Hello VIPEr-land. I wanted to post my experience with returning to the classroom after a 4-year hiatus. It was a little nerve-wracking at first (ok, a lot) but I quickly realized two things.

 It’s hard to believe how quickly the spring ACS meeting is approaching. In addition to our tremendous oral and poster sessions, IONiC VIPEr is once again pleased to announce that we will be holding a social ‘hour’. All of the details can be seen in the lovely flyer below that was hand-crafted by Joanne Stewart. These social hours have been a big hit in the past, and they are a great opportunity to bring the VIPEr community together. Appetizers are on us, sorry, you will have to purchase your own beverage(s). All you need to know to enter is the secret VIPEr handshake.

IONiC will be descending upon the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO this summer for the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) from July 31 through August 4. We would like to highlight the following opportunities:

Perhaps some of you have heard a student say “But I don’t understand what you expect.” Or maybe the student has been more direct and said “Tell me exactly what I need to do to get an A.”

The 2016 ACS DIC Undergraduate Award in Inorganic Chemistry submission site is now live! 

In honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday (and since most of you are likely teaching on this holiday), I’d like to highlight two very relevant sessions that Adam Johnson and I attended at the

Shhhhh! If Joanne or Sheila find out about this I am going to be in big trouble. We have finalized our list of expert speakers for our 2016 workshop on Organometallic Chemistry which is entitled "Örgänömetällica: An IONiC Workshop at the Frontiers of Inorganic Chemistry". The workshop is going to be held at the University of Michigan and will run from June 26^th – July 1^st. You can sign up for the workshop through the cCWCS website.

If you've been hanging around IONiC for any period of time, you've probably heard one of us mention the idea of crowdsourcing assessment data... OK, it was probably me.  Well, I think 2016 is the year that we can make this idea a reality.

Happy New Year loyal BITeS reader! I hope 2016 is off to a great start for you. I am currently in Claremont, California at an IONiC VIPEr project meeting. I am joined here by Nancy Williams, Adam Johnson, Joanne Stewart, Barb Reisner, Lori Watson and Jeff Raker. We are being joined remotely by Sheila Smith, Hilary Eppley and Betsy Jamieson. It has been really productive so far. We have been working on a new grant proposal to continue to build this wonderful community. We have some tremendous ideas to continue our current workshops and start some new ones.

First off, don't worry, I won't spoil anything if you haven't seen it yet. And if you aren't sure what I mean by 'it', I am talking about Star Wars Episode VII. I am a little bit of a fan. It all goes back to 1977 when I saw it for the first time with my father in Texas. It's one of my only memories of him. But I remember that opening crawl. It was just Star Wars then. No episode IV A New Hope. Han shot first. It was amazing. I remember the chills in The Empire Strikes Back at the 'No, I am your father'. I had the toys. A Death Star play station. An AT-AT.