SANTA CLARA VALLEY LOCAL SECTION

MINORITY AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

      The Carver Recognition Day and Carver Science Fair in the Silicon Valley of California has not been held since 2003 for lack of adequate funding.   Instead the Santa Clara Valley (SCV) Local Section cooperated with the Division of Chemistry and the Law (CHAL) as volunteer judges with local science fair projects SciencePalooza at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in March 2009.   The East Side Union School District (of San Jose) is one of the most diverse school districts in the area.

    The Synopsis Championship was held at the San Jose Convention Center in March 2009 (which also includes a large number of diverse science and engineering students).   Howard Peters was the sole volunteer judge.  Howard presented the ACS SCV Local Section awards for a total of $1,000.00 to the student winners on April 2 at the INTEL - Science Fair day at Paramount Great America in Santa Clara.

    Two SCV members (Dr. Howard Peters and Dr. Roy Okuda) were active and served as ACS judges for the INTEL International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) (www.scienceforsociety.org) for international high school students, held in Reno, Nevada in May 2009.  Expanded local and international science fair involvement at the national and local levels are planned for 2010.  Specifically, Howard Peters and Roy Okuda are also on the local Board of Directors for the INTEL ISEF 2010 to be held May 9-14, 2010 in San Jose, California. (see www.isef2010sanjose.org )  About 1500 high school winners from 53 countries are expected to compete for over $4,000,000.00 in awards.

       In October 2009, Howard Peters received the Special President Award from the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS, www.sacnas.org and headquartered in nearby Santa Cruz, California).  Howard, formerly a national Director-at-Large, and Ambassador from the ACS Board of Directors to SACNAS was unable to attend their annual meeting in Dallas in October 2009.  Dr. Peters had in prior years met with officers and members of the Board of Directors of SACNAS and was a volunteer judge for several student oral and poster presentations.

    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  new U.S. coins or U.S. currency for general circulation.

    HISTORICAL ONLY: 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  retired 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.
    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.

    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 member volunteers.  Many of these first time exhibitors next exhibited their science project in the local mainstream science fairs.

Howard M. Peters, Chair

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