Report of the Executive Director
for the Year Ending June 30, 1999
Introduction and Summary
In 1998, in the wake of notable and
sustained increases in industrial support for research and development and steady declines
in defense spending including defense R&D in recent years, the government share of
total U.S. R&D expenditures fell to 30.2 percent, the lowest since before World War
II. This trend illustrates a dimension of the dramatically changing science and technology
infrastructure in the U.S. and around the world. Other dimensions of this sweeping change
include the impacts of advances in many fields of science and engineering on our economy
and quality of life; emergence of new capabilities, such as an ability to manipulate
materials at the molecular level; and other developments such as the use of the internet
to disseminate information and collaborate in research. Accompanying these developments
and as a consequence of many of them has been a pace of scientific discovery, its
applications, and its impacts that has been breathtaking.
Sigma Xi remains one of the largest
interdisciplinary scientific societies and possesses a number of unique assets and
capabilities in the science and engineering community. Sigma Xi's mission is rooted
in the honor of scientific achievement and its special strengths lie in its vast grass
roots infrastructure, with 517 active chapters and over 80,000 sustaining members.
The major governance changes enacted last year
initiated a transition to a new, more streamlined and efficient governance structure and
process. Over the next three years the board of directors will gradually be restructured
to make it smaller, more effective, and more representative of the Society's
constituencies, and the process of governance has been streamlined to enable the
Society's focus to be more on substance.
Once again this year as last, the continued
advances in the Society's developing electronic infrastructure have facilitated
better and more extensive communications among chapters and members and has enabled new
program efforts to marshal the energies and involvement of chapters and members. For
example, Sigma Xi's new daily "Science in the News" email newsletter has
over 10,000 subscribers. Nearly all the Society's chapters now do business with the
management and administrative offices via electronic mail and other internet services.
Finally, the development of the long-awaited
Sigma Xi Center made important progress this year as well, both in the character and
substance of programs building on the Society's mission and in establishing a
facility for housing those programs and the administrative offices of the Society.
Taken together, these recent changes have
positioned the Society to take a much more prominent role in shaping the future of the
science and technology enterprise as new programs develop and the traditional ones are
sustained. In my three years in Sigma Xi's management I continue to be inspired by
the vision and energy of many members and friends of the Society and especially to the
commitment and dedication of the very hard working and talented Sigma Xi staff who
continue to make enormous efficiency gains in the Society's operations.
There continue to be some worrisome trends,
however, such as in the decline in sustaining membership, following the trend in recent
years of many professional as well as honor societies. However, the steep rate of decline
experienced between 1991 and 1998 appears finally to be leveling off. The Society is still
functioning under a very austere operating budget, although operational efficiency gains,
a healthy investment portfolio, and successful development efforts have led, once again,
to a balanced operating budget and the Society's net worth continues to grow
appreciably.
In the balance of this report, I'd like to
recap many of the exciting developments of this past year and provide a glimpse into the
future.
Governance Reform
At last year's annual meeting, Sigma
Xi delegates overwhelmingly approved reducing the size of the Board of Directors over the
next three years to16 members, nearly one-half its current size, and to have all directors
elected by delegates or members. The vote on these governance changes came after a process
of deliberation over nearly two years by the Executive Committee and board, with broad
input from all across the Sigma Xi community. When the transition is complete, the new
16-member board will be comprised of the four officers, six directors elected by chapters
grouped according to geographic region (one per region), six directors elected by chapters
of the newly-instituted constituency groups based on the type of institution hosting the
chapter (one per group) and the executive director as an ex officio member
without a vote. Geographic regions and constituency groups will have the option to elect
associate directors to assist the directors and attend, and vote, at board meetings in the
absence of the director. The newly-established constituency groups will include:
- Four constituency groups (with one elected
director each) for chapters in the United States and its territories, based on the type of
institution hosting the chapter, currently designated (1) research universities, (2)
baccalaureate colleges, (3) comprehensive universities, and (3) industrial or government
laboratories or area chapters.
- A Canadian/International constituency group for
chapters outside the United States and its territories.
- A constituency group representing the
members-at-large.
All directors are now elected directly by
delegates or members. The director for the membership-at-large will be elected popularly
by the members-at-large (i.e., those members not currently affiliated with a local
chapter), while the remaining 15 directors will be elected by the delegates designated by
chapters to serve with the annual Assembly of Delegates.
Revised Constitution and Bylaws Now in Effect
On 1 July 1999, the Society's revised Constitution and Bylaws, codifying the
governance changes approved by the 1998 Assembly of Delegates, became effective. The
revised Bylaws also include a minor Bylaw change involving vacancies in the office of
Directors of geographic regions and constituency groups that was approved by chapters on 1
July 1999. The revised Constitution and Bylaws may be found on the Society's web site.
Committee Activities
In addition to the wide ranging
activities of Sigma Xi's chapters, many of the Society's programs and operations
are administered through the Society's sixteen standing committees. Most members of
these committees are appointed annually by the President and are charged with key
responsibilities.
Some of the Society's standing committees
are statutory committees of the Board, including the Board's Executive Committee and
the Committees on Nominations, Finance, and Audit Review. Some committees are charged with
maintaining essential standards of the Society's membership on behalf of the Board,
including the Committees on Qualifications and Membership, Diversity, Regions, and
Meetings. Some are policy advisory bodies for the Board, including Long-Range Planning and
Development that are charged with preparing for the Society's future. Finally, many
committees are working program committees that administer and oversee, with help from the
staff, both long-standing and emerging programs of the Society, including Publications,
Awards, Grants-in-Aid of Research, Lectureships, and Programs (which oversees the Science
Education Grants Program, McGovern Science and Society Awards, and a variety of other
programs). These program committees, in particular, provide the working interface between
chapters, members, staff, and the programs and activities of the Society. I am
particularly grateful for the tireless efforts of many committee chairs and members in
carrying out these very important functions for the Society.
Many committees had very active agendas this year
and I invite you to review the committee reports in this volume to get an appreciation of
the scope and scale of activities of the Society. Taken as a whole, it is indeed an
impressive collection.
Sigma Xi Programs and Other Activities
In the last three years the portfolio of programs
administered through the Society management and administrative offices has evolved into a
rich mixture of long-standing programs, which continue to be central to the Society's
overall mission, balanced with newer efforts that capitalize on the Society's unique
strengths and characteristics. The following are sketches of the status of a number of the
current activities and programs.
American Scientist
American Scientist remains one of the premier science publications in the U.S.
and increasingly around the world. The magazine unveiled a number of editorial innovations
this past year, such as a new book review section augmented with a "books
received" department which is included on the American Scientist web site,
www.americanscientist.org. Nearly a thousand journalists receive the news releases
summarizing the contents of each issue of American Scientist, prompting sometimes
extensive coverage in the popular media. More than 100 science journalists now receive an
abbreviated electronic version of the news release, linked to the full news summary on the
Web.
On the production side, American Scientist
is a leader in innovation as well. The magazine's gradual progression to
"direct-to-plate" technology, a fully digital system that eliminates all
intermediate production steps between the processing of a desktop-publishing file and the
manufacturing of a printing plate, began to emerge this year. The magazine's May-June
1999 press run was the magazine's first to employ this technology, which in the long run
will improve print quality and provide savings in production costs.
American Scientist articles continue to be
used widely in education, such as in its arrangement with Sinauer Associates to publish
collections of selected articles from the magazine. These collections are gradually
receiving much more exposure. For example, the most recent collections, Exploring
Animal Behavior and Exploring Ecology sold very well in the U.S. Finally, American
Scientist continues to show up in new places, especially in bookstores at major
research universities. International expansion or the magazine's distribution is
beginning as well. American Scientist is now for sale in over 700 bookstores in the
United Kingdom and, very interestingly, recently made available for sale in Jordan, Abu
Dhabi, Turkey and Lebanon. In total, American Scientist is now sold in 42 countries
around the world. The magazine's overall circulation remains close to 100,000 with
the decline in member subscriptions continuing to be offset somewhat by single-copy and
other subscription sales.
Science Advocacy Program
Last year Sigma Xi initiated the Society's Science Advocacy Program, which is
designed to facilitate meetings between academic and industrial members of Sigma Xi
chapters and Members of Congress in their home districts. This program was pioneered by
the Michigan chapters over the past two years and, after a survey of interest by other
chapters in initiating similar programs, is being picked up in Illinois. We hope to use
the experience of the "technology transfer" between the Michigan efforts and the
new Illinois program as a model for future expansion of the program. In Michigan the
progress has been a notable where Michigan chapters now schedule, as a matter or almost
routine, meetings with members of congress and have in some cases become informal science
advisors to those members. I have high hopes that the Science Advocacy Program will become
pervasive throughout many of the Society's chapters. Such a program would have
enormous benefits for the Society and for society.
Sigma Xi Forum
The November 1998 Forum on International Cooperation in Science and Technology was
the first Sigma Xi Forum convened outside the United States. The experiences and
proceedings of that Forum have been very well received. This Forum also included some new
innovative features, such as involvement of the Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturers in the
program and a follow-up annual meeting workshop to consider more carefully among the
delegates potential roles for Sigma Xi in addressing the issues and opportunities raised
in the Forum. We plan to continue these features in future forums.
This year's Forum, Reshaping
Undergraduate Science and Engineering Education: Tools for Better Learning, will show
additional new features. The Forum is designed to allow educators and administrators from
academia and industry to experience innovative science instruction, experiment with
state-of-the-art educational materials and discuss a variety of models for institutional
reform, science curriculum and pedagogy with their developers.
The format and the program itself will employ the
principles of active learning and, hence, will feature fewer traditional plenary talks
than is customary for the Sigma Xi Forum. These talks will be from leaders in
undergraduate science education reform. Much of the program will highlight hands-on,
facilitated demonstrations of best practices, opportunities to explore the latest
technological tools for education, small-group discussions, workshops and problem-solving
sessions. Specific topics to be addressed include: using pedagogy that encourages
inquiry-based learning and critical thinking; developing curricula and departmental goals
that encourage science learning for all students; fostering administrative and cultural
changes in academic communities; forming partnerships with business, industry and other
academic and non-profit institutions to enhance undergraduate science education.
I hope that we can sustain the trend of continual
improvement in the Forum program as we plan for the Year 2000 Forum on Ethics in Research
in Albuquerque, the Year 2001 Forum on Science in the Arts and Humanities in Raleigh, and
beyond.
Prizes and Awards
Sigma Xi continues its time-honored tradition of honoring scientific achievement
through its major prizes and awards, most of which are detailed in the report of the
Committee on Awards.
In brief, the 1998 William Proctor Prize for
scientific achievement was awarded to Stanford Professor Carl Djerassi. Each year, the
winner of the Procter Prize has the privilege of naming a young colleague to receive a
$5,000 Grant-In-Aid of Research from the Procter Prize Fund. Dr. Djeerassi chose Dr. Jose
Giner, Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry of Syracuse University, who was Dr.
Djerassi's last Ph.D. student at Stanford. At the November 1999 meeting, Dr.
Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst will receive the 1999 William Procter Prize and deliver the Procter Prize Address.
In 1998, the Board of Directors approved the
nomination of Maurice F. Strong as an honorary member of Sigma Xi. Mr. Strong is
recognized worldwide for his activities towards securing a global plan for sustainable
development of humans and the environment (Earth Summit). Mr. Strong was unable to attend
the 1998 meeting but will be attending the 1999 meeting. This year's honorary members
to be inducted include Brian Hayes, former editor of American Scientist, and Ms.
Jonn Ellison Rogers, Deputy Director of Public Affairs at the Johns Hopkins Medical
Institute.
Last year Sigma Xi's first Young
Investigator Award in the physical sciences and engineering went to Dr. John D. Gillaspy,
a member of the Atomic Physics Division at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology. At the November 1999 meeting, the first Young Investigator Award in the life
and social sciences will go to Dr. Laura Landweber of the Department of Ecology &
Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University.
Surveys Gauge Member Interest in Program Areas
The dues notice for 1998 included a brief questionnaire 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% interested in providing funding for a
postdoctoral candidate from another country to 30% interested in establishing contacts
with or collaborating on research projects with scientists from other countries.
Later in 1999, the Sigma Xi 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 a complete report on
survey results will be included on the Sigma Xi Web site later this year.
During the publication of the membership
directory last year, members were asked if they would be interested in participating in a
Sigma Xi mentoring program. More than 25,000 members responded affirmatively, and those
individuals will receive a follow-up survey (electronically, for those who have e-mail
addresses) this summer. The goal of the survey is to gather more details about the sort of
mentoring these individuals wish to receive or to provide, in preparation of mentoring
programs that Sigma Xi will sponsor.
International Science and Engineering Fair
This year Sigma Xi continued its affiliation with the International Science and
Engineering Fair (ISEF), which celebrated it 50th anniversary this year in
Philadelphia. A team of judges from two Philadelphia area Sigma Xi chapters (Academy of
Natural Sciences and Temple University) made awards to projects judged as the best
examples of multidisciplinary, team science projects. The first place award was made to a
team of three young men from Argentina who developed systems to provide electricity and
running water, using renewable energy resources, to villagers previously without access to
these basic services. A second place award was presented to two young Canadian men who
developed an autonomous plankton net efficiency monitor. Third place was awarded to three
students from Indonesia for their work on finding and comparatively testing an alternative
native plant species to replace an imported, expensive sacking material woven from a
Chinese plant.
Grants-in-Aid of Research
Last year the Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of Research (GIAR) Program celebrated its 75th
anniversary. Since its beginning the GIAR program has encouraged and facilitated research
among young investigators by awarding grants to more than 25,000 young researchers. A
number of innovative new features were added to the GIAR Program last year, including a
link with the Mitchell International Young Scholar Prize for Sustainable Development
wherein Sigma Xi forwards a list of GIAR winners in appropriate fields each year as
nominees for the Mitchell prize. In addition, the Consortium for Plasma Science continues
to sponsor a special fund within the GIAR program focusing on research to advance the
safety of the world's blood supply.
Other Chapter Programs and Activities
Sigma Xi's 517 chapters carry out a wide range of program activities. Each year
the chapters file annual reports with the Society's management offices. I refer you
to the Society's Annual Report which I invite you to review as an illustration of the
richness and variety of activities in which our chapters are engaged. The Appendix to this
report is a summary of chapter activities excerpted from the Annual Report.
Information and Communications Systems
The role of technology in continuing to expand the ability of members and chapters to
communicate and in improving the efficiency of the Society's basic operations has
become a core operation at Sigma Xi's management and administrative offices. Indeed,
the Society now uses electronic mail extensively for correspondence throughout the Sigma
Xi community. A greatly enhanced Sigma Xi World Wide Web site provides timely and
comprehensive information availability about many of the Society's activities to
chapters, members, and others. Much more efficient and cost-effective distribution of
information to chapters is now available through other internet services as well, such as
member mailing lists, program information, officer newsletters. Finally, some brand new
features add member services such as email forwarding and Internet discussion groups
(e.g., the American Scientist Forum and the American Scientist book review
discussion group). Two years ago at the management offices we began electronic
communications with very few email addresses for members on file and virtually no
correspondence by email. We now have 55,000 member email addresses. Virtually all chapter
officers communicating extensively via the Internet. Over a hundred chapter WWW sites are
now inter-linked with the greatly enhanced Sigma Xi Web site. Many, if not most committee
activities are greatly enhanced through the use of the Internet (including the Board and
Executive Committee).
Finally, administrative operations enhancements
continue to benefit from the use of new technology. Such enhancements include much more
efficient document preparation through modern office software (word processing, databases,
spreadsheets, and graphics), more timely and accurate accounting information, more
comprehensive, flexible, and accurate annual budgeting, more cost-effective distribution
and processing of members' dues notices and annual giving solicitations, more
sophisticated and cost-effective graphics in American Scientist,and a more useful
database of our members. In the future there will be many new improvements as well.
Indeed, it is clear that the future of the Society rests in part on how well we utilize
this technology.
The Sigma Xi Center Facility and Programs
Sigma Xi Center Facility
At last year's Annual Meeting, the architectural design and preliminary
specifications for the Sigma Xi Center were shared with delegates. As the fundraising and
architectural planning continue and as the Sigma Xi Fiscal Year 1999 closes, we have
nearly completed the design stage for the Sigma Xi Center facility and are very close to
the point of producing construction-bid documents. Following some on-going environmental
analysis and completion of a grading plan, the final site characterization will be
complete. Our plan is by late summer to be in a position to set the construction schedule
and to break ground before the end of the calendar year 1999. There has been much tireless
work behind the scenes to move the Sigma Xi Center closer to a reality and I am very
excited about the progress we have made this past year.
Sigma Xi Center Programs
As I have noted in reports to the Assembly of Delegates for the past two years, the
initial working portfolio of activities for the Sigma Xi Center includes the following
four principal areas: (1) ethics and honor in science and research, (2) science education,
(3) public understanding of science, and (4) the overall health of the research
enterprise. Many of the prospective programs in these areas will expand on activities
initiated in the Society's chapters, such as the recently initiated science advocacy
program, a program for national dissemination of innovative undergraduate teaching
methods, a number of chapter "scientist in the classroom" efforts, and many
others. The first three of these program areas have begun to show significant progress.
Education
Late in 1998 Sigma Xi submitted a major proposal to the National Science Foundation
Division for Undergraduate Education to establish a national dissemination program for
best practices in undergraduate science and engineering education. This effort is designed
to be a core activity in Sigma Xi education program. The feedback from NSF has been very
positive and we are in negotiations for a development grant aimed at supporting further
definition of the proposed national program. The development grant will support activities
that will help to identify potential host chapters, to identify a group of workshop
presenters, and to solidify relationships between Sigma Xi and other organizations that
are currently addressing these issues. A complete proposal for the full-scale
dissemination program will be submitted to NSF in June 2000. A key milestone for this new
program will be the 1999 Sigma Xi Forum discussed above.
Ethics
Sigma Xi, with the support of the National Institutes of Health Office of Research
Integrity, will host a workshop on September 10, 1999 in Albuquerque, New Mexico entitled,
Ethical Challenges and Practical Solutions for Managers in Research. Attendance is
open to all interested individuals. The primary audience for this conference is expected
to be scientific, engineering and medical managers of research, as well as the researchers
themselves. This meeting is designed to supplement the many articles on research ethics
that concentrate on the actions and responsibilities of the individual researcher. In most
research enterprises, management has the responsibility for creating an environment that
is supportive of research integrity. This conference will focus on the problems faced at
the management level of research organizations of instilling and maintaining integrity in
research and will be a forum for discussing the new Sigma Xi booklet on research ethics, The
Responsible Researcher: Paths and Pitfalls. Details and registration information can
be found on the Sigma Xi Web site. Sigma Xi will invite many of the workshop participants
to stay in Albuquerque for a one-day planning conference for the 2000 Forum, which will
focus on a theme of ethics and research.
Public Understanding of Science
The Media Resource Service (MediaResource), operated by Sigma Xi since 1996, continues as
a vibrant and important Sigma Xi service in supporting an improved public understanding of
science. MediaResource assists journalists in finding experts to enhance the coverage of
science and associated issues. The service's database includes scientists and engineers
who have agreed to provide expert commentary to journalists on short notice. Users of the
service include major media outlets and small town newspapers, such as ABC, American
Health, The Associated Press, BusinessWeek, CBS, Chicago Tribune, CNN, Hartford
Courant, Los Angeles Times, Mansfield (OH) News Journal, McCall's
and others. This year, MediaResource unveiled a new Sigma Xi member service called
"In the News," which is a daily email to subscribers that includes brief
abstracts and pointers to full text coverage of the major science and technology stories
being carried by the general media that day. "In the News" has nearly 10,000
subscribers and has emerged as a popular and valuable service to members. A grant awarded
last year by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to the Media Resource Service (MediaResource) is
funding the conversion and expansion of the experts' database
Conclusion
Sigma Xi continues to expand its
portfolio of programs and activities that build on the Society's traditional mission
and represent in many cases an expansion of our goals. The Society's ability to build
upon and draw from the local chapters' perspectives and energy is crucial to the
Society's future. I look forward to working with you in the coming year.
Peter D. Blair
Executive Director, July 1999
Appendix
Sigma Xi
Chapter Activites: A Sampling from 1998-99
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