Report of the Committee on Long-Range Planning for the Year Ending June 30, 1999

During the previous year, the Committee on Long-Range Planning made significant progress in its stated objective to develop a strategic plan for the Society in regard to Sigma Xi’s program, membership, and chapter activities. In undertaking this objective the Committee met three times during the year. During its third meeting in January 1998, the Committee reviewed the results of its efforts to prioritize membership and program activities electronically and decided that wider input on these activities would be extremely beneficial to the Committee’s deliberations. Therefore, the Committee sought input from the membership (via surveys included with the dues notice, included in the course of the preparation of the membership directory, and through an upcoming electronic survey of the membership) on interest in categories of program activities.

During the year ending 30 June 1999, the Committee undertook a brief hiatus from its deliberations to await the outcome of two key events that might affect its efforts to develop a strategic plan for the Society. The first of these was the proposed new governance structure for Sigma Xi that was presented to the November 1998 Assembly of Delegates. If approved, the new governance structure might affect how program and membership activities, once identified by the Committee, might be implemented within the Society. Now that the governance structure has been approved by the 1998 Assembly, the Committee has a much clearer picture of how the Society will operate in implementing, or changing, its membership and program activities.

More importantly, during the year ending 30 June 1999, the Committee gathered input from the membership on its interest in categories of program activities. Thus, on all annual dues notices for the year ending 30 June 1999, the staff included a membership profile that asked members some general questions about their areas of interest; 23,073 members completed the survey. When asked which general program areas were of most interest, members indicated the following (each was allowed to choose two):

• 51% Science/Engineering Education
• 40% Public Understanding of Science
• 33% Interdisciplinary Research
• 21% Science/Technology Policy
• 15% Ethics
• 13% International Issues in Science

A question exploring members' interest in establishing contacts and forming professional relationships with scientists from other countries received positive responses from 4% of the membership who were interested in providing funding for a postdoc from another country to 30% who were interested in establishing contacts with, or collaborating on, research projects with scientists from other countries.

During summer of 1999, the staff will distribute a more detailed survey to a sample of the membership with the goal of further defining member interest in certain program areas. The Sigma Xi Committee on Long-Range Planning will consider the results of these surveys at their next meeting, and the results of these surveys considered in the Committee’s formulation of a strategic plan for the Society. A complete report on these survey results will also be included on the Sigma Xi Web site later this year.

George Bugliarello, Chair
Ben Cooper
Robert Frosch
Peggie Hollingsworth
William Little
Cathryn Manduca
John Moore
Robert Morgan
John Prados