Has the end-of-summer, classes-start-in-less-than-a-month panic set in yet? I’ve started to feel it*, and I imagine we all have to a degree. Some of us VIPEr folks remember how especially anxious we were approaching our first year teaching general chemistry, having to start from scratch with lecture notes and course materials. How much anxiety (and time!) could have been saved if we had found a treasure trove of hand-picked gen chem teaching resources, located conveniently in a single location.

At the recent Organometallic Chemistry Gordon Research Conference there was a noticible fashion statement being made on Wednesday night. Four people were wearing identical shirts. And just to show how cool the shirts are, a fifth person wore their shirt on Thursday night during a special session. I would give more details, but what happens at a Gordo stays at a Gordo. What was this shirt you might ask?

Not to be outdone by my colleagues at the Organometallic GRC, I was reminded of our fun Science T-shirt day at the Dearborn Summer workshop!  Here are some of the entries.  Which ones are your favorites?  Got any more to add?  Post your pictures in the replies on the IONiC VIPEr Facebook page.

Note: This blog was originally posted on September 18, 2017 on www.manyconversations.org as part of One Book, Many Conversations, an international dialogue on reading George Orwell's 1984.

Graduation always leaves me in a reflective mood. It's a thrill to watch our graduates march across a stage and think about all of the things they've accomplished over the last four years. It also made me remember that I needed to submit the form for JMU's nominee for the 2018 ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Undergraduate Award in Inorganic Chemistry!

Perhaps you noticed the poll about element symbols in names and were curious as to the answer. Well, given the need for a new BITeS post and my ability to think at this point in the semester, here are the answers. As a refresher, the question was, how many elements have element symbols in the middle of their names? For elements with an odd number of letters in their names the symbol must be the middle letter while for elements with an even number of letters in their names the middle two letters must be a symbol. I've made the symbols bold and inserted captial letters where appropriate.

The Interactive Online Network of Inorganic Chemists (www.ionicviper.org) has an opening for a Research Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida) with a focus on transforming postsecondary inorganic chemistry courses into more active and engaging learning experiences.