OAS has 102nd Technical Meeting

The Oklahoma Academy of Science met at Cameron University in Lawton for its 102^nd Annual Technical Meeting on November 8 and 9, 2013. Think about that. Oklahoma is not a very old state, yet its Academy of Science has had 102 technical meetings. (Technical meetings are for presentations and posters, as opposed to the spring and fall field meetings.) According to Executive Director David Bass, OAS is one of the most active state academies in the United States.

The Executive Council met on Thursday evening, November 8. The Executive Council consists of the Executive Director, the officers, and section chairs. The Council reviewed the (very good) financial condition of OAS, locations of future meetings (watch the OAS website and this blog for updates), participation in the Collegiate Academy (undergraduate papers), and the Junior Academy of Sciences (high school posters in conjunction with the state science fair). The Council also unanimously approved a statement affirming global climate change, which was based on the most recent IPCC report and which affirmed the right and responsibility of Oklahoma scientists to speak out and to teach about global climate change. The Council also agreed to sponsor (in name) another Oklahoma Evolution Road Trip in the summer of 2014. (You can read here about the 2013 road trip, organized by Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education and sponsored in name by OAS. The permalink is in reverse chronological order; scroll down to the five road trip entries.)

Most of the presentations were on Friday morning, November 9. There were 264 registrants, of which about 240 were present, plus Cameron University undergraduates. Out of the 81 presentations and posters, there were at least 26 undergraduate oral presentations and at least nine undergraduate posters, and five graduate student presentations. There was also a presentation by a high school student.

Since each section independently scheduled presentations, some of us discovered that almost everything happened between 10:00 and 11:00, which included not only presentations but judging. This may explain why some of the sections had very small audiences. As the new president, I would like to consider ways in which this intense concentration of riches into one time period could be spread out a little. If you have ideas, send them to me (srice@se.edu) or to the Executive Director (dbass@uco.edu).

In particular, there were very few participants in the Science Communication and Education section, which should be of interest to everyone in the Academy, since we all teach students and communicate with the public even if we do not have education degrees. One possible reason was that this section conflicted with all the others. This section sponsored a discussion about online courses. The participants agreed that online courses for credit and MOOCs are two very different things, but we need to have a coordinated response to how to use them constructively. Administrators may be open to our ideas rather than just imposing them on us, but we need to present these ideas to them; and what better way to do this than for our statewide Academy of generate these ideas rather than individual faculty or institutions? I would like to have this conversation continue, since the four of us who discussed them represent only a tiny slice of the Academy.

At the Academy business meeting, updates from the Executive Council were announced, and the membership unanimously approved the same statement on global climate change as the Executive Council had approved. This statement will be on the Academy web page soon, and is expected to be endorsed by Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education (OESE). OESE is more of an activist organization and will be promoting the awareness of global climate change; OAS, as an academy of scientists, has simply gone on record regarding the scientific reality of global climate change.

After the noon banquet, the new president of Cameron University, Dr. John McArthur (a former colleague of mine at Southeastern Oklahoma State University), welcomed the academy. The symbolic gavel of presidency was transferred from outgoing president Craig Clifford to new president Stan Rice; Terry Conley, dean at Cameron, was announced as the president-elect. Left to right: Craig Clifford, Terry Conley, John McArthur.

Terry will take over as president after fall 2015. Dr. Darrin Akin of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, told the Academy about the work of INBRE and the importance of Individual Development Plans for student success at every level, including medical school.

Dr. Terry Conley organized a day-long symposium in which eleven speakers examined the Wichita Mountains from many different academic perspectives, whether scientific, social, or artistic. The OAS leadership hopes that such symposia will become a regular part of OAS Technical Meetings. I have organized cross-disciplinary symposia for the national meeting of the Botanical Society of America twice, both times with qualified success: cross-disciplinary symposia are not necessarily the best things for narrowly disciplinary society meetings. But OAS should be the perfect place to have symposia that draw interest from across the sciences and beyond.

Every year, the OAS Technical Meeting is an important event for all of us. For many students, it provides an opportunity to jump into the world of scientific presentations. For many professionals, it provides an opportunity to exchange ideas and hear new perspectives. I know that is what I look forward to most at OAS meetings, including the field meetings. (In photo above, left to right: Ken Hobson, Bill Caire, Gloria Caddell.)

If you missed the meeting, there's always next year, at the Broken Arrow campus of Northeastern Oklahoma State University!

Stan Rice, president