Report of the Nominations Committee
for the Year Ending June 30, 2010

The Committee on Nominations is charged with the task of presenting at least two nominees for the office of President-Elect to the November 2010 Assembly of Delegates. The individual elected by that Assembly will serve as President-Elect from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012, as President from July 2012 through June 2013, and as Immediate Past President from June 2013 through 2014.

The Committee on Nominations met by telephone conference calls every two weeks to select nominees for the office of President-Elect. Each telephone call lasted for approximately one hour and permitted the Committee to discuss and develop its nomination process. Desirable qualities for President-Elect were agreed upon. Each member was then tasked to provide one or two nominees for the office of President-Elect. A list of some nine (9) candidates was developed. These nominees were then contacted by their respective nominator(s) on the Committee to determine their interest in the position and to collect basic information from them regarding their experience, their background, and their vision for Sigma Xi. Based upon their willingness to serve, their availability to do so, and their eligibility for the office, this list was pared down to five nominees. The information from these candidates was then summarized in a consistent style using the Nominee Application Form provided by the home office. Other documents (CVs, vision statements, bios, etc.) were also collected from those who accepted nomination.

A shared file was created by the home office and used to house biographical and professional information, as well as vision statements from each of these five nominees. A Likert-style rubric was then created, reviewed, edited, and agreed upon for use in reviewing these five nominees. Each nominee was scored using this rubric to provide a numerical ranking in each of ten (10) criteria deemed important by the Committee. An added option ("A") was provided to permit a reviewer to abstain from ranking a given nominee in a particular category (for reasons of unfamiliarity with that aspect of that particular nominee) without unduly penalizing (the score of) that nominee. Composite scores for a given rubric were determined by adding the individual rankings and dividing the sum by the number of scored categories. Reviewers were encouraged to score at least seven (7) categories whenever possible.

Rubrics were reviewed by the Chair. Results were tallied and composite scores for these rubrics were developed and used to determine the top three (3) candidates for the position. The results were reviewed by the Committee and agreed upon. Once a Committee consensus was obtained, the top three candidate names were forwarded to the home office for further contact and processing.

From the final five nominees, Dr. Arthur Geller of the University of Tennessee, Dr. A. Fred Spilhaus formerly of American Geophysical Union, and Dr. Kelly O. Sullivan of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory were selected for contact by the home office, to secure their final consent for nomination.

The Chair is grateful to the entire Committee for its hard work and good-spirited cooperation during this process. The Chair is particularly grateful to Dr. Monte Willis for his "unofficial" but generous service to us as Secretary of the Committee, to Dr. Lia Haynes for benefitting us with her previous experience on this Committee, and to Past-President Dr. Jim Baur for his encouragement, direction, and motivational attitude.