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Dear Members of the Phychlogical Section of BSA 1) We’ve been asked to encourage student participation in the society. Toward that end, this year we instituted a student travel award. The recipient was Kevin Kocot of Illinois State University. Please make your students aware of the award for next year, which will be based on submitted essays on the excitement and importance of phycology. Please consider giving promising students in your lab a membership in the BSA and/or a ticket to the BSA banquet and encourage your students to attend the discussion for students in Austin on Tues August 16th at 3:45 pm, in room 408 of the Hilton. 2) There were no nominations for the Darbaker Prize in 2005, hence no prize will be awarded. The Darbaker Prize is an excellent opportunity to honor a phycologist and promote phycology. Please start thinking now about nominating someone for next year. The award is for meritorious work in the study of microscopic algae and is based on papers published (in the English language) in the past two calendar years. As you are reading papers published in 2004 and 2005, please be thinking about who you want to nominate for 2006. (The recipient must be a resident of North America.) 3) One of the purposes of the sections is to provide the society with information. The BSA website gets 4000 hits a day, and the society would like our input for several projects underway: a) Authoritative information on our field is requested for the BSA website. This info will be peer-reviewed by members of the society. Please let me know if you have ideas or would like to write something (mecook1@ilstu.edu). b) Careers in Botany is being redone. Please send ideas or job descriptions to Gordon Uno: guno@ou.edu. (Please copy to me as well: mecook1@ilstu.edu.) One example of the new web-based career profile has bee provided by David Spooner and can be seen at: http://www.botany.org/profiles/david_spooner.php I think you'll agree, it makes our profession sound pretty attractive (which it is). c) In honor of the 100th anniversary of the BSA next year, each section of BSA has been asked to write about their subdiscipline, emphasizing major changes and future directions. Please send me your ideas or volunteer yourself to write this. (A special centennial meeting is being planned, to take place at the University of California–Chico, July 28–Aug 3, 2006. The website for the meeting is http://www.2005.botanyconference.org/Botany2006/index.php. Please suggest ideas for symposia. Collaborations with other sections are encouraged.) 4) At the BSA meeting in Austin, a business meeting of the Phycological Section is scheduled for Wednesday August 17 from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm in Hilton 415. I would like for us to discuss ideas for the above writing assignments and for promoting phycology within the society. Thanks for your attention. I hope to see you in Austin. |