“Early-August-ly,
The chemists will congregate,
Sharing ideas ere
Nearing school year:
Posters presented and
Talks documented in
Campus-set West Lafayette.
(We are here!)”
This is the final post in a project that used a 2022 conference talk to provide the subject for five 2023 summer essays. This poem was posted on Twitter to celebrate the conference, but I haven’t expanded it in this space previously, so it provides a logical topic for the final July 2023 post.
“Early-August-ly, /
The chemists will congregate, /
Sharing ideas ere /
Nearing school year…”
The substance of my 2022 talk was addressed in the last few posts, so this final essay highlights the conference itself. This presentation was part of the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE), held at Purdue University (in West Lafayette, Indiana) in 2022.
While I have also attended larger conferences, such as those hosted by the American Chemical Society, I find the teaching focus of the BCCE to be particularly helpful as the calendar winds toward the start of autumn coursework (i.e., “early-August-ly”), and I have presented at multiple BCCEs in the past.
“Posters presented and /
Talks documented in /
Campus-set West Lafayette. /
(We are here!)”
In the field of chemistry, conferences involve two types of presentations: posters and talks. Both of these are more ephemeral than articles and book chapters, which is part of the reason I have found it rewarding to revisit the topic in written text, in this space.
Writing this series of summer essays has thus been a fitting variation on the iterative, periodic routine that informs so many of these posts: a chance to return to a topic in a more deliberate way. Such a conclusion is particularly useful to remember as the academic year draws near to its cyclic structure’s starting line, yet again, in 2023.
I plan to pause posts here until classes resume, then return to the routine of translating a content-focused poem each week, as this timeline has been helpful in navigating past autumn terms.
Chemphasis 