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Chemistry Club, Science Journal receive top honors

News contact: Laura Hancock
(541) 962-3585 | lhancock@eou.edu

LA GRANDE, Ore. — Eastern Oregon University’s Student Affiliates Chapter of the American Chemical Society garnered national recognition this year with an Outstanding Award from the ACS. 

Members of the chapter, or EOU Chemistry Club for short, traveled to New Orleans this spring to attend the ACS National Meeting and Exposition. At the meeting students and faculty had the opportunity to share research they are conducting at EOU.

“The research opportunities are very real at Eastern,” said Wade Elliot, treasurer of the club in 2007-08. “Students get to be actual scientists.”

Elliot is from Emmett, Idaho, and transferred to EOU from Linfield College in McMinnville. He has been a member of the Chemistry Club for two years.

“Everyone gets involved and has sense of ownership and pride in the club’s activities. It takes a lot of work, but it’s worthwhile,” he said.

The Outstanding Award is the highest award presented to student chapters by the ACS. Recognition is based on the club’s involvement in campus activities and community outreach, including Girls in Science and the FIRST LEGO League Regional Robotics Tournament.

Members of the club also regularly present “magic shows” for students at area schools and have organized activities with the local Boy and Girl Scouts of America units.

“The club is well established and the activities really set it apart,” said Shakira Bandolin, of Twin Falls, Idaho. “The award reflects the club’s engagement in the community and commitment to academics.”

Bandolin is majoring in biochemistry and is also a pre-medical student at EOU.

The cover of the latest edition of
the EO Science Journal features
photographs of plants found in
Eastern Oregon taken by editor
Sara Reed.

Several members of the Chemistry Club are also contributors to the award-winning EO Science Journal. The publication has the distinction of being the only student-published, undergraduate, scientific research journal in Oregon.

The American Scholastic Association has presented First Place Special Merit awards to the past two volumes of the journal. Out of approximately 2,000 entries submitted to the competition annually, only the top one percent receive first place.

EOU students Sara Reed and Meaghan Hammers served as editor and assistant editor for both issues. Reed is majoring in biology and rangeland ecology and management, and Hammers’ major is biochemistry.

The current issue, Volume XX, is available online
at www.eou.edu/scijou. Features include research
in biochemistry, biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and psychology.