ACS NEWS AT W0RK On the dais at the ACS Council meeting were (left to right) John K Crum, ACS executive director; Daryle Busch, immediate pastpresident; Eli Pearce, president-elect; Charles F. Rowell, Council Policy Committee vice chair, and Attila Pavlath, president.
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GOVERNANCE ACTIONS ACS Council raises dues, enlarges committees, and chooses candidates for fall election LINDA R. RABER, C&EN WASHINGTO
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Diego, the ACS Council dealt with several issues of importance to all ACS members and heard a number of reports on society activities. Notably, it raised annual ACS membership dues and provided council members with more opportunity to work on committees by creating more seats at the committees' tables. The vote to raise 2002 ACS member dues by $4.00 to the fully escalated rate of $112 per year was virtually unanimous, and there was no discussion. The council had not been requested to raise dues for 2001 (C&EN, April 17, 2000, page 51), and perhaps this one-year's grace explains why the motion sailed through. The other big news is that the council approved changes to ACS bylaws concerning the size of standing committees of the council. Upon ratification by the ACS Board, the size of council standing committees will be increased from a minimum of six and a maximum of 15 to a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20. The standing committees of the council are the Committees on Constitution & Bylaws, on Divisional Activities, on Economic & Professional Affairs, on Local Section Activities, on Meetings & Expositions, and on Membership Affairs. Their members are appointed by the ACS president. Those voting to increase the size of these committees believe that society activities C&EN
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can be positively influenced by more councilor involvement in the governance. The measure also passed overwhelmingly The Committee on Budget & Finance reported that the society is doing well financially The society's Budgetary Performance Report for the year ended Dec. 31,2000, shows that ACS core programs, which exclude board appropriations, the Petroleum Research Fund, and the member insurance program, provided ACS with a net contribution of $8.3 million in 2000, representing a $4 million favorable variance to the approved budget. Capital expenditures in 2 0 0 0 totaled $35.3 million, which is $4.5 million favorable to the approved budget. This total included $15-5 million for the ACS Columbus Facilities Project. Funding requests and PRF commitments were dealt with by the ACS Board and reported to council (see page 69). Board appropriations and the member insurance program, investment losses, and a transfer of unrestricted contributions to the restricted category combined with the contribution from core operations for an overall decrease in unrestricted net ACS assets of $2.2 million. ACS councilors heard brief presentations from the four nominees for 2 0 0 2 ACS president-elect. The nominees, who were selected by the Committee on Nominations & Elections, were James A. Bristol, Pfizer Global R&D, Ann Arbor, Mich.; William F. Carroll Jr., Occidental Chemi-
cal Corp., Dallas; E. Charles Galloway, Edison Polymer Innovation Corp. (retired); and Elsa Reichmanis, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J. The councilors selected Carroll and Reichmanis as candidates to stand for election this fall. The winner of this election will serve as ACS president in 2003 and fulfill a threeyear term (2002-04) on the ACS Board. The council also heard the results of the District II and District IVand at-large elections of candidates for positions on the board of directors. For District II, candidates are Carol A. Duane, Ricera Inc., Painesville, Ohio, and incumbent Helen M. Free, Bayer Corp., Elkhart, Ind. For District IV, the candidates are Paul R. Jones, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, and Robert L. Soulen, Southwestern University Georgetown, Texas. On or before Oct. 10, ballots will be mailed to all ACS members residing in District II and in District IV for election of their respective candidates. T h e candidates for one seat on the board as director-at-large for 2 0 0 2 - 0 4 were announced. They are incumbent Nina I. McClelland, Nina I. McClelland LLC, Ann Arbor, M i c h , and Kathleen M. Schulz, Lockheed-Martin/Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N . M . The election will be held in the fall, with ballots mailed to members of the ACS Council on or before Oct. 10. In addition, the council chose Donald D. Clarke, Fordham University, New^Ybrk City, to fill the vacancy on the Committee on Nominations & Elections that was created when Stanley C. Israel was elected to the board as director-at-large, filling the vacancy created by the election of Eli M. Pearce as ACS president-elect. The council also approved, without discussion, the third edition of the 'ACS Academic Professional Guidelines." These guidelines were written over the course of 18 months by a task force composed of representatives from the Committee on Professional Training (CPT), the Society Committee on Education, the Younger Chemists Committee, and the Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs. Among other things, this document, for the first time, clarifies the rights of and benefits due to part-time faculty ParticuHTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
COUNCIL ENLARGES STANDING COMMITTEES ARTICLE OR BYLAW AFFECTED
PROPOSED AMENDMENT
Increase the Size of Standing Committees of the Council
MAJOR PROVISIONS
Bylaw Mi, Sec. 3,d,[7)
lar emphasis is placed on the importance of mentoring relationships between all levels of academe, responsible safety practices, and broad professional development. These guidelines complement the 'ACS Professional Employment Guidelines." In other business, CPT reported that a survey it conducted last fall on the state of chemistry library holdings, budgets, access, and use in approved programs indicated that undergraduates are not using the chemical literature to the extent desirable. CPTwill carefully evaluate its guidelines in this regard before the next revision. C P T is also working on the sunset review of the various approved degree options, with major emphasis on evaluation of the chemistry education option in light of the small number of schools that offer it. The committee will hold a workshop in June to get more information on the barriers to successful implementation
Increases limit on sizes of standing committees of the council from 12 to 20
COUNCIL ACTION
Passed
of this option. Attending this meeting will be representatives from CPT, the five schools with approved chemical education options, and several leaders from the chemical education community JobSpectrum.org, an ACS employment website, will be launched in June. Promotion for the site started in San Diego, though its formal debut will be in Chicago. JobSpectrum.org is being developed with the goal of being the premier career and erecruitment tool for the worldwide chemical science community At the council meeting, the Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs emphasized that Job Spectrum.org should provide clear advantages to members of ACS versus other potential employees and suggested that members should be able to access career information through the ACS website without having to go throughJobSpectrum.org. More traditional employment services
were in full swing in San Diego, with numerous career workshops and a National Employment Clearing House. It was reported at the council meeting that at this clearinghouse, 208 employers posted 819 positions representing 1,429 potential hires, and 897 candidates participated in the 4,000 interviews scheduled. Recognition, recruitment, and retention were key words for the ACS 2001 membership campaign, which is now complete. At year-end 2000, the total number was 163,016 members, meeting the ACS 2001 campaign goal. The number of members under the age of 50 increased by 9%, and the 94% retention rate is the highest in the history of the society. ACS now recognizes more than 64,000 members per year for service to the society Both the board and the council reviewed two videotaped congratulatory messages from Reps. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Michael Rogers (R-Mich.) and were read a congratulatory letter from President George W. Bush recognizing the society on its 125th anniversary In the international arena, ACS was honored with the presence of invited representatives from 30 foreign chemical societies. The council heard the concerns of
A C T I O N S
ACS Board Approves Funding Requests eeting in San Diego, the ACS Board of Directors heard presentations from various committees on the state of society activities and finances, approved three requests for funding for the current year, and heard various reports. First, the board voted to appropriate $100,000 this fiscal year to assess the standards and conformity process and its relevance to and potential impact on the chemical enterprise—both internationally and domestically. The goal will be to assess whether there is a proper role for ACS in the standards arena. Next, the board appropriated $105,000 to fund the Technology Milestones project, which will result in an exhibit at the upcoming ACS national meeting in Chicago in August, other materials on the Web, and perhaps eventually a book. The exhibit in Chicago will recognize major technological milestones in chemistry over the past 125 years. Finally, at the request of ACS President Attila E. Pavlath, the board appropriated $300,000 for the two-year period 2001 and 2002 to support the financial needs of divisions and local sections contingent upon criteria and an approval process developed by a presidential task force and approved by the ACS Board of Directors. This money is designed as stopgap funding to help local sections and divisions that are struggling financially. The board also approved multiyear appropriations in support of the ACS Scholars program and the Matching Gifts program, with expenses totaling over $1.1 million in 2000. The board received a financial report on the Petroleum
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Research Fund (PRF) for 2000. PRF expenses were on budget for the year, but income exceeded projections, resulting in an operating surplus of $1.4 million, bringing the reserve fund to almost $21 million. The PRF fund, totaling over $500 million, will distribute about $18 million in support in 2001. Acting under delegated authority and on the recommendation of the PRF Advisory Board, the Committee on Grants & Awards voted to approve 120 PRF grants-in-aid and 41 supplements to existing grants totaling $5,177,550. In addition, the committee voted to approve increased maximum values for each PRF grant type beginning in 2002. In other actions, the board reviewed the goals of the presidential-board task force on issues related to women in the chemical professions. The task force is preparing a proposal for a three-year pilot project to develop, test, and evaluate a series of programs. Among the proposed programs is creation of an intersociety communications network that would hold regularly scheduled information exchanges. Acting for the board, the Committee on Grants & Awards voted to accept a proposal from Alfred R. Bader that the cash award for the Alfred Bader Award in Bioinorganic or Bioorganic Chemistry be increased from $3,000 to $5,000. The board also passed a resolution praising the staff of C&EN and Centcom, the wholly owned ACS subsidiary that sells advertising, for the success of the March 26 issue, which commemorates the 125th Anniversary of ACS.
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ACS NEWS the International Affairs Committee about Sidney Chao, Rockwell International; STN Easy, scientists can now search CAS the case of Grigory Pasko, a Russian sci- Joseph DiSimone, University of North databases, then with the click of a mouse ence journalist who is being prosecuted for Carolina; Jacob Eisenwasser, Praxair; use eScience to extend their search to the publishing information on environmental William H. Glaze, University of North Web. CAS plans to make eScience available violations by the Russian military A letter Carolina, editor ofACSs Environmental Sci- to users of SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar, on his behalf to the Russian authorities will ence & Technology; Denny Hjeresen, Los and other STN products. be written by ACS President Attila E. Alamos National Laboratory, GCI direc"CAS is resolved to deliver the most Pavlath. Pavlath will also send a second let- tor; Amy L. Manheim, Department of complete digital research environment for ter to the Chinese authorities protesting Energy; Nina I. McClelland, chair ofACS scientists," CAS Marketing Director Suzan the extreme conditions of imprisonment Board of Directors; and Bill Tumas, Los A. Brown says. "Scientists are using the of Kong Fanfen. Kong, a researcher at the Alamos National Laboratory ChemPort connection to link from CAS Institute of Chemistry & Metallurgy of the At its meeting, the board reviewed the research services to full-text journals and Chinese Academy of Sciences, was sen- first strategic plan for GCI that will guide patents. Now, with eScience, they can tenced to forced labor in the aftermath of the nextfiveyears of development in the access other types of related information the Chinese government's crackdown on areas of research, education, information on the Web at no additional charge." the Falun Gong sect. dissemination, conferences, symposia, and eScience offers users two popular search engines: Google, which scours the entire Finally, the council approved the char- international outreach. Web for the topic of interest, and Chem ter of a new ACS local section—the MidIndustry, a specialized search engine for dle Georgia Section. Headquartered in chemistry eScience will also provide links to Macon, the new section consists of 35 relevant scientific resources including scicounties in central and southeast Georgia. ence newsfromChemical &EngineeringNews, The council also approved a petition for a dicNewlbrkTimes, Reuters, andlfellowbrix. change in territory for the ACS Savannah Featured among other science links will be River Section. The section will annex three the new ACS site chemistry.org, also counties currently in the Georgia Section. launched at the San Diego meeting. T THE ACS NATIONAL MEETING IN The meeting was over in three hours, San Diego, Chemical Abstracts SerAnother product introduced at the and much was accomplished. The council vice (CAS) Division of ACS intro- national meeting was STN Express 6.0 with meets next in Chicago in August. duced a new service called eScience that Discover software package. This product will let scientists use the Web to expand consists of innovative tools for preparing upon the results of a search in CAS infor- reports and tables to present the informamation products. tion retrieved from STN databases. By year-end, all CAS information prodThe product's "Table Tool" helps users ucts will seamlessly combine the advan- create a table of data, graphics, and chemtages ofboth Web and fee-based informa- ical structures from STN answer sets for tion resources in eScience. Starting with easy analysis of search results. The "Report
Three CAS products introduced
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Green chemistry board formed, meets
T
HE GOVERNING BOARD FOR THE
Green Chemistry Institute (GCI) met for the first time on April 2 in San Diego, during the ACS national meeting. The board is chaired by ACS Executive DirectorJohn K Crum, and its members represent an array of interests and capabilities. GCI, a network of interested individuals in academia and government that grew into an impressive international "virtual institute," had been operating for several years, primarily on the Internet. It became part of ACS on Jan. 1. Through this partnership—which was championed by former ACS president Daryle H. Busch during his tenure—ACS and GCI intend to further green chemistry through research, education, conferences and symposia, information dissemination including public awareness, and the international extension of green chemistry activities. GCI board members are PaulT. Anastas, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy; Busch, University of Kansas, ACS immediate past-president and a member of the ACS Board of Directors; 70
C & E N / A P R I L 2 3 , 2001
E-RESOURCES
STN Easy wins e-content award ^ ^ TN Easy has been ^ ^ named a winner of ^ J the Canadian EContent Award for best product in the scientific/ medical category. Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) Division of the American Chemical Society, operator of the STN International network in North America, accepted the award at the Information Highways Conference, which was held in Toronto on March 26. STN Easy is one of several interface options for accessing databases on STN International, a scientific and technical network.
Canadian E-Content Awards recognize and honor electronic content (e-content) knowledge and e-business resources that are convenient and usable, offer access to high-quality information, and are shown to enhance customer/user productivity and/or competitive advantage. STN Easy won the award because of many improvements added in 2000, including a more convenient ability to use Boolean operators, the option to use "Easy Search"for casual
searchers or "Advanced Search" for those needing more power, and several tools that provide help and examples for new users. "We are delighted that STN Easy was chosen by the Canadian E-Content Award judges," says Christine McCue, manager of STN products. "CAS and our STN associates took great care in the design and usability testing of this product. We are happy to see the new STN Easy meets and exceeds the expectations of knowledgeable online professionals."
HTTP://PUB5.AC5.ORG/CEN
Tool" helps users create customized, easily readable reports from search results. A "Predefined Reports" feature lets users create reports with a professional-looking predefined format. In addition to these tools, the software features access to RTF files with live hyperlinks; this allows users to follow links in their transcripts to the associated full-text documents on the Web. And for those wanting to mine the rich historical data of the chemical enterprise, CAS announced that it will significantly expand the digital research environment for scientists by making the entire ChemicalAbstracts collection back to 1907 available through all CAS electronic products. Beginning this month, an additional 20 years of bibliographic and abstract information, back to 1947, will be available for search and display along with the most current literature and patent records in SciFinder, SciFinder Scholar, and STN. Thisfirstsegment of the older records will provide access to more than 2.2 million references to the journal and patent literature representing the 1947-66 time period. The remaining CA bibliographic and abstract information will be added over the next 12 months, expanding the total online offering to nearly 2 0 million records—virtually the entire 20th century's research, searchable in a single file. iC We believe that digitizing this extensive time period of prior art will be recognized as a boon to scientific discovery as well as the patenting process," CAS Editorial Operations Director MatthewJ.Tbussant says. 'Among the wealth of earlier documents covered by CA are findings relating to natural products and many other studies of renewed interest to today's chemical and pharmaceutical laboratories."
Helga Fanciulli honored
H
WELL DONE Helga Fanciulli displays Executive Director's Award. She is congratulated by (from left) Crum, husband Giuseppe Fanciulli, and Merrell. ulli began her work with the ACS local section public relations group. During her tenure at ACS, Fanciulli has provided the staff support for the Council of Scientific Society Presidents and to the director of the society's public policy and communications efforts, then to the Industry Relations Office as administrative assistant of science exhibits. She joined the ACS Secretary's Office in 1993, working for D. H. Michael Bowen until his retirement in 1997 and subsequently for Halley A. Merrell. "%u have to enjoy your job and love to work under stress to appreciate the responsibilities ofworking in the Secretary's Office," says Fanciulli, who handles the myriad of administrative issues of ACS governance members. "During all these years, I have been fortunate to work for and with people I enjoyed and respected," Fanciulli reflects. "To no small measure, I appreciated the confidenceJohn Crum placed in me to provide me with the many opportunities to work with the various units and in various positions during my career with the society He took the time, when things looked bleak, to tell me to hang in there and that my work was appreciated."
synthetic organic chemistry and molecular cell biology approaches." An awards banquet was preceded by a daylong symposium, "Chemistry and Biology in the 21st Century" After receiving a B.A. degree at the University of Virginia in 1977, Schreiber carried out graduate studies at Harvard University under the supervision of R. B. Woodward and \bshito Kishi, then joined the faculty of W e University in 1981. He returned to Harvard in 1988, where he is now an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Morris Loeb Professor in the department of chemistry and chemical biology and founder and codirector (with Timothy Mitchison) of the Harvard Center for Genomics Research. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Schreiber initiated efforts that defined the molecular mechanisms of the immunosuppressive agents cyclosporin, FK506, and rapamycin, and he illuminated two fundamental signalingprocesses, the calcium-calcineurinNFATand nutrient response networks. His synthetic investigations of trapoxin and depudecin led to the purification and cloning of the long-sought-after histone deacetylases (HDACs), which in turn led to the functional linking ofchromatin and the transcription regulation apparatus. Schreiber is currently bringing about a change in the way scientists think about using small molecules to explore biology His "chemical genetic" approach has reached a point where it is recognized as a new field that bridges chemistry, biology, and medicine. Using an evolving planning algorithm oriented for diversity, Schreiber has set in motion several projects, each of which has the potential to generate millions of structurally complex and diverse small molecules. Under the direction of Schreiber and Mitchison, research at the Harvard Institute ofChemistry & Cell Biology aims to develop the field of chemical genetics, where the combination of small molecules, made using diversity-oriented
ELGA M. FANCIULLI OF THE ACS SEC-
retary's Office received the ACS Executive Director's Award at ceremonies held at the recent ACS national meeting in San Diego. These awards are given from time to time byACS Executive Director John K Crum in recognition of exceptional ACS staff members. Long a familiar face to all members of ACS governance and staff, Fanciulli started work at ACS in 1978 as administrative secretary to Robert G. Smerko, then director of the Department ofPublic Affairs, which later became the Department of Public Policy & Communication. There, FanciHTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
2001 Nichols Medal goes to Schreiber
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T CEREMONIES HELD I N WHITE
Plains, N.Y., last month, Stuart L. Schreiber received the 2001 William H. Nichols Medal of the American Chemical Society New %rk Section "for outstanding contributions to understanding signal transduction pathways by merging
HONORED Schreiber (right) receives the 2001 Nichols Medal from Nichols Medal Jury Chairman Paul Barkan. C&EN
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