Business Meeting Minutes
Present: Laurie Butler, Roger Miller, Emily Carter, Bruce Garrett, Peter Rossky, Martin Gruebele, Tim Zwier, and about 10 other members in attendance.
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Laurie Butler announced the new DCP Fellows. John Fourkas, Peter Nordlander, and Laurie Butler were in attendance to accept their awards
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Bruce Garrett introduced the eight recipients of Graduate Student Travel Awards. Mehmet Danisman and Heather Eckenrode were in attendance.
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A financial report was presented by Bruce Garrett. Our income has exceeded expenses for the past few years and the balance at the end of the last fiscal year (ending December 2002) was $83,537. The APS moved the end of their fiscal year from June 30 to December 31 in 2002 and the 2002 year end numbers include income and expenses for only 6 months.
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Roger Miller was recognized for putting together an excellent DCP program at the 2003 March Meeting. Attendance at the DCP sessions was good, particularly for the focus sessions. It was thought that the handouts of the schedule of talks were useful and should be continued next year.
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Ideas for DCP focus topics at next years March Meeting were solicited. Emily Carter discussed ideas for focus sessions on "Structure and Dynamics of Liquids and Glasses" (in memory of Dan Kivelson) and "Multiscale Phenomena in Liquids and Solids". Peter Nordlander suggested a focus session on "Nanoparticle Enhanced Spectroscopy". A focus session on atmospheric processes was also suggested. Roger Miller brought up the usefulness of have the topics focus session overlap with the interests of other divisions at the March meeting to enhance attendance at the sessions. Laurie suggested that session organizers encourage their colleagues to send students to the meeting to increase attendance. The desire to have DAMOP participate in the March meeting was also mentioned.
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Bruce Garrett presented membership statistics for the last several years. Between 1996 and 2001 the DCP experienced a steady decline in membership from about 2100 to about 1800. In 2002 the DCP membership increased slightly. Suggestions for increasing membership were solicited and include the following. An email should be sent to all DCP members at academic institutions containing information about free student memberships and the benefits of DCP membership, and requesting the faculty to forward it to their students/postdocs. In the advertisements for the Graduate Student Travel Awards it should be explicitly stated that DCP membership is a requirement and the GSTAs should be mentioned as a benefit of student membership in solicitations for new members. We should email DAMOP members to encourage them to consider membership in DCP.
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The current status of APS prizes sponsored by DCP was presented. An endowment funds the Broida Prize and is sufficient for the current level of the prize. GE provides biennial support of the Langmuir Prize. The Crouch Foundation provides annual support of the Plyler Prize, which is well below the APS recommended level and requires our attention. All the prizes reflect the importance of Chemical Physics and it is in the best interest of this community to insure that the prizes continue in the future. The need to improve the health and move towards long-term sustainable endowments for all 3 prizes, and the Plyler in particular, was supported.
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Progress was presented on the compilation of information on undergraduate and graduate programs in Chemical Physics and Physical Chemistry. We are preparing to send a questionnaire to academic institutions in the US and Canada. The next step will be to organize the collected information to make it available on a web site. It was suggested that the input be solicited from the executive committee and membership on how best to present the information to the public.