MINORITY AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

    The Carver Recognition Day and Carver Science Fair were not held in 2003-7 primarily for lack of adequate funding. The SCV and CHAL cooperated as judges with local science fair project Sciencepalooza at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in February 200

    The Synopsis Championship was held at the San Jose Convention Center in March 2006 (both of which include a high percentage of minority science and engineering students).   Howard Peters & George Lechner presented the ACS local section awards of $600.00 were made to the winners on April 2 at the Science Fair day at Paramount Great America in Santa Clara.

    Two SCV members (Howard Peters and Roy Okuda) were active and served as ACS judges for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (www.sciserv.org/) for international high school students, held in Albuquerque, NM from May 7-11, 2007.  Expanded local and national science fair involvement at the national and local level is planned for 2008.

    ACS Director-at-Large (and Local Section member) Dr. Howard Peters  had an informative discussion and with Dr Victor McCrary,  the new President of the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE, www.nobcche.org ).   

    During the summer of 2005, Howard Peters, Director-at-Large, was named an Ambassador for the ACS Board of Directors to the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and native Americans in Science (SACNAS, www.sacnas.org ) and attended their annual meeting in Denver on October 2005 and in Tampa FL in October 2006 and in Kansas City MO in October 2007 .  Dr. Peters was a judge for several student oral and poster presentations.

    In 2001 and 2002 ten SCV  members organized a Carver KidVention, a program to focus children (in this case 40-70 K-5th grade students) on invention and that you did not need to be a rocket scientist to be an inventor.
    Future cooperative projects for the partners include having each of the 50 states declare a Carver Recognition Day each January 5, having many Carver recognition events each January 5 around the nation, expanding the Carver Scholars and Carver Science Fair Programs throughout California and the nation, and encouraging the U.S. Treasury to recognize the important contributions of African American chemist Dr. George Washington Carver by issuing a new U.S. coin or U.S. currency for general circulation honoring Dr. Carver.

    Historical: Many ACS local sections have not yet created a formal Committee on Minority Affairs to further the work started in 1993 by ACS National.  The Santa Clara Valley Section has had a Committee since 1997, with Dr. Howard Peters, a Palo Alto chemical patent attorney, as the first chair. Earlier work resulted in a resolution in 1997 from the ACS Board and Council endorsing the creation of an official State Day of Recognition in all states to recognize the contributions of the renowned agricultural chemist, Dr. George Washington Carver.  By cooperating and partnering in the Silicon Valley with the local African American directed Healing Institute, the ACS Santa Clara Valley Section provided some documents that were helpful in making California the tenth state to create a State Day of Recognition to honor Dr. George Washington Carver.  Halim Mustafa, the community entrepreneur, Founder and Director of the Healing Institute is a former policeman from East Palo Alto, California.

    After much planning and many volunteer hours, the Healing Institute, in partnership with Intel Corporation, Applied BioSciences, Cypress Semiconductor,  the Santa Clara Alliance of Black School Educators, members of SCV, the Division of Chemistry and the Law , and others created the Carver Scholars with about 150 African American grade- and high school students in the Silicon Valley. This program won for the Healing Institute a special award in 1999 from the U.S. Congress for the best public or private program to encourage minority students in science and engineering.

    On January 5, 2000, 2001 and 2002  the Healing Institute and its ACS partners cooperated to hold the Carver Science Fairs  primarily for African American students at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the Silicon Valley.  Some 120-160  students participated.  About half of the science fair judges were local ACS volunteers.  It is anticipated that many of these first time exhibitors will now exhibit their science project in the local mainstream science fairs.


Howard Peters, Chair

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