Chemistry Club

Spring 2006 Meeting 1

1-20-2006

• There were many new faces at the meeting, which we were excited to see.

• The American Chemical Society offers student affiliate memberships to students majoring in various fields of science. If 6 or more of the chemistry club’s members are current student affiliates, the Chemistry Club can be an official ACS chapter club. This will allow us to be eligible for awards and recognition from the ACS, as well as other benefits. Students who are student affiliates also receive benefits, such as periodic newsletters and the opportunity to purchase journals at reduced cost. Costs to attend an ACS meeting with your research are also greatly reduced if you are a current student affiliate. All members are encouraged to join. Applications are available online at ACS’s website (http://www.chemistry.org). The cost is about $20 a year, which must be covered by the student.
• The ACS national meeting is coming up. The national meeting features posters from researchers in all fields of chemistry. They also have a section for chemistry clubs. This semester, the meeting will be held in Atlanta. Mariellen Sydow and Will Kuester have been working on the abstract, which has been submitted, and working on the poster. Kimmel will pay for one member to go, and Will will be attending. Mariellen can go, but we have to work something out to cover her costs.

• The Probst lecture is scheduled for March 20, 2006. The probst lecture will feature a speaker who discovered a vaccine for the virus which causes meningitis. The development of this drug has prevented the deaths of children who may have otherwise caught the virus and not recovered. There were two people working on the vaccine- one from Canada and one from Cuba. The researcher from Canada will definitely attend, and the researcher from Cuba has applied for his VISA. Another seminar is being planned to host a researcher from Australia which will be separate from the Probst lecture.

• Volunteers to help out with Probst are still needed. Volunteers will be needed the day of the event, as well as for a few pre-event tasks. When the date is closer, we will have a sign up sheet available for helping during the event. Bonnie is the main person planning the event; if anyone is interested in giving her a hand with anything that needs done before the lecture, let her know.

• -The Probst lecture will be open to chemistry majors, active Chem. Club members, Chemistry faculty, and other guests. Seniors will be doing their Senior assignment, and some graduate students will also have posters.
• The chemistry club would like to attend some tours this semester. One tour, which is being planned and which we hope to go on, is the tour of Anhauser-Busch. We would be able to get a behind the scenes tour of the labs, and not just the standard brewery tour, which would be great. Other tours which are being looked into include Monsanto and the Water Treatment Facility. Anyone who would like to contact someone about a tour can contact Nellie, or bring it up at the next meeting.

• This Sat. there will be a demo show at Alton High school. Anyone who would like to attend should contact Sue Wiediger as soon as possible. If you are interested in demos, even if you can’t make it Saturday, let Nellie or Sue know. We can maybe organize some demo shows this year, or prepare this semester for shows early next semester.

• This semester, we will be doing silkscreening. The materials belong to Dr. Shaw. Dr. Voss and Dr. Shaw both know the process, so we are going to see if they could teach the process to Sue, who could then help us get Silkscreening rolling. The design has been selected, and the tentative date will be the second meeting in Feb. We should know a more definite date by the next meeting.

• The clothes from the clothing drive were taken to the Glen-Ed Pantry, but they did not have any more room for clothing donations. Other charities, such as Oasis in Alton, are being looked at as a potential place to donate clothes.

• A sign up sheet was passed around, and persons present signed up. The chemistry club has a Yahoo! Groups page, and if Nellie has your email address, she can invite you, and you can see updates which we post there. Last semester, it was used to post a survey, inform people of events, and answer questions from Chem. Club members.

• Last year, the Chemistry club established criteria to be an active Chem. Club member. If you attend or plan 3 events (including meetings), plan one large event, are an officer, or are an ACS student affiliate, you are granted active member status. Active member status will be kept track of by Nellie. Active members will get access to the current keycode for the room.

• The 3^rd annual Pentathalon, a competition between the Chemistry, Biology, and Physics clubs will be held this spring. Someone to help plan the event, reserve the VC, and order food, is needed. The event last year was 5-8PM, and will be about the same this year. Providing child care would allow more faculty to attend, which would be nice.
• The Chemistry Club usually does a canned food drive every year, and we would like to do one this year. Nathan Motl has volunteered to organize the food drive. A date has not been set.

• Jennifer Lesko, from SIUE’s SLDP, attended the meeting and asked for volunteers for SIUE’s Dental School’s “Give Kids a Smile” program. This program provides free dental care for children without dental coverage. Volunteers are needed to escort children during the event, and supervise them while the doctor is not in the room. The event will be from 8-3 on Saturday Feb. 4. If you would like to participate, you will need to contact Jennifer Lesko (jlesko@siue.edu)

• The Mentors Program will continue this semester. The Mentors program brings in SIUE graduates in to talk to current SIUE students, and to give the students an open forum to ask people with the same degree they are earning what life is like after SIUE. Last semester brought in Sigma Aldrich employees, current graduate students, and Pfizer employees. This semester, we will be hosting Tech Lab employees and people associated with medical or dental schools.

• ACS also offers an ACS Scholars scholarship. The scholarship is open to minorities, and information is available on the ACS website.

• A mural of the periodic table was painted on the wall of the Chemistry Club room by Darcy and Bonnie, and Mariellen. It looks great, and plans to add more molecules, and the Chem. Club seal are in the works.