Central Texas ACS MeetingMonday, October 18th, 6:30-8:30 PM (Dinner 7:00, Talk 7:30)

Politics in America:National & State Elections 2010

Dr. Brian W. Smith,Political Science Department, St. Edward’s University

Iron Cactus – North10001 Stonelake Blvd. Austin, TX 78759

(just north of Capital of Texas Hwy between Hwy 183 and MoPac, see map)$10 for members/adults, $5 for students

RSVP to JD Lewis by Oct 14 by email acs2010@stedwards.edu or call (512) 448-8461

Central Texas ACSNewsletter of the Central Texas Section of the American Chemical Society

www.CentralTexasACS.orgSeptember 2010Vol. 94, Issue 4

Abstract

Many pundits referred to the election of 2008 as the election of our lifetime. It featured the election of thefirst African-American President, expanded Democratic majorities in Congress, and a motivated electoratewanting sweeping and progressive change in Washington. Two years later, the political climate is muchdifferent with President Obama's popularity hovering in the 50's, and a resurgent Republican party poised toreduce the Democrat's Congressional majorities. The 2010 election also features a motivated electoratewanting sweeping change, but this time this call comes from the political right and the nascent Tea Partymovement. In this presentation Dr. Smith will examine the results of the 2008 and how this election set thetable for 2010. He will also examine the current political setting at the Federal and State level and makesome uncertain predictions about the upcoming elections. Finally, he will discuss how the outcomes of the2010 election might alter public policy and the remainder of President Obama's first term.

Dr. Brian W. SmithDr. Brian William Smith is an Associate Professor and Chair of Political Science at St. Edward’s University,Austin, Texas. He has a M.A. and Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University with a concentration inAmerican Politics and Government. His most recent article is “Friends of the Earth? Partisanship, PartyControl of Congress, and Environmental Legislation in Congress” in Politics and Policy. Dr. Smith’sresearch interests are third-party voting, Texas politics and comparative electoral systems. An activeteacher, Dr. Smith is the recipient of the “The Richard B. Hughes Teaching Excellence Award” at St.Edward’s University, a nominee for the Universitiy’s Distinguished Teaching Award, and was listed inWho’s Who Among America’s Teachers.. He is a frequent guest on political issues for KVUE-ABC 24Austin, KTBC FOX 7 Austin, and in the Austin American Statesman. He has also appeared on NationalPublic Radio and locally on KLBJ 590.

Established 1917

Central Texas ACS Fall 2010 MeetingsTuesday, November 9th

6:30-8:30 PM (Dinner 7:00, Talk 7:30)Nontraditional Careers for Chemists

Lisa Balbes, Balbes Consultants

Central Texas ACS: August 2010Page 2

Great Chemistry in the Crescent City

Come on down to the Big Easy for the joint meeting ofthe 66th Southwest and 62nd Southeastern ACS RegionalMeetings, which will be held in New Orleans, November30-December 4, 2010, at the Hilton Riverside Hotel.

Symposia will be held in all disciplines of chemistry, anda special symposium and plenary lecture will examinethe BP oil spill. Early registration continues untilNovember 15 and hotel reservations are now open.http://www.swrm.org.

ONLINE ABSTRACTS CAN BE SUBMITTEDTHROUGH OCTOBER 15TH at http://abstracts.acs.org

SWRM 2011: Call for Symposia and Session Chairs

The 2011 Southwest Regional Meeting of the ACSwill be held in Austin on the 9-11 November 2011.For those wishing to organize a specific symposiumor willing to serve as a session chair, please contactthe Program Chair: Dr. Richard Jones (UT Austin)

at rajones@mail.utexas.edu or (512) 471 1706.

Iron Cactus – North10001 Stonelake Blvd., Austin, TX 78759

(just north of Capital of Texas Hwy betweenHwy 183 and MoPac)

(512) 794-8778

Tutoring Opportunity: There are positions available inthe following subjects: Algebra, Algebra 2, Geometry,Trigonometry, Statistics, Chemistry and Physics. As areminder, tutors can tutor from anywhere they have ahigh speed internet connection. We provide flexiblescheduling and an opportunity to connect to students allover the country for on demand homework helpassistance. For more information and access to our onlineapplication, please go to www.tutor.com/apply.

National Chemistry WeekThe NCW theme this year is "Behind the Sceneswith Chemistry." We will be presenting hands onactivities and demonstrations at the Scoutjam,October 9 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. It will be heldat the Travis County Expo Center, 7311 DeckerLane, Austin. We are planning three, three hour,shifts: 8:30 - 11:30, 11:30 - 2:30, and 2:30 - 4:30.This will allow for set up and break down time. TheScouts are expecting 10,000 participants EmailJackie Padilla, jackie.padilla@gmail.com, tovolunteer, or Dodie Wells,dodiewells4@hotmail.com, for more information.We need people to work on signage, email DodieWells to volunteer. The scouts would also like tohave some type of instrumentation demonstration ifanyone has an instrument they would like to showoff. The idea is to get older scouts interested in acareer in chemistry, email Dodie if you can help.

Central Texas ACS: August 2010Page 3

Councilors’ CornerJim: Diane and I would like to give you a brief report of some actions at the Boston ACS meeting last month. Two itemswere of personal interest to me. First was a ceremony on Monday afternoon officially installing me as a Fellow of ACS.The other was the award of a plaque recognizing my 15 years as a Councilor for the Central Texas Section.

The Council meeting had its usual busy morning of elections and reports from ACS committees and officers. Twocandidates were chosen for President-Elect of the society, Luis A. Echegoyen from UT El Paso and Bassam Z. Shakhashirifrom the University of Wisconsin. In my opinion, either would make a fine President. You should get your ballot soon, if ithasn’t already arrived. Biographical information appears in the September 6 issue of Chemical and Engineering News.Candidates for Director at Large are Janan M. Hayes, Robert L. Lichter, Kathleen M. Schulz, and Kent J. Voorhees and forDistrict IV (our area) Larry K. Krannich and Will E. Lynch. The Council considers a larger number of candidates andchooses twice the number of candidates as there are vacancies to present to the membership.

Financially, the society is doing very well with the major part of its nearly half a billion dollar annual budgetcoming from publications, particularly Chemical Abstracts. The latter is involved in a law suit in Ohio. Two CASemployees quit and started activities with their new company, Leadscope, that ACS believed made use of its intellectualproperty rights. ACS sued and the two former employees countersued for damage to their reputations. (The lawyers havefancier names for it.) The trial court ruled the ACS claims were without merit and awarded $40,000,000 plus expenses tothe former employees. ACS appealed and the appeals court upheld the original rulings and penalty. Now ACS is appealingto the Ohio Supreme Court, but it is not yet known whether that court will hear the case. There’s a lot of money involved,but fortunately ACS has the resources to stand the shock if it eventually loses.

Getting closer to home, the Council voted to follow its practice of increasing dues and the registration fee atnational meetings by an amount equal to the past year’s inflation - $146 for 2011 registration and $355 for national meetingsheld in 2011 (Anaheim in the spring and Denver in the fall). There was extensive discussion of a suggestion that Councilmeetings should be moved from Wednesday to Tuesday. A straw vote showed 55% opposed, 31% in favor, and 13% noopinion. The final decision will be made by the Board of Directors.

Unemployment for chemists is not as severe as in some other fields, but only 68 employers with 484 job openingsshowed up at the Career Fair along with 1066 job seekers.Diane: Congratulations are in order to Dodie Wells and all who volunteered to make our April 2009 Chemists CelebrateEarth Day event an award winner! The Committee on Community Activities selected the Central Texas Section for theChemLuminary award entitled “Creative and Innovative Use of the Chemists Celebrate Earth Day Theme”. I had the honorof presenting a poster of our local section activities as a part of the ChemLuminary Award celebrations. If you have ideasfor activities and would like to have them sponsored by the Central Texas ACS, let me or anyone from the executivecommittee know, our contact information is on the back of the newsletter.

I attended the Regional Meeting Roundtable breakfast and got lots of suggestions and information aboutfundraising and working effectively with divisions. Jim Boggs was the chair of the last two Southwest Regional Meetingsheld in Austin. he upcoming meeting is being coordinated by Linette Watkins. Richard Jones from UT Austin is theprogram chair, and I will coordinate career development activities. Your involvement in the meeting is welcome, if youwould like to discuss how to get involved, just send an email and I can help you find a committee or activity! Regionalmeetings are much like national meetings, but smaller, so they are a great place to deliver your first talk or poster, orparticipate in career development activities.

I am a member of the Women Chemists Committee, and I am helping to administer a WCC Lectureship award,which is a travel grant for rising star female chemists. Details of this award can be found athttp://www.tinyurl.com/acswcclectureship . It is easy to apply and money is still available for fall speaking engagements.

As Jim mentioned, there was a lot of discussion around the topic of moving the Council Meeting, where all reportsfrom committee meetings are presented, and all new business is discussed, to Tuesday instead of Wednesday. The benefitsto councilors are that they could spend fewer days away from their jobs and or their families. The motion did not receive ahigh level of support after about 30 minutes of discussion, and will likely be tabled for another few years. Councilors onlymake up a small percentage of the attendees at ACS meetings, but they represent a much larger percentage of the peoplewho sit on committees, and the committee meetings and activities would be significantly disrupted by changing the day ofthe Council Meeting.

Your Councilors,James E. Boggs and Diane M. Kneeland