The Graduate Student Symposium Planning Committee (GSSPC) is an autonomous group of graduate students responsible for the tasks associated with the planning of a symposium for an American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting. The GSSPC is charged with topic selection, fundraising, speaker recruitment and logistical arrangements for the symposium. The GSSPC must also ensure the continuation of the GSSPC by recruiting and mentoring a successive group of graduate students.
The GSSPC was created in spring 2005 to formalize an existing group of University of Illinois graduate students planning a symposium for the spring 2006 (231st) ACS National Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. These students were recruited by Dr. Cathy Middlecamp, then Program Chair for the Division of Chemical Education (CHED), in a continuing effort by CHED to involve graduate students in the ACS, in general, and at national meetings, in particular.
Previous GSSPC symposia topics have included, “Naturally Nano” (George Washington University), “Transitioning into Green Chemistry” (University of Connecticut), “Nano Power - Creating Energy for the Future” (University of California, Los Angeles), “Finding Your Catalyst: Lower the Barrier from the Graduate School to Industry” (Purdue University), “Exploring and Exploiting Nature with Biomimetics” (The Ohio State University), and “Balancing the Equation: Finding a Personal-Professional Equilibrium” (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). While these topics provide good examples of what has been done in the past, feel free to select any topic which you find inspiring and believe would be interesting to the graduate student community. As you can see above, previous topics have been either scientifically-motivated or related to career development. For information on past GSSPC teams, please visit this site.
What is GSSPC?