brien on her appointment to the AACT (American Association of Chemistry Teachers) Governing Board! She teaches at Commack High School in Commack, NY. Stephanie served during 2020/2021 and was reappointed by the Chair of the ACS Board of Directors for a second, 1-year term for 2021/2022.
Outreach Volunteer Reception
The ACS Committee on Community Activities (CCA) invites all CHED members to a reception at the fall 2021 ACS National Meeting in Atlanta, GA to honor chemists who give so selflessly of their time and talents as volunteers through community outreach. Please click here for more details and to RSVP.
Early Career Professionals
The ACS Office of Industry Member Programs will attend the CHED Executive Committee meeting (open session) on Saturday, August 21 to listen to the thoughts of CHED members with a focus on understanding the needs and pressing issues of early career professionals. If you are a CHED member who teaches students who are about to enter the industry workforce, or if you have feedback from previous students about their experiences as newly minted industrial chemists, please join us to share your thoughts with the Office of Industry Member Programs. The open session of ExComm will begin at 1:30 p.m.
ACS National Awards Banquet
The 2021 ACS National Awards Banquet will be held virtually on Sunday, August 22, 2021, starting at 7 pm (EST). Please congratulate our own CHED Chair-Elect, Vicente Talanquer, for this important recognition by his peers as winner of the ACS Award for Achievement in Research for the Teaching & Learning of Chemistry. Congratulations, Vicente!
CHED Elections
The Division of Chemical Education will be holding elections this fall. Please read the information from Dan King, our CHED Secretary, for details on the ballot and how to vote.
Harassment Free Meetings
ACS has released detailed guidance on appropriate conduct of its members and volunteers at all meetings (national meetings, regional conferences, Division and Local Section meetings, committee meetings, etc.). The DivCHED Executive Committee will continue our discussion of these guidelines at the open session of our fall 2021 governance meeting. Please click here to read more about this important initiative.