Chapter presidents from across the South East Region attended the annual Assembly of Delegates in Galveston. Three one-hour meetings of the region yielded three Task Forces to develop activities of chapters in the region. One task force is organizing the responses from the region with respect to the Sigma Xi Strategic Plan [see Sigma Xi website at http://www.sigmaxi.org.] A second task force is gathering ideas for a proposal to the region concerning collaborative alliances with overseas chapters of the Society. A third task force has endorsed a Regional Research Conference aimed at joining faculty and students in multidisciplinary presentations of ideas around a common theme.

Already, the Charlotte Chapter, in conjunction with the Charlotte Area Science Network and other Sigma Xi chapters is planning to host the first Regional Research Conference in Charlotte January 30-31, 2004. The theme of the conference is “Speed: Science and Celerity.” The topics of the conference will range across a broad spectrum of scientific and engineering fields. A call for session chairs and paper submissions will be sent out in May. This conference will be a test run for Sigma Xi to discover the viability of such conferences to rotate throughout the major geographical divisions of the Society. Those interested in this project, please contact Jack Sommer, Southeast Regional Director of Sigma Xi.

The Southeast region stretches from the northern border of North Carolina across to the Mississippi River and south to the Texas border. Jack began his term of office in July 2002 and will serve through June 2005. He invites any chapter members to email him with ideas and questions at jacksommer@aol.com.

The Sigma Xi Center, a new home for the Society in Research Triangle Park, broke ground in late March and the construction of this exciting facility is anticipated by the end of the year. It will provide greatly enhanced space for operations and for the conduct of forums both large and small.

Soon Sigma Xi will launch an on-line weekly digest of science news. This will be a capsule version of news of a scientific nature, complete with links to urls for the original research. Those in teaching may find this an invaluable source for classroom purposes.

The Board of Directors of Sigma Xi, in consultation with the International Committee, has initiated discussions on the possibility of reconstituting a chapter of the Society in the Middle East, the chapter at the American University of Beirut having ceased activities a few years ago. Jack Sommer would be interested to know if there are individuals in our chapter who might like to explore this possibility with him.

The next two meetings of the Assembly of Delegates will occur in Los Angeles in November 2003, followed by Montreal in November 2004. Either the president or the president-elect attends the Assembly meeting.