Report of the President
for the Year ending June 30, 2009

This past year has been one of exciting changes, challenges, and opportunities for Sigma Xi and, for me, has marked the capstone of my 34 years as a member of our Society. Through these years of service to Sigma Xi as a chapter officer at Auburn University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; as a staff member working with chapters at Sigma Xi's international headquarters; as a member of Sigma Xi's Strategic Planning, Nominations, and Finance Committees; as Associate Director and Director for the Southeast Region; and, finally, as an officer of the Society, is has been an honor and a privilege to serve our members and staff. The hours spent on these duties have been replete with stimulating, exciting, and collegial interactions with members and others, extending from students to Nobel laureates. I have incredibly rewarding memories of discussions with them all about the important role that the Society fulfills as the international honor society of science and engineering. I am eternally grateful to the membership for allowing me to provide the leadership this past year as President of the Society and offer my heartfelt thanks to each of you and especially to the hard working and dedicated staff, each of whom toil daily at our headquarters for the Society's well being.

During the past year a new Executive Director, Jerry Baker, has completed his first year at the helm of the Society and has led the efforts, along with our Treasurer, Rick Meyer, to maintain the Society's fiscal stability and American Scientist has begun a transition to a digital format under a new editor, David Schoonmaker. As always, our Society has continued to provide the opportunities for exchange our members have required to continue to pursue our mission and role to serve as educators, researchers, and mentors for students, peers, and the public. The Society has continued to be the provider of recognition of the best in science and engineering while maintaining that standard of excellence in the ethical scientific pursuit of knowledge essential to the scientific and engineering community.

My year as President has been highlighted by a number of special opportunities to serve the Society. These included serving as the installing officer for new chapters. The Greater New Orleans Chapter arose from the floods of Katrina to bring together the members of four chapters that had been depleted by a loss of members from their home institutions and the stresses survivors endured during the initial recovery of New Orleans. Their new chapter serves to buoy these stalwart members and points towards a fruitful future through the companionship and support offered by their new relationship with Sigma Xi. I was thrilled to play a part in their merger. A similar high point came while serving to install a chapter at Providence College in Rhode Island where their undergraduates are carrying out amazing, cutting edge research. I was filled with a renewed sense of awe at their accomplishments and their enthusiasm for the recognition provided by their new chapter. And, it was a special honor at my chapter's annual banquet to initiate Dr. Oliver Smithies, 2007 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine, into the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Chapter. He enthralled us all with his reminiscences into his 60 years as a scientist from work ranging from his developing gel electrophoresis to his award winning stem cell research.

I also am particularly proud of Sigma Xi's Year of Water that extremely successfully focused the Society's attention on the scientific, environmental, ethical, public policy and humanitarian facets of this precious and dwindling natural resource. We began with a call for white papers and request for entries for a student film competition. This was followed at the Annual Meeting in Washington, DC with the award-winning documentary film, FLOW: For Love of Water that was shown to a full house; an internationally known panel of speakers interacting with delegates at the Global Water Crisis Panel, and two sessions of scientific presentations that highlighted international water issues. We now segue into our 110th Annual Meeting in Houston, TX, celebrating a Year of Energy with speakers and programs drawing attention to this all important topic.

This year has seen important partnerships developed by Sigma Xi with, among others, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association of University Women, and Epsilon Pi Tau technology honor society. The latter partnership encompasses the exciting work of developing an online science journal that will publish outstanding research conducted by high school students world-wide. We hope to see the launch of this phenomenal electronic means of forwarding our mission at the level of high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in the coming year. Along these lines we also have seen an excellent uptick of participation by our chapters in the Science Café program through a partnership with the WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston. Through these informal discussion meetings, at least 75 chapters are helping to connect the public with science in over 30 US states.

As we look to the future and consider the new changes, challenges and opportunities that we will see and discuss in the upcoming Annual Meeting and International Research Conference, I urge you to focus on the most important issue of our time - declining membership. In my mind, this is the greatest single issue affecting the Society's continuance into the future. All of us are responsible for the future directions and health of the Society and we need to continue to build from our strengths and recall our original pledge of membership, "to encourage original investigations in science, to foster companionship and cooperation among scientists, to maintain honor, integrity and honesty in all scientific activities, and to assume the other continuing responsibilities of membership."

Last, but by no means least, I believe that our Sigma Xi Center and the dedicated, professional Staff form a core of assets that we must cherish, support, and build from to support our Society. As part of a beginning step to cherish and support our wonderful Staff, I am establishing a scholarship fund for the children of Staff members by donating the resources that would have been used to purchase the traditional Past President's memento to this new fund. This effort honors their enormously important contributions to the welfare of our membership and I invite you to join me in the effort.

Once again, please accept my thanks and know that I look forward to continuing to work with you as a companion in zealous research.

Ann H. Williams President, 2008-2009

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