Well, we are finally going to have a meeting - two of them, in fact. The first will be Monday, October 6th, and the second will be Monday November 17th. Both meetings will be in the newly renovated Hughes Hall on the campus of Gonzaga University. This $15 million renovation and expansion was opened at the beginning of this semester. Hughes Hall can be found by first finding the large Gothic looking turn of the century building to the East of the church (parking is available in front), going behind this building to about the center point, where you will find a walkway heading away (South) from the building. At the end of this walkway there are two buildings, the Herek Center Engineering building on the left (Wrong One) and the Hughes Hall on the right (Right One). We will be in Room 130, just ahead and to the right as you walk in the door.
Prior to the October 6th meeting, we will have a tour of the new Chemistry building. So here is your chance to see the latest and greatest in chemical education facilities, and to hear a great speaker. The tour of the science center will be at 6:30 PM, and the talk will be at 7PM. These rooms have all been completely renovated since you were last here. Think raised seating, audio visual stuff built in, all the good stuff that we never had when we went to school and had to clap blackboard erasers after school when you were a bad boy. (At least that is how the Catholic schools worked....)
The two talks will be described on separate pages of this epistle, so that you can save and savor them. There will not be a new newsletter before the November talk, so save that description. I will be sending out emails to everybody on my email list before each meeting. We hope to have a wine and cheese thing before the November meeting (if the Jebbies and the state of Washington let us do that sort of thing on campus), and some sort of munchie goodies before the October meeting.
We have some other items to discuss. First: National Chemistry Week. The faculty, students and staff of Gonzaga University have been running this thing for the last several years at the Children's Museum downtown. However, that facility has temporarily closed. The good news is, we have been given space on the main floor of the River Park Mall to set up our demos and do our thing. This will be on Saturday, October 25th, from10AM to 4PM. We are always happy to have members volunteer an hour or so of their time to help this event out. The leader of this event, as he has been for the last three years or so, is our Section Chairman, Harry Davis. If you think you can find some time to participate, please call Harry at 323-6601 or email him at
Davish@gonzaga.edu . Even if you don't want to / can't volunteer, please bring your kiddlies, or grandkiddlies to this free event. I have volunteered once, and brought my grandbrats twice more, and they are always pestering me to know when they can go back. The theme of the event this year is "Earth's Atmosphere and Beyond".
The other item is: Elections. Nominations are now open for the three offices: ChairPerSibling, 2nd Banana, and Secretary/Treasurer. Harry Davis, current Chair, has indicated that it is impossible for him to run again. We do have a person willing to run for Chair-in-Waiting, and that would be Jennifer Shepherd, a professor at Gonzaga University. I would be happy to run again for Sec/Treas, and would be even happier if somebody else would run instead. We need somebody to run for Chair, or we will have to have Dave Cleary do it again, and neither he nor you would want that. If you are in the Akademik business, this can provide some serious brownie points for your CV. If you are in Real business, one of the perks of this job is that the ACS has extensive (and free) leadership training courses that can truly help you not only in the Society, but in your scramble up the ol' corporate ladder. Witness to that our previous Chair, who got all of that good training and has now moved on to bigger and better jobs, regretfully out of the area.
The requirements of the job are: a) breathing, b) some interest in chemistry, preferably with a degree and being a member of the ACS, c) come to the three or four section meetings every year, d) come to about as many Officers meetings every year (where we feed you), e) come up with a few ideas on how to make our local section a continuing success.
If you are at all interested in running for any of these offices, please contact Harry Davis (see above for addresses) and we will be happy to let you throw your hat into the proverbial ring.
I will send out ballots around the end of October, so that the new officers can be announced at our November meeting.
Section meeting: Monday October 6th, 7PM, Chemistry Building, Gonzaga University
Science Center tour 630 PM
Dr. Yorke E. Rhodes New York University
Astrochemistry: The Evolution of Organic Molecules in Interstellar Clouds
At the dawn of the space age in the 1960s, a handful of molecules were known to exist off Earth. Since those days of early robotic exploration of the Moon and Mars, fly-bys with spectroscopy of the outer planets, and radio astronomy of distant areas of our own galaxy and parts of the universe have brought forth a burst of molecular information. About 120 molecules, some new and some known, have been identified to date. What types and kinds of molecules exist? What varieties of molecular species have been found? How did they form, where do they occur, and what mechanisms exist for molecular formation? Can we model and predict what other molecules may occur? How has interstellar organic chemistry evolved? The content of the talk varies and the level of the talk is adaptable to the audience present.
Biographical Sketch
Yorke Rhodes received a B. S. in soil chemistry from the University of Delaware in 1957, and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois in 1964 with Prof. James C. Martin. . He joined the faculty of New York University at the University Heights campus in 1965 and developed research areas in SO2 solvent chemistry, electrocyclic reactions, small ring chemistry, and carbocations, especially neighboring group cyclopropane-assisted cation rearrangements. He moved to the Washington Square campus in 1973. Work at the Square continued in carbocations, led to alkyl group migratory aptitude studies and to synthetic studies in silyl ketene acetal chemistry for synthesis of quaternary neopentyls. Nasa/IEEE Summer Fellowships were held at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories at Cal Tech in Pasadena with Wes Huntress in 1980 and 1981 (astrochemistry). In 1987, he was professor associe at the Centre d'Astrophysique, Universite de Grenoble, France, with Alain Omont (astro-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon chemistry). Professor Rhodes is director of the Dual Degree Program in Science and Engineering at New York University and Stevens Institute of Technology, resides as Professor in a Residence in a University residence hall, and is very active in the New York Academy of Sciences and American Chemical Society local section activities, sponsoring a variety of symposia, poster sessions and other activities for students. He was recently elected chair-elect for 1997 and chair of the ACS New York Section for 1998. As an ACS Councilor he is also a member of the Local Section Activities Committee and welcomes discussions about local sections. He has served on Department of Education review panels and is an educational consultant/evaluator for several undergraduate and high school research mentoring programs.
Section meeting: Monday November 17th, 7PM, Chemistry Building, Gonzaga University
Dr. Lauren Bartlett Heine of GreenBlue
Green Chemistry: Challenges & Opportunities for All Chemistry
in the Twenty-first Century
Green Chemistry or environmentally benign chemical syntheses and processing will provide chemists in the 21st Century a unique and golden opportunity to play a central role in making sustainable development a reality. Sustainability, the concept where one generation in society moves forward in a manner that leaves neither the economy nor the environment any worse off - and perhaps even improves both - for succeeding generations, than when it inherited the global commons. A tall and daunting order by any measure or stretch of the imagination. Industrial ecology or the science of sustainability provides the frame work within which pollution prevention, design for the environment, and green chemistry will operate. For some, green chemistry is central to implementing this systems approach for development based on the ecological model from the natural world. The recent articulation of the 7 dimensions of eco-efficiency by Livio DeSimone, CEO - 3M and Frank Popoff, Dow Chemical Co., as co-chairs of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, lay out the extent of the challenge to the next generation of chemists and engineers. The 7 dimensions of reducing material and energy intensity of goods and services, reducing toxic dispersion, enhancing material recyclability, maximizing sustainable use of renewable resources, extending product durability, and increasing the service intensity of goods and services, each call for input from chemists and chemical engineers, if they are to be attained at all, much less within the next two generations. This presentation will briefly describe "The Twelve Principals of Green Chemistry" and illustrate them with real-world examples.
Dr. Lauren Heine recently (June 2003) accepted a position as the Director of Applied Science at GreenBlue in Charlottesville. VA. Prior to that, she served as Director of Green Chemistry and Engineering for the Zero Waste Alliance (ZWA) in Portland, OR. At ZWA she worked with organizations to apply the principles of Green Chemistry and Engineering to their operations to eliminate waste and toxics and become more economically and environmentally sustainable. These projects have resulted in improved environmental performance accompanied by many hundreds of thousands of dollars of economic benefits. Prior to moving to Oregon, she served as a Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the Industrial Chemicals Branch of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. In this capacity she worked with the Green Chemistry Program, promoting research and development of products and processes that have benign human and environmental health impacts. Her connections with the Green Chemistry Program and as senior editor for two American Chemical Society Symposium Series books entitled Green Chemical Syntheses and Processes and Green Engineering make her a resource for facilitating technical innovation in businesses desiring to enhance their environmental performance. Dr. Heine earned her doctorate in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Duke University.