Electronic News Letter: At the business meeting last year we approved eliminating the snail-mail version of the news letter, resulting in a substantial financial savings to the Section. This is our first year without a paper news letter. Progress.
Business Meeting and Mixer: The meeting of the Physiological Ecology section will be on Tuesday, 4 August, 5-7 p.m., Marriott. Hors d'oeuvres will be provided and there will be a cash bar. Please plan to attend.
Poster Awards: At the Albuquerque meeting we awarded our second consecutive "best poster award" for a presentation by a graduate student. The winning poster by Nate McDowell and coworkers can be viewed on the physiological ecology homepage - http://www.botany.duke.edu/jackson/ecophys/ - along with the winning poster from the first year's contest. We will make another selection at the Baltimore meeting this year. Graduate students, please enter your poster in this year's competition by sending an email to Stan Smith (Secretary, Physiological Ecology Section, ssmith@ccmail.nevada.edu). Provide Stan with the author's names, the title of your poster, and the time and session that your poster will be displayed. This award is a prestigious addition to your CV! In addition to displaying your poster in its entirety on the Section's web page, you will receive a $500 cash prize. Please enter soon.
Faculty interested in judging posters at the Baltimore meeting, please contact Stan Smith.
Ad hoc Committees: At the business meeting/mixer in Albuquerque we established two ad hoc committees. The "web" committee met to provide input to our Web Master, Rob Jackson, on continuing development of our flourishing web page and to provide assistance in maintaining the page during the year. The "symposium" committee met to discuss possible symposium topics and to encourage the timely submission of proposals for ecophysiology symposia. Both committees have been very successful and will meet again at the business meeting this year. If you are interested in either topic, please participate. The committees will meet briefly at the business meeting.
Symposium proposals are submitted to the Society in the Fall- the proposals are brief but the deadline continually catches us off guard. Start thinking about symposium topics for the 1999 annual meeting and bring your ideas to the attention of the "symposium" committee- better yet, join the committee.
Web Page: Since the meeting last year in Albuquerque, many additions have been made to the section homepage. Links to physiological ecology journals, equipment manufacturers, and funding agencies were added. A new page for teaching and mentoring was also added, emphasizing three types of courses: plant physiological ecology, plant ecology/field labs, and global change/ecosystem studies. Each of these course types on the homepage has links to at least four member homepages where notes or syllabi are available. This new emphasis would be even stronger with more links - please email Rob Jackson with your own teaching information! Finally, the homepage was used on a trial basis this year to organize information on academic job openings relevant to our members. Again, please email relevant job openings in the coming year so that the page can be updated.
Presidential Elections: My two-year term as President is drawing to a close and one of my final responsibilities is to organize an election for my replacement. Please send your nomination for the next President to me by 30 June 1998. I will organize an "internet" election and our next President will be announced at the business meeting.
By laws: It may be time to modify our by laws. In recognition of the sustained effort required to maintain a dynamic and up-to-date web page, the Section should consider adding "Web Master" as a new officer of the section. As mentioned above, our two ad hoc committees will meet again at this year. Please be prepared to discuss the advisability of converting these committees into sanctioned standing committees in the future.
Evan H. DeLucia
Section President
Department of Plant Biology and
Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
TELE: (217) 333 6177
FAX: (217) 244 7246
E-MAIL: delucia@uiuc.edu
Stan Smith
Section Secretary
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV 89154
TELE: (702) 895-3197
FAX: (702) 895-3956
E-MAIL: ssmith@ccmail.nevada.edu
Rob Jackson
Section Web Master, Acting
Department of Botany
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78713
TELE: (512) 471 5209
FAX: (512) 471 3878
E-MAIL: rjackson@mail.utexas.edu