1999 Assembly of Delegates
Nominees for President

November 5-7, 1999, Minneapolis, MN
In conjunction with the Sigma Xi Forum, November 4-5, 1999

Jared Leigh Cohon
President, Carnegie Mellon University
Jared Cohon became Carnegie Mellon University's eighth president on July 1, 1997, after 25 years in faculty and administrative positions at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University.

At Yale, Cohon served from 1992 to 1997 as dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the nation's oldest school of forestry and natural resource management. He led the school in the creation and implementation of a strategic plan to build the faculty and to develop collaboration with other Yale schools.

Cohon started his academic career at Johns Hopkins, where he was on the faculty of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. He rose to full professor in eight years, when he was also named Assistant Dean of Engineering and then Associate Dean. Cohon was appointed as the first Vice Provost for Research of Johns Hopkins. In that position, from 1986 to 1992, he led the university's efforts to promote interdisciplinary research, technology commercialization and regional economic development.

Cohon's research and teaching have focussed on environmental and natural resources management, especially the development and application of mathematical models to support decision-making. His most influential work has been in the development of multiple criteria decision-making techniques and their use for large-scale water resources planning, energy facility siting and nuclear waste management. He is the author of more than 80 technical publications and one book.

Cohon has been involved in national and international policy issues for more than twenty years. In 1977, he took a one-year leave of absence from his teaching position at Johns Hopkins to serve as the first Legislative Assistant for Energy and Environment to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Since then, Cohon has chaired and served on several committees of the National Research Council. President Clinton appointed him in 1995 to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which was created by Congress to evaluate on a continuing basis the Department of Energy's program for the disposal, storage and shipment of high-level nuclear waste. Cohon was appointed Chairman of the Board in January 1997 and reappointed in July, 1999. He has been a consultant to the United Nations on water resource planning in India and to the World Bank on environmental research in China.

In addition to Sigma Xi, Cohon is a member of Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honor Society. His research has been recognized with awards from the National Audubon Society and the American Association of Engineering Societies—a joint award—and the International Multiple Criteria Decision Making Society. He is Past President of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on the Boards of many non-profit organizations and one for-profit corporation.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1947, Cohon received a B.S. in civil engineering in 1969 from the University of Pennsylvania. He received a master's in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1973, both in civil engineering, from MIT.

Candidate's Statement – Jared L. Cohon
I've known Sigma Xi well—at least from a local perspective—since about 1988 when the chapter at Johns Hopkins had a near-death experience. As vice provost for research, the senior research officer of the university, it was natural for me to take the lead in trying to save the chapter, or to help the faculty to decide to let it die.

I was keenly aware of the high stakes involved. We faced the prospect of losing the chapter of the most prominent national organization devoted to scientific research at the first true research university in the western hemisphere. How could this be? How could Johns Hopkins have let its chapter become inactive for so long that the international organization would actually threaten its extinction?

I suspect anyone reading this statement would guess immediately what ailed the Hopkins chapter: relevance. Whereas Sigma Xi once provided highly valued seminars and other opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange among the scientists on the Johns Hopkins campus, it no longer did so. Indeed, it seemed it no longer could, given the competition for the time and attention of faculty who were (are) overburdened with getting grants and making the grade. From an historical perspective, it was not hard to understand the reduced fortunes of Sigma Xi which, a century after its creation, found itself competing with a massive proliferation of scientific organizations, increasingly narrow in their disciplinary foci but of great importance to faculty nevertheless (or as a result).

The Hopkins chapter survived when enough faculty realized that the mission and potential role of Sigma Xi were just too important to let lapse. As stiff as the competition was for faculty time, we just had to make time for issues like integrity in research—and who has done a better job than Sigma Xi on that issue? The faculty also valued the opportunity to encourage young faculty and senior graduate students and to celebrate their accomplishments through election to Sigma Xi. The mission of Sigma Xi was relevant to the Hopkins faculty; promoting it breathed life into that chapter and added value to the university.

How relevant is the Sigma Xi chapter at your organization? To you personally? Can it work for you better than it does? What would you like Sigma Xi to be doing to support the chapter? What part should Sigma Xi take on the national or international stage in order to advance science and technology? I don't in any way want to suggest that the current organization is less than excellent. Indeed, Sigma Xi has had stellar leadership, and I think very highly of Peter Blair, whom I've known for a long time from his career in energy research. But, I'd like to know the answers to some of these questions, and I expect that the process of finding the answers would be healthy and constructive. Leading such an effort strikes me as a worthy way to spend a term as your President.

Marye Anne Fox
Chancellor of NC State University
Dr. Marye Anne Fox is 12th chancellor of North Carolina State University, the state's flagship science and technology university. Before this appointment, Dr. Fox was the Waggoner Regents Chair in Chemistry and Vice President for Research at the University of Texas at Austin.

Fox was born in Canton, Ohio in 1947 and received her B.S. from Notre Dame College and her Ph.D. from Dartmouth College, both in Chemistry. After a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Maryland, she joined the faculty at Texas in 1976.

Teaching: Professor Fox was named by UTmost Magazine as one of the "Best of UT Natural Science Faculty" and in 1986 won the College's Teaching Excellence Award. In 1996, she won Sigma Xi's Monie A. Ferst Award in recognition of outstanding mentoring. At the national level, she is a frequent lecturer on science education reform and has served as co-chair of a NSF/NSB Taskforce on Graduate Education and on NRC, Texas, and Louisiana K-12 advisory panels. She chairs the NRC Committee on Undergraduate Science Education.

Research: Professor Fox is one of the nation's most creative physical organic chemists. Her work has clear application in materials science, solar energy conversion, and environmental chemistry. She has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association of Advancement of Science. From the American Chemical Society, she has received the Garvan and Southwest Regional Awards, and has been named a Cope Scholar. She has received international research awards from Spain, Holland, Germany and Russia and was cited by Esquire Magazine as "Best of the New Generation." She has been a Sloan Research Fellow and a Dreyfus Teacher Scholar.

Service: Professor Fox currently serves on the National Research Council's Committee on Science and Engineering Public Policy. She served as Vice Chairman (1994-96) of the National Science Board, and chaired its Committee on Programs and Plans (1991-94). She served on the Texas Governor's Science and Technology Council as an advisor to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. She chaired the Chemistry Section of AAAS, and advises its Center for Science, Technology and the Congress. She has served on the Council and Executive Committee of the NAS and the Governing Board of the NRC. She has served on 14 editorial boards, including the Journal of American Chemical Society. She serves on the Boards of W.R. Grace and Stanford Research Institute, and on scientific advisory boards of the Welch, Dreyfus, and Packard Foundations.

She has served on numerous community advisory boards including the Capital City Club, Rex Hospital Foundation, Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, Texas Environmental Defense Fund, Research Triangle Institute, Triangle University Center for Advanced Studies Inc., and the North Carolina State Employees Combined Campaign.

The mother of three sons and two stepsons, Dr. Fox is the wife of James Whitesell, an NC State Chemistry professor.

Candidate's Statement – Marye Anne Fox
Because of our sustained national investment in basic research in science, technology and engineering, our nation leads the world in developing innovations that undergird our standard of living and our quality of life. Through amazing advances in the physical, biological, mathematical, and social sciences, new technologies have emerged within the last decade, leading to the sustained prosperity of new industries and to the creation of wholly new technical careers. These advances in technology have been predicated on the steady progress in basic research attained by patient investment in fundamental science by both the public and private sectors.

This rapid progress, however, has made it mandatory for science to be learned and appreciated as an ever evolving body of knowledge. As a consequence, a central issue in our information-driven society is the need for enhanced understanding of the principles of science, mathematics, and engineering by all Americans. Sigma Xi – with its history of promoting the health of the scientific enterprise, honoring scientific achievement, and fostering international cooperation – exemplifies the importance of the link between the health of the science and continued progress in our society.

Unfortunately, however, the lack of appreciation of this relationship by so many Americans denies them full participation in this increasingly technological world – materially, economically, and politically. It also threatens the productivity of science worldwide and squanders precious human resources, while restraining the rate of progress toward appropriate solutions to so many pressing social problems. Sigma Xi, with more than 80,000 members in 500 academic chapters, with its award-winning magazine, and with its firm commitment to honoring scientific achievement, is in a key position to enhance knowledge creation and dissemination throughout the world.

From my perspective as a chemist, a science educator and a university administrator, I have become convinced that there are several key strategies that can enhance general literacy in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. I believe that all undergraduates should have the opportunity to experience the excitement of scientific discovery as a continuing way of knowing. K-12 and college educators should be prepared for teaching by experiencing inquiry-driven science as a principal means of learning. Introductory science courses should emphasize the observation of nature so as to provide the basis for sustained interest in non-majors and to encourage those seeking to major in the sciences to persist in their plans. Full participation by members of under-represented groups should be encouraged so that they can choose to pursue stimulating careers in technologically important fields. Interdisciplinary collaborations that define solutions to real world problems should become readily available as a route toward the articulation of an integrated educational experience. And finally, the professional societies, like Sigma Xi, should devote attention and resources toward the encouragement of lifelong learning of science that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.

It is precisely the significance of the latter role that makes me so optimistic about the potential of Sigma Xi as a promising force in the war on technological illiteracy.

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