Now that the crush of the Salt Lake City National Meeting is over, I want to take the time to communicate a couple of recent activities and changes involving the Division. The primary function of the Division and membership services has been the organization of programs at the national meetings. Last year our dual program chairs, Dr. Al-Abed of USEPA and Dr. Dionysiou of the University of Cincinnati, began a focused effort on expanding our programming.  They found that one of the obstacles to their efforts was the Division’s requirement of extended abstracts.  Scientists were reluctant to write extended abstracts, in part because of conflicting messages from ACS journals about whether such abstracts constituted pre-publication which made the research unacceptable for publication.  This has been the case for several years.  In order to resolve the concerns, last year the Division began a test program to see whether meeting program content could be improved by eliminating the requirement of these extended abstracts. So far, I have been informed that the contributors to our meetings consider this an improvement and that the quality and number of papers has increased.  During this test period, extended abstracts will not be available. 

The Division is increasing on-going efforts to make research presentations more accessible to all our members and to the greater scientific community.  We are discussing joint meetings with other professional organizations, other divisions, possibly at the regional ACS meeting level.   The intent is to bring topics of interest physically closer to members and making attendance more economical.  For our growing international membership, we are discussing joint meetings with European chemists and this year are beginning a trial project, supported in part by ACS, with two small joint meetings with chemists from the Balkan region.  Several of us will be presenting and lecturing in Europe and the US as part of this initiative.

In the field of education, we have an exciting new program that will assist associate or bachelor degree chemists residing in the US in continuing their education.  The Division of Environmental Chemistry Continuing Education Grants will award $ 500 per member to partially reimburse expenses for a training course, workshop, or conference.  This will be limited to a maximum of 30 grants per year.  Look for further description of the requirements and particulars shortly on the Division web page.  I believe that the continuing training that is embodied in these grant awards can be a great benefit to our members in growing their careers.

The Division has an on-going and extensive award program: the Certificate of Merit, the Graduate Student Award, and the Hancock Award in Green Chemistry.  It has expanded this program to a yearly student award of $ 1,000 for attendance at a SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) meeting.  The notice for the ACS-ENVR/SETAC Exchange Program will also appear shortly.  SETAC will reciprocate similarly.  The intent here is to foster cooperation with other scientific organizations that are engaged in environmental issues.

And I am still, always, looking for members to participate in the governance of the Division.  Please contact me and we can talk about possible activities that match your interest.

Jurgen H. Exner
jexner@earthlink.net