Members and Meetings
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Members and Meetings Gordon £. Pike MRS President Recently a colleague came to my office to inquire about symposium topics planned for the MRS meetings next year. He had attended his first MRS meeting last December and was impressed by the number and quality of papers related to his presented work. Having made significant progress and new discoveries this summer, he was looking forward to the opportunity of presenting his results at another one of our symposia. He expressed considerable disappointment when I told him there was no symposium topic scheduled during the next several meetings for which his findings would beappropriate. The symposium he had participated in last year was not being repeated, and the topical coverage in related areas did not embrace his current work. This situation occurs commonly and regularly, and it illustrates a dichotomy within the Society. On one hand we want our symposia to address in-depth, interdisciplinary issues associated with fresh, emerging technologies and the development of advanced materials. This requires a commensurate selection of topics, and a narrow focus on the important features of those chosen. For a variety of reasons— including our criteria, the intensity of new developments in a field, and meetings on a similar topic elsewhere—the topics and issues at our meetings can and do change yearly. This puts a substantial number of members in a position similar to that of my colleague, and that position is not conducive to the development of a stable membership. Members of most other technical societies are accustomed to the unrestricted right to present a paper at their major, general meetings. The Materials Research Society does not provide its members with such a guarantee. Instead we expect our symposium chairs to accept only those papers which are relevant to the defined symposium topic. For many researchers, especially in tight economic times, the difficulty with this restriction is compounded by institutional requirements of an accepted paper as a condition for attendance at a meeting. Unable to attend a technical meeting of MRS because their work is not directly pertinent to a scheduled symposium, the members tend to lose affinity for the Society. Thus by strict enforcement of the noble objectives of the Society, we have created an instability (or even an alienation) mechanism among the membership. But with an unstable membership, how can the
In spite of (an) apparently selfdestructive mechanism and its consequent membership instability, MRS has experienced a rapid and sustained growth over the past ten years.
Society possibly function to successfully fulfill its objectives? The answer to this question is not simple. In spite of this apparently self-destructive mechanism and itsconsequent membership instability, MRS has experienced a rapid and sustained rate of growth over the past ten years. This growth isdue mainly to the concept and production of interdisciplinary symposia on forefront materials topics. The appeal for this type of forum is very strong, and th
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