Diane Grob Schmidt

Industry Paves The Way For ACS Scholars

The ACS Scholars Program celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The program was established to enable gifted, underrepresented minorities with a financial need to earn a bachelor’s degree in the chemical sciences and engineering. Last month, Catherine T. Sigal, chair of the ACS Development Advisory Board, described facts and figures attesting to the program’s success in changing the “face of chemistry” (C&EN, March 9, page 40). And perhaps you’ve been reading the amazing stories about ACS Scholars that C&EN has been featuring once a month. My own association with the program is truly up close and personal, and I want to share my experiences as well as those of some ACS Scholars with you. I recently retired from Procter & Gamble after a 32-year career. While there, I was honored to facilitate P&G’s annual contributions to support ACS Scholars. P&G values diversity in every way—ethnic, racial, geographic, gender—because like many ...

Supporting A Diverse Profession And Inclusive Community

WHAT MUST the American Chemical Society do to take a greater leadership role in developing a community of chemistry professionals that reflects the diversity of the populace? Is our commitment to these values apparent to our membership and the chemistry community? The Task Force on Implementing the ACS Diversity Reports grappled with questions similar to these during 2009 and made a presentation to the ACS Board of Directors in March 2010. The task force report is available on the ACS website at www.acs.org/DiversityReport . Immediately following the presentation, Thomas H. Lane, 2009 ACS president, and Joseph S. Francisco, 2010 ACS president, recommended that the ACS Board Committee on Professional & Member Relations (P&MR) take the lead and respond to the opportunities outlined in the task force report. As a first step, P&MR prioritized and categorized the task force recommendations and sought input from key governance stakeholders on current and planned activities under way in these ...