CHAPTER RECOGNIZED FOR PROGRAMMATIC EXCELLENCE

For the third time in the past decade Sigma Xi awarded the University of Michigan Sigma Xi Chapter a Certificate of Excellence at its Annual Meeting. Each year, Sigma Xi awards Certificates of Excellence to several chapters that have demonstrated exceptional innovation and quality in their annual programming. For the first time this year the six pairs of Regional Directors recommended up to five chapters from each region to the Committee on Qualifications and Membership for a certificate of excellence. Ten of the more than five hundred Sigma Xi chapters received certificates this year.

Three former Chapter presidents, Peggie J. Hollingsworth, Charles B. Smith, and Robert Zand, represented the Chapter at the 1999 Annual Meeting and Forum in Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 4 - 8, 1999. Peggie J. Hollingsworth, the 1999-2000 President of Sigma Xi, presided over the Annual Forum and the Annual Meeting. Robert Zand participated in both the Forum and the Annual Meeting. He presented a videotape of the 1998 Chapter forum on undergraduate education. Zand is a Director-at-Large of Sigma Xi and serves on the Society's Board of Directors. He also is a member of the national Committee on Qualifications and Membership. Charles B. Smith was the Chapter's delegate to the Assembly of Delegates, the North Central Regional Assembly of Delegates, and the newly formed Assembly of Delegates from Research and Doctoral Degree-granting Universities. He also serves as the North Central Regional member of the Committee on Nominations.

Robert Zand shows tape of 1998 Chapter forum on undergraduate education at the 1999 Sigma Xi Annual Meeting.

The 1999 Sigma Xi Forum, which was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 4-5 in conjunction with Sigma Xi. s annual meeting focused on inquiry-based learning in undergraduate education. This conference allowed educators and administrators from academia and industry to experience innovative science instruction, experiment with state-of-the-art educational products and discuss a variety of models for institutional reform, science curriculum and pedagogy. This forum, which had the highest attendance of annual forums in recent years, was marked by the enthusiastic participation of those who were in attendance.

In conjunction with the Annual Meeting and Forum, the University of Minnesota and the North Central Region held an all-day symposium of poster presentations that highlighted undergraduate research. In addition, Annual Meeting registrants contributed presentations to a poster session, the purpose of which was to allow members to have an opportunity to share their research with one another and to stimulate a more vigorous scientific exchange at the Annual Meeting.

During the Annual Meeting Laura Landweber of Princeton University received the first Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award in the area of life and social sciences. She delivered an address entitled "Computing with DNA and RNA." At the annual banquet, Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, received the Society's 1999 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement and delivered the Procter Prize address "Symbiogenesis".

Sigma Xi President Peggie J. Hollingsworth with President-elect John H. Gibbons at the 1999 Annual Meeting. Gibbons is a senior fellow at the National Academy of Engineering and a former Assistant to President Clinton for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology