Engaging Younger Chemists

[dotti_miller]

Hi All,

At the Leadership Institute this past January, I was asked by both the Division and Local Section tracks to talk about engaging young members of the Society. I certainly have my opinions and, as the new YCC chair have a responsibility to promote such engagement, but I would love to hear what the folks on this forum think (yes, I will post my thoughts but only if someone asks ).

How do (or should) local sections leaders consider reaching the younger demographic when planning section events? Does this approach work? Why/why not?

Warmest Regards,

Dotti

[BryanBalazs]

For us in the California Section, one thing that our local section YCC chair has done is to try "non-traditional" meetings.  These have included Christmas caroling with chemists, chocolate tours and discussions, saki tasting, and a photo scavenger hunt based on chemistry "clues".  These do attract a younger crowd, at least more so than the traditional section meeting of a technical talk over a rubber-chicken banquet dinner...!

And yes, Dotti, I'd like to hear your thoughts, as one of the things we struggle with in our section is that our member demographics contain a substantial younger component, while our section meeting attendance typically has not.  We're trying to change that, of course.

Bryan

2011 Chair, California Section

[Lesmcquire]

Like California, the North Jersey Section has tried various approaches (picnics, beer tasting, purely social events) but it is a challenge to increase participation (in any demographic group).

Dotti - we would all love to hear your thoughts!

[lynnhartshorn]

I too would be very interested to hear more on this topic--when trying to attract younger members to events in the Minnesota section, the response we often get is that their work/family obligations keep them too busy for anything else. We have however had some success with daytime activities where members and their children were invited and there were some child-friendly activities

[AnneOBrien]

We have a YCC in the NY Section.  I should ask David Cormode, the Chair, to describe their several successful events.

In 2010, the New York Section Long Range Planning Committee had a "Millennials Team."  They focused on students and made recommendations, not all of which have put into practice yet!

• Use media used by the Millennials themselves.
  
• Post FAQ’s useful to Millennials to our NYACS Facebook page, e.g., jobs, internships, grad school info, ACS Career aids.
  
• Post links useful to Millennials, e.g., ACS career website and services.
  
• Write to Faculty Advisors of Student Chapters (NY Section Chair), and to Undergraduate Research Symposium Advisors.  Ask them to:
  
  • Get students to join NYACS Facebook page. (Since then, ACS Network has much improved.  We could have a NY ACS Students Group there.)
    
  • Follow us on Twitter.  Section to Tweet before events,
    
  • Send summary of Student Chapter’s activities to Millennials Team. Section selects a Chapter each month (an honor!) to describe their activities. 
    
• Section send out monthly email highlighting activities of honored student chapter.
  
• Form a Committee responsible for Millennials, and communication with them.
  
• Hold a Board Retreat on technology, to increase familiarity, comfort.  Address social networking sites, such as:  ACS Network, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.  Have the young teach the less young!
  
• Offer a Leadership Training Course for students.
  
• Question:  How best to get chemistry students communicating with chemistry students?
  

In brief, we are trying, not so much to get them to do things our way, as to do at least some things their way!

[BryanBalazs]

A few more thoughts, based on my experience:

1. Use your section's roster (the Chair should have this) to filter by address, and determine the one or two locations that have the highest concentration of members with birth years after, say, 1975.  Target your events to this area.
2. Realize that for the younger crowd of chemists, monthly meetings at a set time or location may not be the preference.  That's OK, so continue to work to create one-off (one-time) events.
3. Keep in mind that the content of the meeting is just as important as getting the message out.  In other words, if you have a great topic of interest to the younger crowd, and they don't find out about it, that's just the same as if they got the message but weren't interested in the topic.  Both are needed.
4. As some have noted in this post, be wiling to consider weekend events (Saturday night at a wine bar, anyone?), or mid-day events during the week.

Any other thoughts out there?

[Joe_Sabol]

Dotti, et al.,

I see that Anne and Brian (below) have some good suggestions.

My input (from my past life as a teacher) is "why not learning by doing"? Have the YCC-ers in your LS actually organize a LS mtg or other event. (Of course, it will help if the greybeards show up, too.) As you recently said in Fort Worth, in so many words: "If they get involved, they stay involved." Hands-on, engage the younger members, show them that their skill-set, creativity, enthusiasm, etc is welcome and needed. SCHB is starting to do that.

Joe

[Lesmcquire]

I agree - get people (not just YCC) involved.  Give them the opportunity to contribute and work on their own (new) ideas.

Remember the Local Section Innovation Program Grants ($3000).  These are a great way to help provide funds to start new programs and hence involve new people as volunteeer leaders and attendees.