Building and Maintaining Award-Winning ACS Student Member Chapters Volume 2: Specific Program Areas Downloaded from pubs.acs.org by 185.223.161.149 on 10/18/18. For personal use only.
Preface “It’s such an ancient pitch But one I wouldn’t switch ‘Cause there’s no nicer witch than you ‘Cause it’s witchcraft That crazy witchcraft…” Music by CY COLEMAN, lyrics by CAROLYN LEIGH Chemists don’t often quote a song made famous by Frank Sinatra. Chemists definitely don’t often speak of witchcraft—or at least not with a straight face. Yet there remains a certain magic, a wide-eyed wonder, a certain hard-to-define personal “chemistry” when it comes to our love of our science and our deep desire to pass it on to the next generation of student-scientists. Part of the love of chemistry manifests itself in the hard work that goes into building and then to maintaining a truly first-class American Chemical Society Student Member Chapter. The ingredients are not always the same from one chapter to another, but there is often overlap. Is it the advisor? Is it the student members? Is it the opportunities? Is it all of the above? The “all of the above” response is the most obvious, but there is definitely more to it than putting the right people together in the right place at the right time. This twin set of volumes is an attempt to capture numerous voices among those in the ACS who have built award-winning Student Member Chapters, as well as those who have kept them going, in some cases for decades. There is a great deal of energy within our ranks. We have tried to capture the experiences of these, some of our most active Student Member Chapter leaders, so that energy can easily be spread to others. Several of the chapters in these volumes have been written by Student Member Chapter advisors. These individuals are those who may have the longest effect on a Chapter simply because an advisor is usually a faculty member who has built her or his career at an institution. When they have a positive attitude, drive, and energy, and when they bring these to their “Chemistry Clubs,” the influence they can have on student members is far-reaching and long lasting. While faculty members who are deeply involved in ACS Student Member Chapters provide long-term stability and continuity, involved students and active student leaders bring the energy and vitality to Clubs that renews itself annually. Students come to colleges and universities with high hopes and great dreams, and active, enthusiastic “Chem Clubs” can fulfill them. Students also bring new ideas with them, ideas that can be tried, then used or discarded depending on the results.
ix
As students mature in their time in higher education, they can and often do take on active leadership roles and bring a Club’s activities and health to new heights. The energy and hard work of faculty advisors and student leaders doesn’t go too far if there isn’t a larger student body with which to work, and to whom the excitement and fun of chemistry can be imparted. Quite a few of the chapters in these volumes address at length how their departments, their college or university, or the general public in their area are able to interact with the Student Member Chapter. It is impressive to see what is being done throughout the Society to get some of the joy and fun of chemistry to a large, varied audience. We have divided the chapters of this project into two volumes, with the split aligning as follows: the companion volume in which the authors look at their Chapter overall, and discuss all of the facets that make up their organization (Volume 1: Holistic Viewpoints) and this volume in which the authors have focused on one or more strengths of their Student Member Chapter (Volume 2: Specific Program Areas). It is hoped that this will give readers some convenient places to start should they desire to see what some of the other shakers and movers are doing throughout the ACS. We hope these two volumes will give an interested reader many different recipes to build a great Student Member Chapter, and ways to maintain it for years. And even though we think these books provide several excellent, specific recipes for advisors, student leaders, and others interested in making the study and understanding of chemistry something that will be a central part of their undergraduate experience, we also hope there might still be a bit of “that crazy witchcraft” floating about which makes our science so much fun.
Matthew J. Mio University of Detroit Mercy
Mark A. Benvenuto University of Detroit Mercy
x
