Feature Article
Annual Reports
This year your Chapter has the opportunity to earn 10 bonus points - just submit your annual report by June 15, 2007! You can add your bonus point at the end of section II in the Quality Report. All reports must be submitted by June 30, 2007 to be reviewed and processed for 3-, 4- and 5-star awards. The early submission deadline has been added to allow time for ASM and Chapter Council to prepare for Leadership Days. If you submit forms after June 30, we can not guarantee your Chapter will receive their award at Leadership Days. (It will be mailed to you following the event.) Please keep these dates in mind if your Chapter is planning to submit an essay for consideration in the Chapter of Excellence Competition. Click here to download the Annual report.
Chapter Corner
Is your Chapter thinking about applying for 2006-2007 Chapter of Excellence? Click here to see last year’s winners.
If you have a success story or a best practice your chapter would like to share in the Chapter Nexus, contact Megan Herrmann the Chapter Relations Administrator at megan.herrmann@asminternational.org. The next Chapter Nexus will be released in September 2007. Have a wonderful summer!
ASM Boston Chapter views members of the Chapter as its customers and has a Chapter Strategic Plan to reflect the customer-focused approach.
ASM Boston Chapter has 20 active Executive Committee (EXECOM) members. The EXECOM members have diverse backgrounds -from research, engineering, business, and legal to university education. Besides monthly EXECOM dinner meetings, EXECOM members also participate in subcommittees. The Chapter currently has Membership, Finance, Technical Programming, Newsletter, Education (Materials Camp), and Strategic Planning subcommittees, with 2-5 people in each subcommittee meeting or conferring separately.
The Strategic Planning Subcommittee (Sue Abkowitz, Michael Minot, Dilip Subramanyam, Harvey Fisher and Weili (Nancy) Yu) had its first meeting in summer of 2006. They reviewed the ASM International Strategic Plan, and decided to take the essence of that plan to develop a Boston Chapter Plan that utilizes the strengths of their chapter.
The Boston Chapter feels strongly that the Chapter should view its members as customers. A business model helps design the strategy. In order for a business to succeed, it needs a strategic plan to get more customers, to understand customer needs and engage customers, to grow the business in growth sectors, to reach out customers globally, to reach customers in new effective ways and to educate and inform customers. For a chapter to have sustainable growth, the chapter’s strategic plan should address the above aspects just as any successful business.
The Boston Chapter’s Strategic Plan has five key priorities: Increase membership; Understand member needs/ engage members; Focus on growth areas; Explore the use of Internet to reach out globally (i.e., make globalization work for us) and offer members a rich experience; and Educate and inform members.
Increasing membership means increasing the number of individual, life, student and sustaining members.
Understanding member needs and engaging members includes efforts to understand what attracts members to our monthly meetings, and how to appeal to more broad-based members, and what else can be done to engage our members.
Focusing on growth areas The Chapter has decided to broaden our appeal to a wider variety of individuals and firms with interest in materials by focusing on technical growth areas including: Life Sciences, BioTechnology, Medical Devices, NanoTechnology and others. For example, Chapter membership records that a growing number of new members come from the medical device industry. That industry is growing. The Boston area is a hub for medical devices. The Chapter also recognizes that growth areas can change over time, so the Chapter is ready to adapt to new areas, such as life science, as appropriate.
Exploring use of the Internet to reach out globally and offer members rich experiences The Chapter is committed to taking advantage of the Internet and making globalization work for us. The Chapter is considering web delivery of Chapter meetings, transition to an E-newsletter, global E-members, and promotion of international collaborations.
Educating and informing our members The Chapter thinks education is an essential service to our members. The Boston Chapter has co-organized the New England Chapter Materials Camp for high school students with three other chapters. Other concepts being considered are providing/supporting MEI courses, providing courses tailored to the Chapter customers, and holding seminars at universities.
In October 2006, Boston Chapter Chair Weili (Nancy) Yu (also Chair of Chapter Strategic Planning Subcommittee) presented the Chapter Strategic Plan to ASM International Trustee, Professor Reza Abbaschian, during his Trustee visit to the Boston Chapter.
Each year the ASM Cleveland Chapter host a technical meeting dedicated since 1951 to Dr. Zay Jeffries. Zay Jeffries received numerous awards and citations for his pioneering work in metallurgy. They invite an internationally renowned Metallurgist or Material Scientist to speak at this meet. This year's Zay Jeffries speaker was Professor Tresa M. Pollock, FASM, Van Black Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Michigan. Dr. Tresa Pollock presented an enlightening talk entitled “Nickel-Base Single Crystals: New Developments and Opportunities.”
(Pictured from left) Jim Smialek, FASM, NASA Lewis Research Center, technical chair for the evening; Professor Tresa Pollock, FASM; Tom Kiss, American Spring Wire Corporation, Chapter Chairman; and Professor John Lewandowski, FASM, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering, Case Western Reserve University.
Membership Matters
Membership Committee Developing New Member Campaign
The ASM Membership Committee is in the planning stages of a new multi-year membership development campaign scheduled to launch later this year. The campaign is being developed so that all members and Chapters can actively support membership recruitment and retention activities and be rewarded for their efforts.
Details of this exciting new initiative will be announced during Leadership Days and in subsequent communications to Chapter leaders. Be sure to watch for it and join in the campaign.
If you have questions, contact Scott Giesler, Society Programs Coordinator, at 440-338-5151, ext. 5655 or via e-mail: scott.giesler@asminternational.org
Foundation News
Materials Camp® Contacts at ASM International
If you are in need of assistance or information about organizing and coordinating an upcoming Materials Camp, please contact the following staff members:
Teachers Camp – Jeane Deatherage, Administrator, Foundation Programs at 440-338-5151, ext. 5533 or jeane.deatherage@asminternational.org.
Students Camp – Scott Giesler, Society Programs Coordinator at 440-338-5151, ext. 5655 or scott.giesler@asminternational.org.
Material Advantage
Catching up with the Michigan State University Material Advantage Student Chapter
This year, the Michigan State University Material Advantage Student Chapter was very active- from attending conferences and ASM meetings to organizing Symposium Day. Students had many opportunities to connect and network with companies as well as opportunities to relax and have a little fun. The MS&T conference was the big event of the fall. With 8 undergraduates and 6 graduate students attending under the organization of Materials Science and Engineering Society, it was important to make sure everything was under control. It was a success! They were able to speak and network with people in industry and academia. As a result, several contacts were made while at MS&T.
Throughout fall and spring semesters, several students were given the chance to attend ASM Detroit meetings. This gave students another opportunity to network and even just chat with people active in the materials science industry and academia. The first major event of the spring was a Double Dare contest. Double Dare was a gameshow aired in the early 1990s. This contest was held during National Engineer’s Week. It was a fun, competitive event with three teams in attendance from MSE, AIChE, and the Student Engineering Counsel. It involved everything from slime to flags. Students were asked trivia questions from subjects ranging from engineering to history. Then, they competed in events like finding a ring in bowl of slime and a race in which one had to push a balloon with their nose. This was a fun event and where we enjoyed the antics of our peers!
Our annual spring event is Symposium Day. This took extensive planning and fundraising. Our combined effort with AIChE to educate students about industry was very successful. Three speakers came to the meeting where students and faculty from both materials science and chemical engineering came to learn and share ideas. Everyone – almost 170 people! involved learned about current topics and technologies being researched and used related to both disciplines. It was also another great way students could network with industry and faculty.
We took every opportunity to be involved in activities that would encourage student involvement and networking in materials science and engineering. A lot of time and effort went into planning activities that would bring the industry to them, as well as bringing the students to local industries on organized tours. Overall this year was very active and fun!
2008 Graduate Student Paper Contest 
