If you were wishing and hoping to get to the VIPEr workshop at the GLRM earlier this month but just couldn't swing the travel, you have another opportunity coming up this Friday at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting in beautiful Baltimore!

The workshop will be run by Kate Plass and myself on Friday, May 31st, from 9-noon. Although registration for MARM has closed, if you are planning to attend the meeting, there is still room in the workshop, and we would love to have you!

Many years ago, I was an energetic first year graduate student in the Department of Chemistry at The Ohio State University. I was truly excited about graduate school and achieving my new career goal of becoming an inorganic chemist. One particular summer day in my first year, I attended a luncheon with several other graduate students and the Department Chair, Dr. Matthew Platz, at the Faculty Club on campus. We had a very candid conversation about diversity and inclusion in the chemical sciences.

On Tuesday, March 28^th, the president of Wheeling Jesuit University (WJU) announced that, due to a recent declaration of financial exigency, nearly half of all academic departments (including chemistry) would be cut as of the academic year’s end.* Two days later I was in Orlando for the Spring ACS meeting with one of my fellow soon-to-be-unemployed colleagues and four graduating-in-the-nick-of-time seniors.

The end of the semester is here! For those of you on trimesters or quarters, well, I'm sorry. With the end of classes you may have a moment to catch your breath and post something to VIPEr like you said you would all semester. And what better way to encourage that then a community challenge! I am issuing the 1FLO challenge, come up with the ideal vacation spot for me this summer. Price is no object since Joanne gave me the info for the credit card attached to the grant, so dream big...

Are you sick of scouring through test banks looking for the perfect multiple choice question to address exactly what you want to ask your class?

Do your students typically perform poorly on the multiple choice portion of your exams, even though they should be MC champions from their years of standardized tests?

This BITeS post is dedicated to Prof. Julius Rebek Jr. on the occasion of his 75th birthday.

Greetings loyal BITeS readers. I just got back from an amazing visit to the Sunshine State for the ACS spring meeting. It was an amazing conference, but I must admit, I am slightly tired from the very long slither from my hotel to the rooms in the conference center. The Undergraduate Research at the Frontiers of Inorganic Chemistry sessions were amazing. We had some outstanding talks from faculty and undergraduate students, including the three winners of the Division of Inorganic Chemistry Undergraduate Research Award.

I like BITeS posts with intriguing titles. Perhaps this one prompts you to wonder if this is a reference to the Nick Nolte/Eddie Murphy movie or the CBS news program or the 1977 song by The Clash. Actually 48 hours is a key result from our next spotlight article, ”Decay of Student Knowledge in Chemistry, ” from Journal of Chemical Education 2011, 88, 1231-1237.

Greetings all. I just returned from Florida where I had a critical planning session with Jeff Raker, fellow member of the Leadership Council, and his new postdoc, Justin Pratt. This essential part of the trip involved dimpled sphere flight experiments as well as the physics of seamed leather orbs being struck by wooden rods. Then I met Jeff and Justin for dinner. As we talked we realized it was essential that we introduce Justin, the first official IONiC postdoc, to the community. Our first opportunity to do this will be at the social hour held as part of the spring ACS meeting.

Another opportunity to attend a VIPEr workshop! Wow, you say! Dan Kissel and I are program organizers for the 2019 ACS GLRM conference that will be happening May 1-4 in Lisle, IL (Chicago area). We will be hosting a VIPEr mini-workshop at the conference in order to encoil even more unsuspecting prey. Our very own FOV, Nicolai Lehnert, will be joining us during the workshop.