Scientific Society Presidencies: Full-Time, No Pay

George Bush and Bill Clinton may be clogging the airwaves with television commercials promoting their candidacy, but among those vying for the presidency of a scientific society, such a voluble brand of campaigning is considered bad form. In further contrast to the president of the United States, presidents of scientific societies are volunteers, working for free at what is sometimes a full-time job. They usually serve a single, one-year term, and rarely run for a second. They don't have to battle Congress, but their power is limited largely to a vote on an elected council or executive committee. And as for perks, well, there's no White House, no Oval Office, no Secret Service, and no Air Force One (though there's often plenty of travel). There are a few similarities between scientific society presidencies and the highest office in the U.S., however. Just as the nation's chief executive is usually a seasoned politician with high name recognition, it is very unusual for a scientist without a history of service to a society to become president of that society. And just as the first 100 days in office are critical to U.S. presidents to get their programs moving, it is important for scientific society presidents to hit the ground running, lest their terms expire with no initiatives having been ventured. And, as in the national election, voter turnout is usually low; in some large societies, it may be less than 25 percent of voting members. Many societies are becoming more active in public outreach, trying to educate not only the general population but also legislators, funding agencies, and other decision-makers about their science and the importance of continuing to fund it. For example, Patricia Calarco, president of the Electron Microscopy Society of America and a professor of anatomy at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco, started a project to amplify her society's voice at the congressional level, in part because during lean economic times "the easiest item to cut from the budget is instrumentation," she says. The "sudden increased importance of public policy" was the most pressing issue for Marc Kirschner, past president of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UC-San Francisco, during his tenure in 1990-91. "I walked in thinking my main responsibilities were running the annual meeting and overseeing the society's finances," he says, "only to find that my main job was to give biomedical scientists a voice." Kirschner says that the responsibility of making sure that the individual bench scientist is represented in Washington, D.C., has fallen, by default, to several societies that represent biomedical scientists. As a result of this relatively new role, he says, the time commitment of future ASCB presidents probably has doubled over that of their predecessors. In making their case in Washington for the importance of funding basic biomedical research, individual societies have an ally in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). FASEB recently expanded from six member societies to eight (with more likely to join soon) and initiated an electoral system of choosing its president from among its board members. Shu Chien, a professor of bioengineering and medicine at UC-San Diego, is FASEB's first elected president, and was previously president of the American Physiology Society. As president of FASEB, Chien works to bring societies together. One of the main areas of cooperation is public affairs, particularly, Chien notes, educating decision-makers about the importance of funding biomedical research. Chien says there are signs that the high priority always accorded investigator- initiated grants may erode as politicians seek more immediately applicable results from research. Joseph Coyle, president of the Society for Neuroscience, is particularly interested in improving understanding of brain science among undergraduates. Coyle, the Eben S. Draper Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, doesn't have just future neuroscience graduate students in mind. "The opinion leaders of the future need to be science-literate," also, he says. --B.G. With such low turnouts, it's not surprising that getting out the vote is often the difference between winning and losing an election. Ernest Eliel, the current American Chemical Society (ACS) president and a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, puts it this way: "You don't elect a president by whom you vote for, but you fail to elect a president by whom you don't vote for. However, the usual way to get out the vote--namely, campaigning-- is anathema to members of most scientific societies. Campaigning "wouldn't be considered in good taste, says ecologist Margaret Davis of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, who was president of the Ecological Society of America in 1987-88. "There's nothing to stop someone from doing it, but it would be unseemly, notes Michael Ivie, an assistant professor of entomology at Montana State University in Bozeman, who is president of the Coleopterists Society, an association of scientists specializing in the study of beetles. The taboo against campaigning is not as strong in ACS, which, with more than 140,000 members, is the largest single scientific society in the U.S. Letters to key members from a candidate's colleagues have been a society tradition for many years, says Stan Israel, head of the chemistry department at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. Eliel's successor, president-elect Helen Free, who is a consultant for Miles Inc. in Elkhart, Ind., had simple credit-card-sized calendars printed to distribute at an ACS meeting in 1991. "It used to be that you pretended you didn't want the office, Free says, "but that's disappeared. Nevertheless, Israel suggests that scientists still look askance at anything more than low-key campaigning. The reason has to do with money. "We don't want someone buying an election, Israel says. When so few eligible voters vote, a small number can swing an election. "We don't want elections decided on the basis of who can put ads in all the section newsletters, or who's got the best-looking ads, Israel says. Of course, that begs the question of why someone would want to buy an election in the first place. While nearly every president and former president interviewed for this article describe their election as a great honor, they say that presidents put more into the job than they get out of it. Many view serving in a society office as their duty to give something back to the society that has nurtured them and their profession. "It's an obligation as well as an honor, says Elizabeth Neufeld, president of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, who chairs the department of biological chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine. She notes that when she was nominated, her first reaction was, "How terrific; what a great honor. That gave way quickly, she says, to the realization that "I have all these things to do and papers to write, but I really ought to do it [accept the nomination], and now's as good a time as any. The most important duties of most society presidents have to do with making sure that the annual meeting is a success and that the society's journals continue publishing high-quality research. After that, there tends to be room for individual initiative to determine what issues to focus on, though sometimes the choice is made by decisions of previous presidents. For instance, Eugen Merzbacher, an emeritus professor at the University of North Carolina and 1990 president of the American Physical Society (APS), devoted much time to the planned move of APS and the American Institute of Physics to College Park, Md., from New York City (Ron Kaufman, The Scientist, Sept. 14, 1992, page 3). "There was tremendous resistance to moving the headquarters from New York, Merzbacher says, "and it took a lot of work, including hundreds and hundreds of letters. Davis had as one of her main goals during her tenure as president of the Ecological Society of America to produce a collection of experiments that would be useful for teaching ecology to college students. She appointed an education committee, which, she says, "did a wonderful job getting together useful experiments. That points up one of the key duties most society presidents face: appointing colleagues to committees and giving them a charge for their term in office. Several presidents emphasize that preparation for this duty must take place before one actually becomes president, or it will be too late. In some societies, they say, the president is inaugurated at the annual meeting and may not meet with many committee members again until he or she is about to turn over the reins at the next annual meeting. "You become president in January, says APS's Merzbacher, "and you have until April to do what you want to do. Then comes summer and it's all downhill. The route to the presidency of a scientific society starts long before the call from the chairperson of the nominating committee. Almost without exception, society presidents have held other elected and appointed offices within the society and demonstrated an interest in and aptitude for society business. "It's very rare for a person to be picked out of thin air to be president, says Hardy Eshbaugh, a botanist at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, who has been president of three societies during the last decade. In 1983-84, Eshbaugh was president of the Society for Economic Botany. Previously, he had been secretary of the society for a number of years. He was president of the Botanical Society of America in 1988-89 and, though never a senior officer in that society before his election, he had served on the nominating committee, including some time as its chairman. In 1991-92, he was president of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. Society presidents are frequently, but not always, eminent researchers. "Sometimes a person wins awards and prestige, and then is elected to the presidency, says John Holmfeld, executive director of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents in Washington, D.C., citing Nicolaas Bloembergen, the Harvard University physicist and 1981 Nobel Prize winner who was president of APS in 1991. Yale University physicist Jack Sandweiss, chairman of APS's nominating committee, notes that part of what his committee looks for is a person's reputation as a physicist. "We want someone who'll get the respect of others outside the field, he says. "But that's only one dimension. There are great scientists who work in a room by themselves, but the president must be the spokesman of the society. In some societies, the time commitment is such that presidents tend to be winding down their research careers. This has been the case with recent presidents of ACS--three of the last five ACS presidents have been retired at the time they assumed office--and APS. Merzbacher says that "if you look at a list of people willing to run [for president of APS], they tend to be at a stage in their careers when they are not publishing a paper a month. He found the presidency to be close to a full-time job, he says. At smaller societies, the time commitment is correspondingly less, even though all the work must be done by the elected officers, since few small societies have paid professional staff. For example, the Coleopterists Society's Ivie estimates that he spends a few hours a week on society business, more when the annual meeting looms or some special project demands. The time commitment includes more than just the year's presidential service, since most societies have adopted a three- or four-year succession of offices so that a person doesn't leave society service immediately upon learning the ropes. The typical pattern is to elect a president-elect or vice president, who becomes president and then past president. The Ecological Society of America has two president-elects who serve two-year terms to become even better prepared for the presidency. The Ecological Society, like others, has discussed the feasibility of a two-year term for president, says the University of Minnesota's Davis, but rejected it as too great a burden for most candidates. The degree of democracy in societies varies from a single slate of candidates chosen by the nominating committee, as in the Geological Society of America, to a free-for-all election, such as occurs at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM). James Patton, who was elected president of ASM in June and is acting director of Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, says nominations for president are made from the floor at the business meeting, usually attended by about 600 to 800 of the society's 4,000 members. This year, seven people were nominated. One, who was already committed to being managing editor of the Journal of Mammalogy, declined. Patton was elected after two rounds of votes, with no campaigning and no speeches. Nominees are always well-known members of the society, he says. Although proud and honored to serve, Patton acknowledges that "if I had known I would survive [the election], I would have withdrawn my name--as he has done in previous years. Patton will serve for two years while continuing as curator at the museum and teaching at the university. And he has an active research program with several graduate students and postdocs on two National Science Foundation grants. "When you take on other responsibilities, he says, "you just add hours to your day. Billy Goodman is a freelance science writer based in Upper Montclair, N. J.

Scientific Society Presidencies: Full-Time, No Pay

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