American Chemical Society award!

The Chemistry & Biochemistry Club at CSUN was chartered on December 17, 1968. The leadership has changed hands many times since that date.

Dr. Kayla A. Kaiser became the advisor in Summer 2013 and aimed to reinstate the club as a Student Chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS), but first we had to regain university standing here at CSUN.

That first year 2013-14, we did 4 outreach events and held 2 social events.

Our constitution was updated Oct. 19, 2013 by Christine Dimirjian, at the time she was serving as graduate student senator of the CSUN Associated Students (AS). Christine is now a Ph.D. Candidate at University of California, Davis.

The second year 2014-15, we did 1 professional development program, 3 outreach events, and 2 social events.

Our constitution was accepted by the Matador Involvement Center (MIC) on March 9, 2015 thanks to Kimberly Madhwani, who had experience serving as a senator for CSUN AS. Kimberly is now a PhD student at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

We grew our membership as a club in good standing with the university, participating in Meet the Clubs for the first time under my direction. The third year 2015-16, we did 5 outreach events and 1 social event.

We started using social media, including twitter and facebook, in addition to keeping a Moodle page to keep our growing membership informed of upcoming events. Before switching to Canvas, our Moodle page had 327 enrolled users.

Ravinder Abrol was added as a co-advisor in August 2016. He brought fresh enthusiasm for mentoring students to pursue careers in chemistry. Ravi and Kayla both share experiences having been members of an ACS student chapter as undergraduates, and we both agreed that being a part of an active ACS student chapter was a formative experience for us.

In 2016-17, our club received two honors at the MIC Clubs & Organizations Awards Ceremony. That year, we did 4 outreach events. Our club organized a STEM mixer for 18 science-related clubs. We held 4 professional development events. We hosted 2 social events. We got club t-shirts.

The first award was for Creative Marketing, for our use of the hashtag #MemeMonday and for sharing chemistry-related images on Instagram and our other social media platforms. The second award was for Outstanding Organization. That year’s success was a result of leadership from Angela Cannata who is currently a MARC U*STAR Scholar here at CSUN.

On January 23, 2017 our club was reactivated as an ACS student chapter. For reporting on our activities for that date forward to the end of the spring 2017 semester, we were awarded an Honorable Mention award. CSUN’s chapter will be honored at the 255th ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Our current president, Fiorella Betdashtoo is doing a fantastic job so far this year. We’ve done our annual Fall hands-on chemistry program at the Valley Academy of Arts & Sciences (outreach), the club has hosted a research panel (professional development) and we’ve just had our end-of-year potluck (social event) and pizza party (fundraiser).

I wish I could mention every single one of our dedicated student members, they are the true stars of this story!