Membership: Who are we and where do we go
from here?
Julie Smist,
Department of Biology/Chemistry, Springfield College, Springfield, MA 01109 (jsmist@spfldcol.edu), Adele Salerno,
Department of Chemistry, Mt. Notre Dame High School, Cincinnati, OH 45215 (Amndsal@aol.com), Jennifer Lewis, Department
of Chemistry, University of South Florida, Tampa, Fl, 33620 (jlewis@mail.cas.usf.edu)
Abstract
The purpose of this
paper is to raise several questions about membership in the Division of
Chemical Education. We do not claim to have all the answers, but we are seeking
input from any and all interested parties. First question: why would someone want to be a member of the Division? Here
we hope to present a demographic sketch of our current membership as well as a discussion
of the benefits of membership. Second question: from what populations should we
be looking to recruit new members? Here
we want to look at the needs of those populations, discussing if the Division
can currently meet those needs and if not, should we change and how do we
accomplish this? Third question: do we just want to focus on recruiting new
members or do we want to get the members we have to become more active? Here we
will present some of the difficulties associated with creating opportunities
for active involvement and raise questions about possibilities for the future.
Membership demographics
The demographic
report for the Division of Chemical Education generated by the American
Chemical Society's Office of Membership at the end of 2004, contains the
following data. The majority of the members of the Division of Chemical
Education are American (95%) white (57%) males (58%) who majored in chemistry
(83%), who subscribe to no journals (82%) and have "professor or instructor" as
their job titles (65%). Overall the Division has about 5000 total members (as
of
The membership
demographics for the overall Society (data from the 2001 demographic report),
paint a slightly different picture. The majority of the members of the American
Chemical Society are American (88%) males (75%), who majored in chemistry (75%)
and subscribe to no journals (81%). Only 42% are white (while 13 % are Asian)
and barely 2% claim "professor or instructor" as their job titles. Among the
Division members, 48% are interested in Chemical Education as opposed to only
2% of all ACS members.
Under the "Nature
of Business" category 51% of the Division's members teach at four-year
universities or colleges, 16% are "pre-college" teachers and 10% are at
two-year colleges or technical schools. With respect to the overall Society,
the largest category is "manufacturing" (30%) with 3% teaching at four-year
schools, less than 1% at two-year schools and less than 1% in "pre-college."
The following table
presents the percentage of members' ages in ten year intervals.
|
Age intervals |
CHED 2004 |
CHED 2001 |
ACS 2001 |
|
21 - 30 |
8% |
8% |
6% |
|
31 - 40 |
18% |
19% |
16% |
|
41 - 50 |
21% |
20% |
26% |
|
51 - 60 |
21% |
25% |
20% |
|
61 - 70 |
17% |
16% |
6% |
|
Over 70 |
5% |
4% |
2% |
|
N/A |
10% |
9% |
23% |
The following
tables shows when the members joined.
|
Join Date |
CHED 2004 |
CHED 2001 |
ACS 2001 |
|
1991 - 1995 |
15% |
18% |
17% |
|
1996 - 2000 |
22% |
37% |
48% |
|
After 2001 |
37% |
14% |
25% |
An examination of
these data shows that for both the Division and the Society as a whole the
majority of the members are over 40 years old (74% of the Division members, 73%
of the Society) with the Division slightly better at attracting younger people
than ACS. Looking at the "CHED 2004" column, the majority of the Division
members have joined in the last ten years (59%). Comparing the 2001 data, the
Division was lagging behind ACS in attracting new members.
The information about "membership
status" is interesting. ACS has 71% "regular" members, 10% "students,"
10% "emeritus," 5% "retired," and 2% "associate" members. For the
Division, 89% are classified as "regular" members, 7 % are "students," and 2 %
are "associate" members, with less than 1% classified as "emeritus" or
"retired." It would seem that the Division is "aging" a little slower than the
Society as a whole, but is not recruiting students as well.
Some final pieces
of data to ponder: The Division has more
female (38%) members than ACS (21%), double the number of African American
members (Division: 2.5 % versus ACS: 1.7%) and slightly more Hispanic members
(Division: 2.7%, ACS 1.8%). However, ACS has a larger percentage (12%) of
members from outside the
From where should we get our members?
The Division's
membership should be designed to appeal to a variety of individuals that may
already be members of ACS. This would
include a spectrum of individuals who are interested in the work of the
Division. Being more specific, the
membership might be adjusted to include:
How can we serve these members?
Meeting the needs
of such diverse groups will present a challenge. Each would be choosing membership for diverse
reasons. Marketing strategies will need to be diverse.
The biggest problem
lies in the fact that we have no list of ACS members who might be interested in
the Division and, consequently, we can not initiate a successful plan to
accomplish the goals that would be set.
There are currently
some marketing strategies that are available to some of the people already in
ACS but not sufficiently utilized. Within the ACS a more rigorous campaign
needs to be designed to encourage the current members to take another look at
being a member of the Division.
Higher education
faculties have the privilege of student affiliation providing student with
reduced membership rates. They also have
the privilege of presenting papers at ACS meetings. The Division will need to concentrate on
retention of these affiliates and provide additional incentives for joining the
Division
Member of high
school faculties need a more rigorous campaign. Getting the Journal of Chemical Education is not
exactly a high priority item. It would be necessary for us to design a welcome package for them,
provide them with contact people who can answer their questions and make them more welcome at
national meetings. Don't have their poster displays at some site away from the convention. Provide
them with space at the place of the meeting.
Also make them feel
welcome at the national meetings. It
determines whether they return again or not. It determines whether they renew their membership or not.
Also make them feel
that they can run for offices in the organization. The high school teachers need to know that it
is okay for them to take ownership of what occurs in the Division.
Get more members or get members more active?
Do we just want to
focus on recruiting new members or do we want to get the members we have to
become more active? It seems to us that active involvement of members is
important for the health of the division, so in some sense this is rhetorical
question. However, as we contemplate taking action ourselves to achieve the
goal of a more active membership, we see two major difficulties. The first is
in the form of a concrete barrier, while the second is more philosophical.
Communication: the number one problem
Perhaps the most
difficult thing about trying to become involved in the Division is finding out
what the possibilities are. In the ideal
situation, a member has a range of opportunities from which to choose, and
selects the one that appears to be the best match for his or her particular
talents and interests. For example, while national committee membership is
currently one of the major avenues for involvement, not every member can be on
a national committee, nor, we imagine, would every member want to be. Some
committees themselves take an active role in encouraging members to contribute
to committee goals (e.g. the Chemical Education Research Committee, which has a
"friends" list from which it draws for symposium organizers, considering it
part of their mission as a committee. The friendly, open nature of our Divisional networking has a down side,
however -- finding appropriate opportunities for involvement can be too much a
"who you know" situation (in a welcoming "we're all friends here" sense rather
than in the pejorative). Personal contacts, though pleasant, are a relatively
inefficient way to create an active membership. To move beyond word of mouth strategies for engagement,
a deliberate structure capable of addressing the need to reach out to greater numbers
without losing the personal and informal tone of the Division is essential.
While the
Membership and/or New Member Committee can certainly take on the responsibility
of drafting an annual call for involvement in specific projects based on the
needs of the Division, it is not clear to us at this time how to prevent the
call from being associated only with our committee members' own knowledge of
Divisional needs, i.e. arbitrarily based on our own informal networks. It
doesn't seem to us to be within the charge of either the Membership or the New
Member Committee to make these critical decisions regarding which opportunities
to publicize on behalf of the Division, nor to translate the various committee
reports, without input nor approval, into a set of specific opportunities. To use a
workplace analogy: we can do the recruiting, but we can't create the job advertisements. Decisions about
how to get the recruiting call out there (the Web, e-mail, the Welcome Packet),
are irrelevant without a better structure in place for ensuring that the call
is appropriate. We don't know who makes the decisions about which "jobs" should
be advertised, nor who assembles the list of relevant skills and interest for
each one, but we suspect that the Executive Committee could utilize the present
committee structure to get this done.
We have said that
we believe structured, deliberate recruiting in the form of calls to action is
essential to move the Division forward, and suggested that the current
committee structure should be utilized to ensure the recruiting is
equitable. What about outside the
committee structure? How do we promote
active "special interest" groups while maintaining a sense of the
Division as a whole? Increased
engagement of a variety of chemical educators, which the Membership and New
Member Committee believe is essential to the health of the division, will
expose differences of opinion within the Division. The health of the Division also depends upon
the united front we present to the larger organization of the American Chemical
Society and to the other Divisions. Unless we find a way to handle our disagreements
internally, the Division will not remain healthy. You can see some of our
awareness of this issue in our consideration of the previous problem, in which
we state clearly that the way forward is for the Division to take an active
role in deciding which opportunities should be publicized by the Membership and
New Member Committees, and that such decisions be deliberate and thoughtful,
not based on arbitrary networks. Any
other path forward creates the possibility that the Division will unintentionally
privilege some members and tasks more than others. Only stunted growth is possible under such
circumstances.
Membership: what is in it for me?
Since the overall
purpose of this on-line conference is to stimulate discussions, we hope that if
you currently a member of the Division, you will address these questions.
Why do you choose
to be a member of the Division of Chemical Education? Are you a member of
another technical Division? What benefits do you derive from being a member?
Would you encourage your friends/colleagues to become members of our Division?
Why or why not?
If
you are not a current member, why not? What could we do to make membership more appealing to you?