Chemistry Department Clubs and Organizations

Sigma Zeta National Science & Mathematics Honor Society

Sigma Zeta (www.sigma zeta.org) is a national science and mathematics honor society. We have our own chapter, the Beta Theta chapter, at Belhaven University established in 1983. Our chapter seeks to recognize outstanding students in the fields of natural and computer sciences and mathematics.

Each Spring we invite prospective students who meet the membership requirements to join the society and be recognized for their academic achievement. Each Spring semester we host an annual awards banquet where members and initiates come together to foster scholarly activity and recognize academic scholarship.

Membership Requirements:

Major in any of the Natural Sciences (Biology, and Chemistry), Computer Science or Mathematics
Complete at least 25 semester hours, including 15 semester hours in Natural Sciences, Computer Science, or Mathematics
Attain at least a 3.00 (A=4.00) grade point average in Science and Mathematics courses
Attain at least a 3.00 overall grade point average

See the benefits of membership on the Sigma Zeta website .

For more information contact our faculty advisor, Dr. Philip Carlson.

ACS chapter, paragraph description and awards

We are a nationally recognized student members chapter of the American Chemical Society (SMACS)!

The American Chemical Society was founded in 1876 and exists to support chemistry. They have over 157,000 members and are considered the world’s largest scientific society. Each year the ACS hosts two national meetings covering the complete field of chemistry and also hosts many other smaller scientific meetings. The ACS is made up of various regional groups and smaller sections. Each of those sections has a number of different universities and other chemical related professionals. Typically each university will establish a Student Members of the American Chemical Society (SMACS) chapter.

The Belhaven University SMACS chapter was started in 2012 and the 2013-2014 academic year was our first year of activity. We involve all students who have an interest in chemistry and host a number of different meetings during the academic year. We have social events, community service events, fundraising events, and educational events. Some of our big events are our annual Fall picnic, National Chemistry Week (NCW), Mole Day (on October 23^rd), CCEW (Chemists Celebrate Earth Week), our Christmas party, the Mississippi section of the ACS award banquet, and to help alleviate stress an event near finals. We do many different things every year and would love for everyone to be invited. Watch for fliers announcing our events or visit with our chapter faculty advisor, Dr. Carlson.

We are also an officially “OUTSTANDING” chapter. This distinction was awarded to our SMACS chapter for the events and engagement we had during the last academic year, and is the highest rating you can receive for a student chapter. We also received the green chemistry chapter distinction!

For the 2017-2018 year the American Chemical Society selected 306 student chapters to receive special recognition for their programs and activities. Only 72 of these chapters received the “green chemistry chapter” distinction, 70 of them received the outstanding award (only 4 given to chapters in MS), 91 commendable awards (none given to MS chapters), 145 honorable mention awards (none given to chapters in MS). Read more here: https://inchemistry.acs.org/content/inchemistry/en/student-chapters/2018-student-chapter-awards.html

The outstanding award is the highest we have ever received for our Belhaven student chapter of the ACS (and the highest rating they give), last year (2016-2017) we were given “honorable mention”, the two years before (2014-2015, & 2015-2016) we were given “commendable”. Our first year as an officially recognized SMACS chapter (2013-2014), we received an “honorable mention” award as well.

The 2017-2018 BU SMACS Executive Committee members: