News from Journal House

Get Help for Your Outreach Activities

Many of you who teach chemistry also do some form of outreach—at area meetings, seminars, teacher conferences, workshops, or National Chemistry Week celebrations. Or perhaps you make a special effort to get new colleagues off to a good start by making them aware of some of the resources in chemical education that are available.

If any of this fits, then the CHED Outreach Office can be of assistance. Sponsored by the award-winning ACS Division of Chemical Education, the Outreach Office can provide advice and guidance about outreach activities as well as send you complimentary materials—copies of the Journal of Chemical Education, information about ACS Standardized Exams and Test Item Banks, CHED membership forms, CHED Newsletters, an assortment of JCE Classroom Activities, JCE Publications/Software Catalogs, and more. The materials can be fitted to your group, be it at the high school, two-year college, or college/university level.

To find out more information or to request supplies contact CHED Outreach Office, Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1101 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706-1396; phone: 1-800/991-5534 (U.S.) or 608/262-5153; fax: 608/265-8094. Be sure to allow three weeks from the time we receive your request until you need the materials; this time is needed for assembling and shipping.

Awards Announced

Northeastern Section, ACS

2002 James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry, sponsored by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society

• Zafra M. Lerman, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois

The award will be presented on November 7, 2002, at the meeting of the Northeastern Section, to be held at the Newton Holiday Inn, 399 Grove Street, Newton, Massachusetts. There will be a reception and dinner at 5 p.m. followed by the award meeting at 7:45 p.m.

ACS 2003 Award Announcements

The American Chemical Society has announced its 2003 National Awards; the complete list appears in the August 19, 2002 issue of C & E News. Information about the national awards administered by ACS and the procedures for submitting nominations to them can be found on the ACS National Awards Web site.

In the list that follows, an asterisk (*) following the title indicates that the award address will be presented as part of the CHED program at the Spring 2003 ACS Meeting in New Orleans.

ACS Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, sponsored by the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.

• Isiah M. Warner, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, sponsored by the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.*

• Madeleine Jacobs, Chemical & Engineering News, American Chemical Society, Washington, DC

ACS Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution, sponsored by Research Corporation

• Ronald L. Christensen, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine

James Bryant Conant Award in High School Chemistry Teaching, sponsored by Albemarle Corporation*

• Linda K. Ford, Seven Hills School, Cincinnati, Ohio

Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry, sponsored by Mallinckrodt Baker, Inc.

• Phil S. Baran (student), Harvard University, for work done at Scripps Research Institute
• K. C. Nicolaou (preceptor), Scripps Research Institute and University of California, San Diego

Charles Lathrop Parsons Award

• Zafra M. Lerman, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois

George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education, sponsored by the Dow Chemical Co.*

• George M. Bodner, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

ACS 2002 Award

The recipient of the 2002 Helen M. Free Award for Public Outreach is George B. Kauffman of California State University, Fresno. The award will be presented at the Fall 2002 meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. The award has been presented annually since 1995 by the Committee on Public Relations and Communications of the ACS to recognize outstanding achievements in public outreach. It honors Helen M. Free, president of ACS in 1993, who initiated programs and activities designed to improve the public's awareness of chemistry's contributions to the quality of daily life. Kauffman edits the Products of Chemistry feature column in JCE.

MERLOT Award for Exemplary Online Learning

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) has announced the award winning sites for 2002. The program was developed to recognize and promote outstanding online resources designed to enhance teaching and learning and to honor the authors and developers of these resources for their contributions to the academic community. The winner of the award in chemistry appears below; a summary and links to all award winners is at the award Web site.

• Ideal Gas Simulation
  John Gelder, Kirk Haines, and Mike Abraham

Winners, Best Chemical Sites on the Web

Winners of awards recognizing unique and noteworthy Internet resources for chemists, chemical engineers, and chemical industry professions have been announced by ChemIndustry.com, John Wiley and Sons, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. The awards are in three categories—Online Courses and Tools, Portals and Information Hubs, and Corporate Sites—and appear below.

• Online Courses and Tools: Torvs Research Team, for its collection of interactive Web-based chemical computation and visualization services
• Portals and Information Hubs: Webbook, a comprehensive database of chemical data, provided by NIST
• Corporate Sites: Sigma-Aldrich, Sigma-Aldrich

Mettler Toledo Thermal Analysis Education Grant

Mettler Toledo has announced that E. Bryan Coughlin and his associates Samuel P. Gido and Frank Karasz will receive the 2002 Mettler Toledo Thermal Analysis Education Grant in Honor of Professor Edith A. Turi. They are being honored for their thermal analysis work at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

ACS Minnesota Section Brasted Award

The recipient of the 2002 Robert Brasted Award of the ACS Minnesota Section has been announced. The award is presented every three years for excellence in college teaching.

• John Walters, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota

Award Deadlines

Green Chemistry Challenge Awards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently seeking nominations for its 2003 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. These Presidential-rank awards recognize outstanding new chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture, and use, and that have been or can be utilized by industry in achieving their pollution prevention goals.

Any individual, group, or organization—either nonprofit and for profit, including academia, government, and industry—may nominate a green chemistry technology. Self-nominations are welcome. Each nominated technology must have reached a significant milestone within the past five years in the United States. Nominations must be postmarked by December 31, 2002. For information on how to enter the competition, visit the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge home page.

American Oil Chemists' Society Awards

Stephen S. Chang Award

The AOCS seeks nominations for the 2003 Stephen S. Chang Award. The award recognizes a scientist or technologist who has made decisive accomplishments in research for the improvement or development of products related to lipids. The award, consisting of an honorarium estimated at $6000 and a jade sculpture, will be presented at the AOCS annual meeting in Kansas City, May 4–7, 2003. Nomination materials should be submitted by October 15, 2002, to Chang Award Canvassing Committee Chairperson, AOCS, P.O. Box 3489, Campaign, IL 61826-3489.

Supelco/Nicholas Pelick–AOCS Research Award

The AOCS announces the call for nominations for the Supelco/Nicholas Pelick–AOCS Research Award that recognizes outstanding original research in fats, oils, lipid chemistry, or biochemistry. The nominees must have published the results in technical papers of high quality.

The award, consisting of a plaque and an honorarium of $8,000, will be presented following an award address at the AOCS annual meeting in Kansas City, May 4–7, 2003. Nomination materials should be submitted before November 1, 2002, to Supelco/Nicholas Pelick–AOCS Research Award, Canvassing Committee Chairperson, AOCS, P.O. Box 3489, Champaign, IL 61826-3489.

AOCS Young Scientist Research Award

The AOCS Young Scientist Research Award is established to recognize a young scientist (younger than 36 years of age or having received his or her highest degree within the previous 10 years) who has made a significant and substantial research contribution in one of the areas represented by the divisions of AOCS. The award consists of a plaque, an honorarium, and funding for travel and registration to the annual meeting in Kansas City, May 4–7, 2003. Nominations must be submitted by November 1, 2002 to Young Scientist Canvassing Committee Chairperson, AOCS, P. O. Box 3489, Champaign, IL 61826-3489.

Courses, Seminars, Meetings, Opportunities

FLAG Postdoctoral Opportunity

With support from the National Science Foundation, FLAG (Field-tested Learning Assessment Guide) has created and expanded a Web-based resource for STEM faculty in higher education. We now have a postdoctoral fellowship opportunity available. FLAG has been targeted to faculty who are curious about or are new to classroom assessment to improve learning. Assessment refers to faculty efforts to inquire about how and what students are learning in order to improve their teaching efforts or to demonstrate to others the degree to which students have accomplished the learning goals for a course.

The FLAG provides a collection of classroom assessment strategies that rests on a strong foundation of empirical research and has been tested by extensive use in the classroom: Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs). These are self-instructional modules that introduce techniques for assessing progress toward conceptual, attitudinal, and performance-based course goals. The FLAG also includes an introductory primer, an interactive engine that links faculty goals with the most appropriate assessment techniques, and a searchable database of assessment tools, which continues to be expanded. All the tools have been peer-reviewed and field-tested.

The fellowship is open to any STEM area or multidiscipline. The main task of the recipient is building a community around the FLAG. The starting date is no later than January, 2003, and the period is one year with a possible second year depending on funding. The salary range is $35 K to $40 K. A decision will be made by December 2002. For additional details or to apply, contact Michael Zeilik, FLAG, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of New Mexico, 800 Yale Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131-1156.