NICHOLAS A. PEPPAS

Present Position

Chapter Affiliation

Background Information

Statement

I remember distinctly the day I found out I had been elected a member of Sigma Xi, at MIT, 48 years ago, and inducted as a graduate student. It was a great honor and Sigma Xi has remained a Society dear to my heart. Yet, so much has changed in the scientific and academic world since then. New important scientific and educational issues have emerged. 

The most important scientific issues facing the world involve assuring a clean water supply, dealing with global warming, addressing the need for an increasing energy supply, dealing with the food supply for a growing world population, and healthcare. In the United States, one could add the priority to deal with deficiencies in K–12 education, scientific literacy for the general public and coming to grips with a decaying infrastructure in the areas of transportation and energy. Finally, there is the issue of increasingly fragile support for basic research which will provide the means to educate our next generation of scientists and engineers.

As a Sigma Xi President, I will seek to encourage faculty in the relevant departments at educational institutions to nominate their deserving graduate students and leaders in government and industry research units to nominate colleagues for membership in Sigma Xi. Instilling the importance of remaining an active part of the Society should be a part of the induction process. Then, it is important for Sigma Xi as a whole to represent itself as a meaningful organization to young researchers through programs and initiatives that recognize the challenges and opportunities in the lives of young researchers. Local chapters can then provide specific programmatic activities that will attract participation by the membership and especially help to retain new initiates. Participation of new members can be increased by strengthening support for research symposia, speaker programs and possibly increasing service learning opportunities with outreach to the local community especially at both ends of the age distribution. It might also be attractive to emphasize programmatic activities dealing with diversity, ethics, career management, overall professional development, etc., to sensitize young scientists and engineers to do what it takes beyond disciplinary skills to be successful leaders in their profession.

As a long term faculty and academic administrator I value diversity. I want to have an impact on the education of the next generation. For me, diversity means increasing minority participation in all areas of science, but it also includes dealing with too small numbers of women in certain areas of engineering. The value of diversity is that different points of view and approaches improve problem solving at all levels. Sigma Xi should have a core goal to increase diversity in the sciences and engineering, and improve the gender gap in all areas. Attention should be given to recognition of progress in these areas both locally and nationally.  Perhaps more explicit programming to increase diversity in local chapters could be encouraged, for example encouraging the National Society of Black Engineers, the National Society of Hispanic Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers (which have extensive local sections) to interact with Sigma Xi and to have graduate alumni of those organizations join the society. Analogs of the two minority organizations focused on the sciences should be targets of opportunity as well.

Sigma Xi has taken a significant step in the decision to sell its office building in the Research Triangle Park. This is an important step and the savings obtained as well as other efficiencies in staff operation should slow the financial decline of the Society. However relief needs to come by bolstering the membership and retention of members in their early years. Local chapters can be effective participants in the retention effort and should be given incentives to acknowledge successful programmatic efforts in this direction. In those areas where major corporations are in proximity of the local section they should be approached for sponsorship of special activities that align with their interests. Most major corporations encourage outreach by their executives on issues such as workforce development regarding K–12 and minority issues including some that foster building the pipeline in science and engineering. Sigma Xi can tie into this activity with creative programming proposals to key corporate decision makers. 

One item that is particularly important to me is the scientific education of the public. This is a well-recognized societal problem and organizations much larger than Sigma Xi are concerned about this as well.  Sigma Xi could do well by partnering with AAAS as well as disciplinary societies and institutes such as ACS, APS, IEEE, AIChE, ASCE, etc., to address this issue. The long term solution is to start at the bottom and support programmatic activity that improves K–12 education and to support STEM initiatives arising at the state and local levels. It might also be possible to develop activities to bring some light on inappropriately controversial subjects with scientific content. Let us think of a venue where such topics as genetic engineering in human health, genetically modified plants, nuclear energy, fracking, alternative fuels, etc. could be discussed in terms of the science and engineering involved along with issues of advantages and disadvantages of such technologies. Partnerships with professional and scientific societies' conferences where researchers present their work will be key in this as well as other aspects of the future of Sigma Xi. In particular, I strongly believe in “convergence”, that is the practice of bringing together scientists and researchers from a wide range of disciplines to solve important problems.

Sigma Xi as a society in the form of its officers, its board, and its capable and dedicated HQ staff, should redouble efforts to understand the make-up of our membership. Approaches to mining the information the Society has on members, current and lapsed (relative to dues paying status) should be further developed to promote deep understanding their professional interests, responsiveness to their needs, and the ability to appeal to their sense of professional responsibility as researchers. There have been significant improvements in using information technology to communicate with members and to encourage communication among members. Such steps should be further emphasized.