District IV Board Council BOARd Statement
(Spring 2013)

places for networking with like-minded chemists. The ACS has brilliantly recognized that the meaning of like-minded is both very diverse and evolving. It includes many different flavors of chemistry such as molecule making, measuring and simulating; it ranges through the fundamental sciences, engineering, and manufacturing. The ACS also recognizes that chemistry has a human side and it must be diverse. The challenge lies in continuing to adapt our structure to best serve the needs of our fellowship.

The ACS is a place for students, experienced professionals, and everyone in between to find common ground in our commitment to advancing the chemical sciences. This manifests itself physically in our national, regional and local section meetings, our journals, and in other products and services. These are all valuable but only a fraction of membership takes advantage of them at any given time. The reality is that each of us maintains our membership because we carefully select the ACS offerings that matter to us. The challenge lies in offering a sufficiently wide spectrum of support to our members within a fixed budget. As a Board Member, I would aim to sharpen these offerings with a judicious balance between physical and virtual services.

Education is not limited to the boundaries of a classroom. Fundamentally, education is about transferring understanding between people. I have routinely taught in my college classrooms. But I have also taught the public about the importance of science through public lectures, taught kids in K-12 classrooms about the relevance of science to their everyday world, and mentored countless undergraduate and postgraduate students throughout this country and abroad. Emerging technologies are enhancing the ways that any of us can facilitate such discourse. ACS’s challenge lies in adapting how we enable the exchange of ideas about the chemical sciences in response to how our members wish to educate and be educated. This includes the balance between emerging ways to teach many students simultaneously and efficiently (e.g., MOOCs) and/or a few students through labor-intensive but effective lecture/apprentice models. As a Board Member, I will strive to embrace technology in enhancing the ways that the ACS supports educators and in the ways that we educate each other.

People advance the chemical sciences, and the products of those advances affect all of us. That is why our nation's citizens need to support the basic sciences and engineering, and the chemical ones in particular. This is not and should not be a partisan issue because our economy critically depends on the pace at which we advance our understanding of molecules and their assemblies. ACS has a strong program in legislative and government affairs, with which I have been happy to work for over 10 years. I have visited the offices of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress in support of advancing science. The key to success in those discussions is good preparation (expertly provided by ACS's OLGA) and an unwavering focus on the topic during discussion with Congressional staffers. If elected, I plan to use my position on the Board to catalyze both my and your interactions with our government. I believe that together we can raise the awareness and appreciation of political leaders and their advisors for the transformative power of chemistry to advance our nation.

These three initiatives reflect my priorities for helping our Society become a better home for its members and a more effective partner to the world. The running thread that we must advance through these and other initiatives, however, is you. ACS programs can be effective only if they serve your needs and advance your goals. To this end, I hope to hear from you at hernandez@gatech.edu to learn more about how to make our ACS fellowship even stronger. Your vote would give me the opportunity to work with you and our fellow ACS members to improve your ACS.

For more information, go to http://tinyurl.com/hernandez4acs