All Division of Organic Chemistry videos made public

Via random clicking: 

As a result of the number of people that are now sequestered at home away from work and the laboratory, the Division of Organic Chemistry has decided to immediately release all of our video content that has been for members only. The nonpublic content includes 33 NOS Lecture Videos from NOS2013, NOS2015, NOS2017 and NOS2019; and 5 archived Virtual Symposia from 2018–2019. 

Additionally, we want to take this opportunity to remind you of our other collections of video content such as the Eminent Organic Chemistry Videos (timeless interviews of 20 organic chemists by Jeffrey Seeman in 2008) and our small collection of historic organic chemistry lectures by Berson, Woodward, Wotiz, and Heck.

There's quite a few good ones here - go take a look.  

Advertisement: Scott Bagley for Division of Organic Chemistry Member at Large

From the inbox, an ad from a friend of the blog, Scott Bagley: 

Voting for the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry Executive committee is now open.  Division members will receive an email from elections@vote-now.com with links to the ballots and candidate biographies.  We have a terrific slate of candidates from across the organic chemistry community so please visit or join the Division of Organic Chemistry at https://www.organicdivision.org/  You must be a DOC member to view the candidates and cast your ballot.  

I am running for one of 4 Member-at-Large posts and would appreciate your consideration. Thank you.

TAOC Symposium next Wednesday

For those of you going to the ACS meeting in Philadelphia (starting on Sunday), an invitation to the Division of Organic Chemistry's Technical Achievements in Organic Chemistry Symposium.

It's next Wednesday, August 24, from 8:30 until 5 pm at the Terrace Ballroom II at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Congratulations to all the winners! More details can be found here. 

Congratulations to the 2016 winners of the TAOC award!

From the inbox, an invitation to the Division of Organic Chemistry's Technical Achievements in Organic Chemistry award. The symposium will be in two weeks, August 24, from 8:30 until 5 pm at the Terrace Ballroom II at the Pennsylvania Convention Center at the fall ACS meeting in Philadelphia. The awardees are:

Kyle Baucom, Amgen

Thomas Caferro, Novartis

Matthew Daniels, Novartis

Emily Hanan, Genentech

Brian Huckabee, Eli Lilly and Company

James Jewell, Merck

Brian Jones, Pfizer, Inc.

Neil Kallman, Eli Lilly and Company

Brian Kotecki, AbbVie

Scott A. Savage, Bristol-Myers Squibb

Wes Schafer, Merck

Michelle Tran-Dubé, Pfizer, Inc.

Congratulations to all the winners! More details can be found here. 

Interesting contest from the Division of Organic Chemistry

A pretty interesting idea from the Division of Organic Chemistry:

Create a 2-3 minute video that conveys the value of Organic Division Membership. 

Prizes: Five (5) Awards of up to $1,500 for travel reimbursement to the 2016 ACS Spring Meeting in San Diego. One prize will be awarded for each winning video submission–collaborating video creators will need to determine the funding split. If fewer than 5 submissions are received, the budgeted travel funding will be split among the entries according to the discretion of the Executive Committee of the Division of Organic Chemistry. One award will be granted to the video with the greatest number of page views. Additional award prize categories are dependent on the actual submissions and could include: 

1. Most humorous
2. Most creative
3. Grand Jury Prize 

Qualifying videos will be posted to the ACS DOC YouTube Channel (http://tinyurl.com/ORGNYouTube) for viewing by the public and judges.

Here's a link to the full details of the contest. Best wishes to those interested.

Seems to me that the real value of Organic Division membership is that you can participate in ACS activities related to the Organic Division (the Symposia, that sort of thing.) I sure wish that you got your copy of Organic Syntheses in the mail still. That said, access to the videos from the National Organic Symposium (scroll down) is indeed something of value that I am really happy that DOC has taken on. Definitely worth my $15.

(Say, what would happen if DOC decided to take on a "best practices" advisory role in academic chemical safety? I kid, I kid.) 

Two very #chemjobs-oriented personal statements in the DOC election ballot

Members of the Division of Organic Chemistry get to vote on two industrial folks for Chair-Elect, both of whom seem to be oriented towards issues of chemistry employment and unemployment*: 

Paul L. Feldman joined Glaxo Pharmaceuticals, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina in 1987 following receiving his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley....

Personal Statement: The Division of Organic Chemistry (DOC) of the American Chemical Society has a rich, venerable tradition in serving its membership. Some examples include organizing and sponsoring venues to communicate our research advances, awarding members to honor distinguished research and service to our community, and providing materials and services to support our discipline. Coupled with these important traditions is our rapidly-changing economic, social, and technological environment which requires the DOC to adapt and capitalize on these changes. If elected as chair of the DOC my key objective will be to explore how the DOC can best serve our Division’s evolving demographics in our rapidly changing economic and social environment while maintaining the bedrock traditions and services of the DOC. As examples, how do we best serve our young organic chemists who use different technologies to socialize and communicate and face a more difficult economic environment for job prospects? Furthermore, how do we best serve our retiring members who will become a larger segment of our Division? With advances on this agenda I believe the DOC will be better positioned in the future to serve and add value to its diverse, changing membership. 

Paige E. Mahaney: Born 1969, Parkersburg, WV; B. S. Chemistry 1991, Guilford College, Greensboro, NC; Ph.D. Organic Chemistry 1996, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA... 

Personal statement: My nearly 20 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry has given me a valuable perspective to address the challenges faced by individual organic chemists and the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry, as a whole. Working with the DOC, I am very interested in selecting scientific themes for DOC-sponsored symposia that are highly relevant to current research topics in Organic Chemistry, both for academic and industrial scientists. In addition, I am passionate about career development for organic chemists, not only for scientists who are emerging from academic and post-doctoral programs but also for mid- and late-career organic chemists. Since my research interests span multiple chemistry disciplines, I would also like to foster interactions between the different disciplines in Organic Chemistry, improving interfaces with other ACS divisions and sponsoring partnered initiatives and scientific symposia. Finally, I believe that science, above all, is fun, and I would like to promote a fun and productive environment in the DOC.

I look forward to seeing how either one of these candidates decided to move the DOC towards better serving its members' employment needs.

*Biographies were truncated to the first sentence only.

Interesting

The DOC is privately (and randomly, I assume*) surveying its members for the 2015 National Organic Symposium via e-mail.

I seem to recall (from the 2001 NOS) filling out a survey for the same purpose via paper -- this is a better technique, I think.

*The survey was sent to everyone with a DOC membership. 

Thanks, Division of Organic Chemistry, for the videos!

I've talked about paying dues to the Division of Organic Chemistry ($15/year). I note that I said that I wanted video of all Division presentations, including those made at the National Organic Symposium. 

Well, according to my DOC Newsletter this morning, those videos are available to members at the Division website. I have indeed viewed the page; I can confirm that, if you're a division member, you have access to talks from David Evans, Lawrence Scott, Joanna Fowler, Shana Kelley, Eiichi Nakamura and Hanadi Sleiman from this year's NOS at the University of Washington. 

I know that I'm a regular critic of the American Chemical Society, so I like it when I can say something positive. A lot of us in industry don't get to see presentations from academics anymore (and still enjoy it); this (and ACS Presentations on Demand) is an exciting thing to see. 

What should I expect for my membership in the Division of Organic Chemistry?

This year, for the first time in a while, I will be paying $15 for my membership in the ACS' Division of Organic Chemistry. (In the past, it had been paid for my employer, but policies change.) This brings to mind a certain question: why am I a member of the Division of Organic Chemistry, anyway? Here's what DOC has to say on this issue:

What are the benefits of ORGN membership? 

You join the premier society that supports, educates, networks, and advocates for organic chemists. 

Some of the ways we achieve these objectives are shown below:

• You will receive an annual Newsletter containing information about divisional and joint programs at National ACS Meetings, details about presenting papers/posters at these meetings, deadlines for paper submissions, and notices of other meetings of interest.

• You can view the completed Abstract Booklet in electronic form for papers presented at National Meetings by the Organic Division, including those cosponsored with other divisions.

• You can access the Members only portion of the website and view a clear presentation of your Membership Profile and post your information in the Division Directory for networking.

• You will receive discounts on books from selected publishers. Access the Link (For Members only on the Book Discounts Page.

• Through the process of nomination, you can participate in selection of speakers at the National Organic Symposia.

• Through yearly input by nomination, you can assist in selecting the Officers of the Division.

• By further individual or group involvement, you can contribute to enhancing the stature of the field of organic chemistry in and outside of the ACS.

That's not really a compelling list. I do actually read the annual Newsletter, but it's mostly internal Division business that isn't particularly interesting to me. I don't go to enough ACS National Meetings to get me very excited about the Abstract Booklet.

I'll tell you what used to make me happy about my DOC membership: the annual copy of Organic Syntheses that I would get in the mail. Man, that little brown booklet made for great reading and a real sense that I was part of something. I will still (for the meantime) cough up the $15 for my dues, but it's more out of inertia than anything else. This is the problem with that move they made, by the way; by getting rid of paper copies of OrgSyn (A Worthwhile Endeavor), they removed the one tangible, useful, Item Full of Truth that you'd get from the division. Now, it's just a sort of vague sense-of-belonging* -- and the Division is too big (14,000 members?) and too diffuse (who IS an organic chemist, exactly?) to make that mean anything, I think.

Do you know what would make me really excited to be a DOC member? If I got exclusive access to high-quality video of every presentation from NOS and every ACS national meeting. That, in my opinion, would be worth my $15, and it might even be worth another $15 on top of it.

*This is the generational problem that both the Division and the ACS itself needs to face, by the way: that "sense of belonging" used to work in the 1950s and 1960s doesn't seem to work anymore. It makes me wonder if this is a problem with the profession/chemical enterprise, or if it's actually a problem with American culture, broadly speaking. 

Goodbye, Organic Syntheses books.



Goodbye, old friends.
Photo credit: me.

Just the same as many of you, I got an e-mail late last year saying that they were going to discontinue sending the paper copies of Organic Syntheses to Division of Organic Chemistry members. The decision makes some sense, I suppose -- costs are up, and they're opening up a new DOC fellowship with the savings (scroll down). Fair enough.

In memory of these awesome little brown books, a list of my ten favorite things about Organic Syntheses books:

1. You can learn about fields and molecular classes that you didn't know about.
2. You can read awesome mini-biographies about older chemists (the Buchi biography is one of my favorites.)
3. Fits on the back of a toilet.
4. A pile of them can be used to hold up a child at a dinner table or perhaps a car in need of a tire change.
5. Good size to take on a bus or plane ride.
6. To the uninitiated, they make you look like you really care about chemistry on your bookshelves.
7. Fits nicely on a bedstand.
8. You typically can learn about a methodology that you didn't really know or care about; but it's checked -- so hey, why not run this reaction?
9. Makes a great beer coaster.
10. Checked procedures -- how awesome is that?

Should BS/MS chemists look oddly at the word "technical"?

While reviewing the biographies for the candidates for positions in the Division of Organic Chemistry elections*, I noted that there weren't any candidates that had a M.S. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about the DOC's award category for non-Ph.D. chemists called "Technical Achievements in Organic Chemistry." My friend (not a Ph.D.) found the title of the awards somewhat less than complimentary.

Just so we're clear, below is the "Charge of the Program" and some of the requirements to be nominated:

The purpose of the Technical Achievements in Organic Chemistry (TAOC) award program is to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of organic chemistry from accomplished Junior-level chemists (i.e., those who do not have a Ph.D. degree or equivalent) pursuing careers in chemical industry at research institutes.

...(A) a letter (not e-mail), containing the address of the nominator and information written on company stationary, of nomination that presents evidence that illustrates the accomplishments, creativity and independence of the nominee (B) a copy of the nominee's CV (including work address and e-mail) that includes a description of their educational background and experience, and publication and patent record and (C) any other information that documents the special achievements and/or contributions made by the nominee.

I've actually met and seen a number of awardees during their award seminars and elsewhere, and they're just as impressive as you might imagine. So there's no arguing that 1) the awards are deserved and 2) I'm glad that they're getting recognition.

I do think there's something odd about the word "technical", especially when (of the presentations that I saw), there was hardly anything tactical or small-bore about them. They were more-or-less indistinguishable from the typical program-based talks that you'd see Ph.D. chemists give at an ACS conference. The text of the nominating documents ("accomplishments, creativity, independence") does not really lend itself to the word "technical" either.

Problem is, what do you call a B.S./M.S. only category? I can't come up with a good name. Readers, is my friend right? Do you have a better name? 

*I didn't vote for any of them. Can't figure out what the positions are for.