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Welcome to the spring issue of The Science Leader, the digital newsletter of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, and my first opportunity to greet you as Chair of CSSP for 2009.
First of all, for those of you who are in your terms in the presidential succession of your organizations, let me congratulate you on the honor and wish you the best. My three years in the succession at the American Chemical Society were the best three years of my career. I hope yours are the same.
Of course, in those days, I wasn't attempting to manage through a financial crisis of biblical proportions. It is undoubtedly true that you are finding challenges and threats to your organizations from all sides -- challenges and threats that require you to be an even wiser and more charismatic leader than you might have been under ordinary circumstances.
To that end, might I slip in a brief commercial for our spring meeting? Many of you have attended our semi-annual Renaissance Weekends -- weekends filled with opportunities to hear from scientists in diverse fields, policy makers of importance and leadership experts. I never fail to come away enriched, and the meeting we have planned for May 2-5 is thoroughly in our successful tradition.
We will hear from two Nobel Prize winners -- Bill Phillips speaking on Future Quantum Technologies and Martin Chalfie on Tracking Differentiation of Cells. George Church of Harvard will be there speaking on synthetic biology: Design & de novo Creation of Living Minimal Cells. I'm looking forward to asking him about the growing group of young people who practice biotech in their homes the way some of us used a chemistry set, years ago.
On the policy side, Paula Dobriansky, former Under Secretary for Global Affairs & Science, US State Department, and the person most responsible for the program of placing scientists on loan to US Embassies around the world, will speak on Science & Statecraft. There is also the potential for high-level officials in the Obama administration from Energy and Interior, although they are not fully confirmed to speak.
We have renowned unconventional thinker Amory Lovins to speak on New Vehicles and the Oil Endgame, and Rufus Fears, Harvard & University of Oklahoma on the History of the Ideas of Freedom & Liberty. Prepare for provocation.
We have a full suite of committee meetings Sunday morning where we will discuss how we as science leaders can impact education, policy, the environment and other topics. I'm particularly asking all attendees to come prepared to discuss their Societies' programs related to employment. We can share best practices and innovative ideas for the benefit of our members (and maybe ourselves.)
I realize resources are tight. During my days in sales I urged people to focus on value and not just cost. The spring meeting is chock full of value, and I hope if you have any opportunity to join us, you will. Bill CarrollCSSP Board Chair |
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 AMS welcomes 'new addition' as president Andrews 
George E. Andrews, the Evan Pugh Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University, has begun a two-year term as President of the American Mathematical Society. He succeeds James G. Glimm, Distinguished Professor of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at Stony Brook University. A number theorist, Andrews is best known for his study of the works of the brilliant self-taught Indian mathematician, Srinavasa Ramanujan. On a trip to Europe in 1976, Andrews took the opportunity to look at some notes of Ramanujan's that had been gathering dust in Trinity College, Cambridge University. Ramanujan had made the notes in the last year of his life, as he suffered a painful illness. At the time Andrews encountered the notes, it is unlikely that anyone else alive in the world would have understood what they signified. Because Ramanujan never intended the notes for publication, they have proven difficult to decipher and understand. Together with his collaborator, University of Illinois mathematician Bruce Berndt, Andrews has for the past thirty years carefully studied the 600 or so mathematical results contained in what is now known as Ramanujan's "Lost Notebook". Andrews and Berndt have published one volume about the "Lost Notebook"; one more is about to appear, and two more are in the works. The "Lost Notebook" is likely to be the most significant work done in Ramanujan's short life, and it contains some stellar gems of mathematical insight. Andrews' main area of research is in number theory, specifically, the theory of partitions and related areas. He has written over 250 research papers and several books. His research has been continuously supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. Twenty students have written PhD theses under his direction. An outstanding teacher, Andrews was named the Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics in 1981, a distinction that recognizes both teaching and research. He has also maintained a deep interest in mathematics education at the precollege level and has been an advocate for improving the quality of teacher preparation. Andrews received his PhD in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964, with a thesis written under the direction of Hans Rademacher and titled "On the Theorems of Watson and Dragonette for Ramanujan's Mock Theta Functions". Andrews joined the faculty of Pennsylvania State University right after earning his PhD and has remained there for his entire career. He has held visiting positions at institutions all over the world, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Australian National University, the University of Strasbourg, and the University of Linz. He has been a Fulbright Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003. He holds three honorary doctorates. |
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Climate change: political meets physical By Gaylen Bradley, CSSP Board  The weather was crisp but not inclement. The CSSP winter meeting participants were fully awake after their walks from the hotel to the American Chemical Society headquarters, but appeared to have no desire to leave the sessions to tour museums. Indeed the importance of this meeting and the quality of the presentations were sufficient by themselves to hold everyone's attention. With substantial changes in legislative and executive government offices underway, much of the conference was devoted to opportunities and challenges facing scientific societies and their leadership. Among them were the worldwide economic crisis and the failure of the United States to remain economically competitive in the world market.
CSSP 2008 Chair Peter Jumars opened the meeting by addressing strategies and challenges for improving the future, using consequences of climate change as a platform. He asked the attendees to think about the definition of "conservation" in a world where substantial new combinations of habitats (in terms of rainfall, runoff and seasonality patterns) have been created. He noted that the European settlers introduced many of the species that have been established for centuries in North America; for example, honey bees. He asked what species are to be maintained and what depleted species are to be restored in a given habitat. He challenged attendees to define sustainability in a world whose human population continues to climb. Does it refer to the population that can be maintained at a survival level, or maintaining the quality of life of a population? |
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New challenges, costs face educatorsBy Linda Froschauer, CSSP Board member During the CSSP Winter Awards Banquet, Linda Darling-Hammond was recognized as an outstanding contributor to education and received the CSSP Award for Education Research. Following her recognition she provided an enlightening presentation to the assembly.  Darling-Hammond highlighted the challenges that face us, as a nation, in providing quality education for all students. Her compelling remarks identified several shifts in our society that have caused our current schools to fall behind in meeting the needs of students:
· A changing economy that makes "thinking skills" in knowledge work jobs more important than low job skills.
· Students currently attend schools that were designed in the early 20th Century to meet the demands of an industrial and agricultural society.
· The high costs of under-education have not been addressed. Drop outs cost the US $300 billion per year. Prison populations have tripled and costs have increased by 600%, now competing with higher education costs.
· Expectations for learning have changed - addressing 21st Century skills. She also identified initiatives of high-achieving nations: · universal pre-school,
· substantial investments in teacher education and ongoing support,
· strong long-term relationships with students,
· common curriculum focused on higher order thinking skills,
· performance assessments embedded in curriculum,
· equitable spending with investments in high needs schools. The inequity in U.S. schools was identified as the major factor in low U.S. rankings on international tests. Darling-Hammond continued her talk by explaining the No Child Left Behind initiative and elements of the initiative that could be adjusted to provide exceptional schools for all children. Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute and the School Redesign Network. She has also served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity. From 1994-2001, she served as executive director of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, a blue-ribbon panel whose 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, led to sweeping policy changes affecting teaching and teacher education. In 2006, this report was named one of the most influential affecting U.S. education and Darling-Hammond was named one of the nation's ten most influential people affecting educational policy over the last decade. Among Darling-Hammond's more than 300 publications are Preparing Teachers for a Changing World: What Teachers Should Learn and be Able to Do (with John Bransford, for the National Academy of Education, winner of the Pomeroy Award from AACTE), Teaching as the Learning Profession: A Handbook of Policy and Practice (Jossey-Bass: 1999) (co-edited with Gary Sykes), which received the National Staff Development Council's Outstanding Book Award for 2000; and The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Schools that Work, recipient of the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award for 1998. |
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Two essential parts of a rational energy policy By Peter Jumars, CSSP Past Chair It is easy to become discouraged by plots of U.S. energy demand that multiply current per capita consumption by projected U.S. population as well as by plots of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations still increasing exponentially and passing levels not seen on Earth in a million years. Dumping of this gaseous waste of fossil-fuel burning into the global atmosphere is the ultimate tragedy of the commons wherein each individual's contribution plays a small part but the collective activity is fully capable of causing more human displacement and unrest through water shortages and crop failures and more changes to ecosystem structure and function than any past armed conflict. Ocean acidification of 0.1 pH unit, indisputably from anthropogenic causes, is measurable today, and 0.3-0.4 additional pH units can be projected by the end of the century if carbon dioxide outputs are not limited. Depressed yet? |
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Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology creates science fact-backing resolutionThe Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology is supporting "Resolution on Evolution and Climate Change" and President John Pearse is hoping that other societies will join them. The resolution reads: "Recognizing that science is under attack in the U.S. as evidenced by the wide-spread disregard for the scientific process and the suppression and distortion of scientific data across a broad spectrum of areas in which we, as biologists, have special expertise, be it resolved that the SICB take a public stand in support of scientific truth, especially: 1. in support of the teaching of evolution as a scientific fact, and under the name of "evolution;" 2. in support of efforts to publicize broadly the impacts of the suppression of scientific evidence on societal concerns such as global climate change, environmental conservation and stem-cell research; and 3. to authorize the SICB Executive Committee to issue press releases and editorials, initiate and publish statements, and sign collective statements consistent with (1) and (2) above."
Last year, Pearse and public affairs committee chair Peter deFur prepared an opinion piece that was sent to several national newspapers commemorating Darwin's birthday and supporting the teaching of evolution. This was sent to all the society's members, some who modified it and sent it to local newspapers. To date, none of these versions have been published to our knowledge. "I would be interested to know whether other societies have taken similar actions, and how they have fared," Pearse said. "Of course, many people probably feel that these concerns will go away with the new administration. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that will happen, especially with all the fiscal restraints." |
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Join us!
There is still time to register for the next CSSP semi-annual meeting, which is slated for May 2-5, 2009, in Washington D.C. Call the CSSP office at (202) 872-6230 to register. Information can also be found on the CSSP web site: www.cssp.us
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or call (304) 755-7214. We look forward to hearing from you!
Thank you so much for reading our newsletter. We hope you have found it informative and interesting. Please contact us with any ideas and/or submissions for the next newsletter. We appreciate your support!
Sincerely,
The Science Leader Staff
James F. Baur, Publisher
Amber Allen, Editor
Advisory Board:
William Carroll
Francis "Skip" Fennell
Peter Jumars
CSSP Office:
Martin A. Apple, President
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