Report of the Committee on Nominations
for the Year Ending June 30, 1998

The Committee faces several contentious issues in selecting nominees from candidates put forward:

What should be the balance between devoted work for Sigma Xi and scientific prestige?

Does this have an impact on increasing membership?

Should there be nominees with little of either of the above, to get fresh blood?

Should candidates be solicited for interest before being considered for nomination?

Should we aggressively search for candidates from other countries than the U.S., especially from Canada?

In addition we often tangle over Committee procedures: Candidates are put forward at a Committee meeting without advance circulation of c.v.'s. Few candidates are put forward at all, by Committee members, chapters or the Board. One member argued that the Committee should neither suggest nor vote on candidates, acting only to vet their qualifications and leaving a large slate to the delegates' vote. Another member was unhappy that the Executive Director addressed the committee about his perceptions of the President's role and said he was "offended" by some suggested voting procedures

The voting procedure was specified by the Executive Committee of Sigma Xi and enables a secret procedure, using an iterative balloting process to select nominees. The votes were tallied by the Deputy Executive Director; only he knew what Committee member voted for what candidate.

All meetings of the Committee were by telephone conference call. There was an organizational meeting on April 2, 1998 and an agreement on voting procedures plus a discussion of individual candidates on May 13, 1998.

The Committee on Nominations present candidates for President-elect to be Phillip Griffiths and Jack Gibbons, and candidates for Directors-at-large to be Howard Mel, Paul Pechan, Virginia Trimble, Geraldine Twitty, Mario Vieira, and Robert Zand. Elections will be held at the 1998 Fall meeting.

Three Canadian chapters (McGill University, Ottawa, and the University of Toronto) and the University of Massachusetts Lowell Chapter nominated a Canadian candidate for President-elect, Peter Roper. He will be on the ballot, but not as chosen by the Committee on Nominations.

David Cudaback, Chair, Committee on Nominations
George Bugliarello
Heather Marshall
Clarence Murphy
Kumar Patel
Rubye Prigmore-Torrey
Frederick Robbins
Robert Rycek
Charles Smith