Younger Chemists Committee celebrates 50 years

The late 1960s and early 1970s was an increasingly tumultuous time in the US, both socially and professionally, with issues like the environment, women’s rights, Watergate, and the Vietnam War dominating society’s discourse—a discourse that saw a heightened difference of opinion between older and younger generations.

Graduate student Gordon Nelson voiced concerns that he and fellow student members of the American Chemical Society had about ACS national meetings.

“[Their main concern was] that there was a disconnect between what the society was doing and how they could better serve younger chemists,” says Katherine Johnson, chair of the ACS Younger Chemists Committee.

The concerns prompted a report to the ACS Board Committee on Education and Students, resulting in the appointment of a Younger Chemists Task Force. The Younger Chemists Committee (YCC) was formed in 1974. Nelson went on to become ACS president in 1987.

Johnson explains that ongoing discussions around how to get younger chemists involved in ACS had been happening for years before the creation of YCC. “And it’s a conversation that continues, how can we continue incorporating newer and newer generations?” Johnson says.

Every 5 years, YCC revamps its strategic plan, which includes updating the committee’s vision and mission, meaning they have changed slightly over the past 50 years. The current mission is “to advocate for, develop, and support rising chemists to positively impact their careers, the ACS, and the future of chemistry.” The current vision statement is “younger leaders transforming the world through chemistry.”

“In the last several years we have grown a lot of our programs, and I think that has helped support more younger chemists,” Johnson says. “And we’re interested in learning about how we can continue to grow those programs and adapt to the new changes that are coming down the pipeline.”

Johnson says that depending on what is happening in the world, different generations have a lot of differences in what they’re interested in. “So what was interesting for the last two or three generations may not still be interesting to the current generation,” she says.

Johnson gives the example of today’s work environment for younger chemists, which looks quite different from how it did 20 years ago. “Hybrid work is something that might be a competitive prospect for younger chemists,” she says. “And how do you do that but also still do experimental work?”

Other than directly helping younger chemists navigate these changes in the field and society, YCC puts in effort to bring awareness of changes and challenges to other society members, committees, or divisions that might not be thinking about that dynamic.

And while a lot can change in 50 years, there are still some challenges or issues that remain more “evergreen,” as Johnson describes it, “an example being the disproportion of financials between a graduate student versus someone working in industry—I think that will always continue to be.”

YCC over the past 50 years

YCC went from an ACS committee of 8–10 to a well-established committee with about 30 members, who continue to have the support of ACS staff and the board.

Much of the committee’s success comes from its ability to collaborate. “There’s a lot of cross collaborating that YCC does that might not be inherently clear to an ACS member within the society,” Johnson says.

One example of YCC collaboration is with ACS divisions. “It is really important as a younger chemist to have a strong technical background and dive into a specific expertise, and there are ACS divisions that do that really well, and we work with those divisions to try to provide a more emphasized programming for graduate students,” Johnson says.

YCC also collaborates with the ACS Leadership Institute, an invitation-only conference focused on management and leadership skills. YCC now offers a younger leader track as part of the conference. The track is meant to bring in younger chemists who are leaders in their local sections, but aren’t necessarily part of the committee, to help them learn about ACS and what YCC and ACS do on a larger scale.

“They learn more about their leadership style and how they can continue to be a chemistry professional and a leader in the chemistry field,” Johnson says. And while a lot of the younger chemists who participate in the conference do join the YCC, many take on other roles within the ACS volunteer network at the local, regional, or national level.

YCC works to advocate for younger chemists. “For example, if there are new changes, like changes in membership dues, that might affect younger chemists,” Johnson says. “A younger chemist would be interested in that because they have the opportunity to get different discounts depending on where they are in their training.”

Johnson says some of the committee’s invisible work is also communicating with other ACS units internally to make sure younger chemists are well represented in the thought process when changes are made within the society.

Another change in the past 50 years has been defining who a younger chemist is. In the past, the age definition was 35 years or younger, but recently—in the past 2 years—the cutoff has moved to 40 years or younger. “That aligns with several of the early-career awards or funding opportunities offered by societies outside of ACS,” Johnson says.

When Johnson looks to the future, she says, “I think the biggest thing for us in the next 50 years is continuing to be good at adapting to change, because we can’t accurately forecast the next 50 years. So being able to adapt to that change and identify the new needs of younger chemists in the next 10 to 20 years will be important.”

“I feel like I’m a broken record when I mention this to other members on the committee, but I find that it’s a symbiotic relationship being a younger chemist and serving on YCC,” says Johnson, who has served on the committee since 2017, after filling out a preference form in 2016. “It gives me a lot of self-satisfaction to know that I might be helping someone who might not know where to go for help. But there’s another component, which is being able to work on skills that I didn’t necessarily have the opportunity to work on in my current professional life.”

“It’s one thing to do service, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to give back to your community, but if there’s some way that you can translate a new soft skill for yourself in that process, that’s what gets you hooked,” Johnson says. “And I believe that the Younger Chemists Committee is a really safe place to kind of do experiments, essentially—not with chemicals, but with new ideas.”

You can learn more about the history of YCC, as told by past members, online at acsycc.org/about/history.

In the next issue, C&EN will be running three profiles based on interviews between C&EN and current YCC members. These interviews included questions about the members’ career paths, challenges in their careers, what they’ve gotten out of being a part of YCC, what they foresee as big issues for YCC to be involved with in the next 50 years, and advice for future members.