Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Endowing Excellence in Chemical Education Pages 985 and 991 of this issue report on the successful who want to support this effort. The regional awards program’s initiation of the Division of Chemical Education’s Teaching future will not be completely assured until the $300,000 goal Excellence Endowment. During the past two years, under the is met, so please make a generous donation. leadership of Glenn A. Crosby, approximately $100,000 has If you have already donated to this program, or even if been contributed to this endowment. Achieving the $100,000 you have not, there are other ways to support it. It is impormilestone means that the Divitant that each of the ten ACS resion of Chemical Education Most of us remember our high school chemistry gions establish procedures for has matched this amount, canvassing for nominations rebringing the total endowment teacher, and many were strongly influenced by gion-wide and for selecting to about $200,000. We are awardees annually. Someone now two-thirds of the way to that teacher to become chemists.…The Division will be needed in each region to the final goal of $300,000, and spearhead such efforts. The the funds in hand are sufficient of Chemical Education is making a major comawards selection committee in to initiate a DivCHED/ACS each region must include at least Regional High School Science mitment to high school teachers and to ACS one DivCHED member, so Teacher Award Program in consider volunteering to serve in 2007. The program will be co- regional meetings through the Regional High your region. The awards will be ordinated by Mort Hoffman, more meaningful if they are prepast chair of the Division, and School Teacher Award Program. Please join us sented at a creatively conceived the DivCHED Committee on and well-organized ceremony at Regional Meetings. a regional ACS meeting or some in making this program a great success. Several years ago the ACS other venue, so you could voldecided to discontinue its support for regional awards for high unteer your talents in that direction. If you are interested in school teachers. This was an unfortunate and misguided defurthering the high school teacher awards in these or other ways, cision for several reasons. There are many anecdotes to supcontact Mort Hoffman (
[email protected]), and/or a repport the important role that good high school teachers play resentative in your region. (Contact information for all regional in sparking interest in chemistry. Most of us remember our boards is at http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay. high school chemistry teacher, and many were strongly inhtml?DOC=meetings\regional\committees.html.) fluenced by that teacher to become chemists. The regional While we are on the subject of ACS regions, consider awards served as public recognition of the importance of high whether you could make more effective use of the ACS reschool teachers in our profession. Given that ACS is changgional meetings. Regional meetings are great for students, uning its requirements and trying to make membership in the dergraduate and graduate, to attend and present papers. society more attractive to high school teachers (see the anNational meetings usually present so many opportunities that nouncement for Chemistry Teacher Connection, CTC, on students (and even seasoned meeting-goers) can be overp 984), discontinuing an award program that honored the whelmed by the possibilities. Regional meetings are smaller best of those teachers seemed ill advised. The regional awards and friendlier to novice attendees. At a regional meeting a stualso served to define a pool of candidates for the ACS’s James dent can present either a poster or an oral paper in a more Bryant Conant Award, the national award for excellence in supportive environment, with the knowledge that other stuhigh school chemistry teaching. There are far more good dents from the same institution are more likely to be able to teachers than can be rewarded by a single award each year— attend. Meeting rooms are usually close together so that offerfar more even than can be rewarded by an award for each of ings from different divisions can be sampled more easily and the ten ACS regions. Fortunately, Glenn Crosby, Mort a student can go to a variety of presentations tailored to the Hoffman, and DivCHED have stepped into the breach. student’s interests. Finally, the expense and time commitments Although a milestone has been reached, more contribufor a regional meeting are less than for a national meeting. tions to the endowment are needed. Much of the first $100,000 Faculty and students can often drive together to the meeting came from large donors and it is now time for individuals to site, exchanging information about the profession along the come forward and support the program. A copy of the form way, and there is much less expense for travel and subsistence. to make a contribution is available at the DivCHED Web site Encourage your students (and yourself ) to submit abstracts and to attend the next regional meeting in your area. http://www.divched.org (see the announcement “Teaching Excellence Endowment”). I encourage you to use it if you have The Division of Chemical Education is making a major not yet contributed. There are more than 5000 individual subcommitment to high school teachers and to ACS regional scribers to this Journal in the U.S. If each subscriber donated meetings through the Regional High School Teacher Award Pro$20 to the endowment tomorrow, the additional $100,000 gram. Please join us in making this program a great success. needed would be obtained. Of course not everyone will respond, so a larger amount would be appropriate from those www.JCE.DivCHED.org
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Vol. 83 No. 7 July 2006
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Journal of Chemical Education
967
