"STAR PARTY"

to be held April 20^th

Be sure to save Saturday, April 20^th, for our major spring activity: a visit to SDSU’s Mt. Laguna Observatory. For $15 per person ($10 for kids under 13), you will get a "Drifter" meal of pit-roasted beef or baked ham, baked beans, potato salad, coleslaw, and rolls, not to mention coffee or fruit punch. A reservation form and a parking permit can be found on page 5 of this issue.

The affair will begin at 6:00pm and will probably go on until well after 9:00 (it won’t really get dark until 8:50). Do remember to bring a flashlight and a warm jacket (it is usually 20 degrees cooler on the mountain), and good walking shoes.

Dr. Paul Etzel, Chair of the Astronomy Department, promises wondrous views of the planets and the first-quarter moon (absent clouds,of course), along with explanations. Knowing our Chapter, the officers also promise very good company.

Directions: East on Interstate 8 about 37 miles past SDSU to the Sunrise Highway (Rt. S1), which is one mile past the Pine Valley exit. Go north on Sunrise Highway about 8 miles and look for the 21.5 mile marker—-one quarter mile past this is Morris Ranch Road going off to the east. (Note: if you reach the town of Mount Laguna, you’ve gone too far.)

One quarter-mile down Morris Ranch Road is the visitor’s parking lot, below the Observatory. Please stay on the road, since cutting across switchbacks ruins the groundcover and encourages erosion!

INITIATION BANQUET

Set for Wednesday, May 8th

Wednesday, May 8^th, has been selected as the date for this Chapter’s annual Initiation Banquet. It will be held in the Faculty Staff Center (FSC) on the SDSU campus, beginning with a hosted-bar (beer or wine) social hour at 6:00. Dinner will be served at 6:45 and the ceremonial activities at 7:30. The affair should wind up around 9:00 or 9:30. A guide to the FSC (and parking) can be found on the Internet at:

Since nominations of new Associate and Full members are due to President Metzger (his address is on page 4) by April 23^rd, the day you receive this issue of LabNotes is none too early to decide just

who among your students, colleagues, and/or co-workers is deserving of this honor.

The nomination process is simple. Nomination forms can be downloaded from Sigma Xi at;

Our keynote speaker will be Past President Don McGraw, who will introduce us to "Andrew Ellicott Douglas and the Big Trees: The Role of the Giant Sequoia in the Development of Dendro- chronology (Tree-Ring Dating)"

Winners of the Chapter Awards from the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair will attend the banquet, receive their certificates of achievement, and display their award-winning projects for our pleasure and edification.

The reservation form on page 5 should be sent in, along with a check for $21.50 for each person in your party, by April 23^rd. Unfortunately, parking will cost $2.00.

FROM THE PRESIDENT-ELECT

I welcome the opportunity to serve the San Diego Chapter of Sigma Xi as incoming President after the May Initiation Banquet. Our chapter has prospered under the outstanding leadership of recent past-presidents. They are a hard act to follow, but I expect to benefit immensely from their advice and counsel during my time in office.

Let me note a few of their accomplishments. Steve Brody reached out effectively to the medical community, and Jim Baur initiated the Mexican connection which led to the establishment of an Ensenada Sigma Xi group. More recently Don McGraw and Bob Metzger led us to reach out actively to local high school and junior high students, for which the Chapter has been justly commended.

I believe that outreach is one of our most important contemporary activities. Unlike the time when Sigma Xi was founded, few people now question the importance of scientific research. However, it is still a challenge to get young people interested in science, much less careers in scientific research. I want to continue and strengthen our work in this direction.

I look forward to meeting many of you at the upcoming "Star Party" and at our May Initiation Banquet.

Those of you who have been shy or reluctant to nominate candidates for Associate or Full membership, get off your duffs! Our Chapter was recognized last year for its outstanding work in adding new members, and we would like to impress Headquarters again this year.

Scientists and engineers who have published research findings are eligible for Full Membership, while those who show promise of future productivity are eligible for Associate Membership.

If you do not have someone handy to second your nomination, one of the officers can serve that function. Nominations can be sent to President Bob Metzger at any time up until about April 23rd, since there is some paperwork to be done before the Initiation Banquet on Wednesday, May 8th.

Not all Chapter activities can be conceived and set in place before LabNotes goes to press. But the prospect of mailing announcements of late-breaking events to our 500+ members sends traumatic tremors through our Treasury. We must therefore invite you to drop in on our Chapter’s website every so often to learn about what will be going on. It’s easy — just go to:

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

On May 8^th, I will preside over the 27^th annual Initiation Banquet of the San Diego Chapter of Sigma Xi. I have had the great honor of leading our chapter into the new millennium and the great pleasure of knowing that I helped to maintain the momentum that has led our chapter to recognition, earning five national awards.

Interestingly enough, I presided over the very first of these banquets while we were still an Authorized Club. That event took place on March 17, 1976, in the Aztec Room of the East Commons at San Diego State University. The speaker was Dr. Brage Golding, then President of SDSU. Besides me, the officers were Dr. Robert Radlow, president-elect, who took office at the close of the festivities; Dr. Theodore Cohn, secretary; Dr. Gordon Martin, treasurer; and Dr. Ellen Kuhns, past-president. We initiated 13 Associate Members that evening, the first to be initiated into the San Diego Sigma Xi family.

At the upcoming May 8^th banquet, we begin a new tradition. Besides honoring those junior high and high school students whom our Chapter’s volunteer judges have selected for Quart Foundation Awards on the basis of their outstanding Science Fair projects, we will make the second presentation of the new San Diego Chapter Medal for Distinguished Achievement. The new tradition will be that the award winner will be the speaker for the banquet.

I envision this Distinguished Achievement Award being made each year to an active Sigma Xi member who has been nominated for making major advances in an area of science or engineering or who has contributed greatly to the quality and prestige of our Chapter. I call upon the Executive Committee to prepare official guidelines for the selection of awardees. This year’s awardee, Dr. Donald McGraw, began many of the programs for which we have received national recognition. He is highly deserving of this honor.

At the close of this year’s banquet, I will turn the Presidency of our chapter over to Dr. Michael Schaffer. I look forward to

watching him continue the drive to make the San Diego Chapter the best in the nation and one of the most influential chapters in promoting international activities.

In closing, I want to thank all my colleagues who helped me during my term of office: Dr. Don McGraw, past-president; Dr. Michael Schaffer, president-elect; Dr. Norman Storer, secretary and editor of LabNotes, Dr. Terry Frey, past-treasurer and web page coordinator; Kathleen McNamara-Shroeder, treasurer; and Executive Committee members Dr. Donna Perdue, Dr. Jeff Lincer, Dr. James Baur, Dr. Dora Waumann-Rojas, and Dr. Hector Bustos-Serrano. All active members of the chapter dserve my thanks as well for their support. It has been a pleasure.

Although the San Diego Sigma Xi Organization was founded in 1948, it was considered a provisional club which could hold meetings and send delegates to national meeting, but could not elect members. In 1976, we were promoted to the status of an authorized club, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Robert Metzger, Dr. Ellen Kuhns, Dr. Angelo Carlucci (secretary), and Dr. Gordon Martin (treasurer). Authorized clubs were permitted to elect Associate members and the chart’s associate members were elected the same year. The authorized club became a Chapter in 1979 and initiated its first Full members at the banquet that year..

INAUGURAL KYOTO SYMPOSIUM

HELD AT U.S.D.

The first ever symposium featuring recent Kyoto Prize winners held outside of Japan was hosted by the University of San Diego at its newly-dedicated Joan B. Kroc Center for Peace and Justice on its Kearny Mesa main campus. The three and a half day festivities were marked with considerable pomp and circumstance befitting the winners of this extremely prestigious prize. Some have likened the Kyoto Prize to an extension of the Nobel Prize with regard to certain disciplines not covered by the Nobel. In the Advanced Technology category, the 2001 Prize was shared amongst Drs. Zhores Alferov, Izuo Hayashi, and Morton Panish for their crucial work in electronics. Mr. Gyorgi Ligeti was honored as the recipient in the Arts and Philosophy category for his work in musical composition. Dr. John Maynard Smith was awarded the Prize in Kyoto last year for his work in the Basic Sciences, specifically evolutionary biology, but could not attend the USD gala due to illness. While all the Prize winners were able to give public addresses and join workshop sessions, Dr. Maynard Smith was represented by Dr. Francisco Ayala of UC/Irvine, one of the leading evolutionary geneticists and philosophers of biology of our era. Dr. Ayala’s gracious acceptance of the request to stand in for Dr. Maynard Smith with but five days notice was appreciated by an attentive audience that included familiar San Diego Chapter Sigma Xi members such as Dr. Jim Baur, past Chapter President and others who were able to join the Kyoto honorees at the many activities that occupied the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th of February, 2002.

Dr. Donald J. McGraw, Past Chapter President and USD Associate Provost.

THE SPRING ELECTION

This spring we will conduct our election of officers in two different ways. The three-quarters of our members who have E-mail will receive the ballot through that medium and can vote and return their decisions in the same way. For those who do not use E-mail, we present a hard-copy ballot on page 5 of this issue and invite you to mail it back to President Metzger at your early convenience. His address is given in the list of officers on page 4.

Thanks for your participation!

GETTING INVOLVED

Becoming more active in the San Diego Chapter is a great way to make new friends, do some networking, and know that you are contributing to a very worthwhile enterprise. The path to involvement is simple: just contact our new President, Mike Schaffer, to learn where and when the next Executive Committee meeting will be held — and show up!

OFFICERS, 2001-2002

Dr. Robert P. Metzger Office: 619-594-6801

Dept. of Chemistry Fax: 619-594-4634

5500 Campanile Drive

San Diego, CA 92182-1030

Dr. Michael J. Schaffer Office: 858-455-2841

General Atomics Fax: 858-455-4156

San Diego, CA 92186-5608