APS in 2004

ny organization, no matter how strong, should periodically examine itself. This was aprimary goal for my year as APSPresident. The APS leadership worked to develop along-range view of APS, to consider the Society’s goals and values, examine its internal andexternal interactions, and focus efforts on the larger issues facing physics and APS. Discussionbegan at the convocation of APS unit leaders in January and continued throughout the year.Concrete results include a new vision statement (see http://www.aps.org/exec/index.cfm), heightened activity by many APS committees, new efforts for public visibility for APS, and streamlined agendas for the Executive Board to allow time forthe big picture issues. The work continues to influence the Society’s decisions in many less visible ways.In 2004, APS worked on visa issues in coalition with many educational and professional societies. The visa situationimproved significantly throughout the year. Physics department chairs reported improvements in on-time arrival of newforeign graduate students. Delays of visas because of security reviews were much reduced. Much remains to be done torepair the harm that has been done to international collaborative efforts. Denials of visas to students and young scientistsare still frequent. APS will continue to work to improve this situation.For the first time ever, the APS March meeting was held outside the US

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in Montreal. The largest ever attendance of about 6,100 included many from outside the US, especially Canadians. Fewer foreign students studying in the USattended due to concerns that they could have trouble with their reentry.During 2004, the APS Study on Boost Phase Intercept Missile Defense published its final report (RMP 76,S1-424).Panel on Public Affairs (POPA) subcommittees carried out three smaller studies: The Hydrogen Initiative, the Modern PitFacility, and the Moon-Mars Program (http://www.aps.org/public_affairs/popa/reports/index.cfm). All these studies havebeen brought to the attention of relevant Congressional committees and have engendered media attention.Two important activities of the APS are not known by many members: Department Chairs Conferences and NewFaculty Workshops. The biennial Department Chairs Conference held in June, 2004, in cooperation with the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), emphasized graduate education. About 90 chairs from across the countryexchanged ideas and profited from each other’s wisdom. Held in November, a successful New Faculty Workshop, run jointly with AAPT and the American Astronomical Society had capacity attendance.Following the work of the 2003 APS Task Force on Professional Ethics, ethics remained a prominent issue. In April,Council approved a Statement on the Treatment of Subordinates (see http://www.aps.org/statements/04_1.cfm). Itemphasizes that “subordinates should be treated with respect and with concern for their well-being.” This reflectsconcerns expressed by many junior members in the ethics task force survey, concerns we must all take very seriously.Ihope that all physics departments now include some explicit professional ethics education in their graduate program,and that they will devote some faculty time to discuss the issues reflected in this statement. APS is in good financial health. One of my goals has been to streamline the budgeting process, clarifying what are theimportant financial decisions that Council must make each year, not all of which occur at budget time, and building astronger sense of what these decisions mean for the future of the society. The money that constitutes our unrestrictedreserves functions like an endowment. We budget a draw against these reserves that, with membership dues, supportsactivities such as education and public information. The reserves also provide a buffer for changes as the scientificpublishing world moves towards open access electronic publishing. We must be prepared to ensure that the Society cansurvive whatever changes occur. This was a major topic of discussion in our long-range planning. However, in 2004, costreductions in journal publishing gave us a stronger than expected financial return (and led to price reductions for 2005).Finally, I turn to what APS is all about

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physics. Research funding remains very tight. The efforts of our WashingtonOffice are critical in a time of broad budget cuts, to defend the need for research funding. Despite tight funding, thecommunity continues to produce exciting results across the spectrum of physics: a magnet made from carbon nanofoam;better evidence that the expansion of the Universe is beginning to accelerate; infrared sensing to locate veins; observationof parity violation in electron-electron scattering; an optical Hall effect … these and many more results show acommunity at work on many fronts. Both physics as a discipline and the APS as a society remain vital and active.Helen Quinn APS2004 President

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

ver the last decade, rising submissions to APS researchpublications have driven or strongly affected nearlyevery other effort in the APS Editorial Office. In this pastyear, 28,691 papers came into the Editorial Office forconsideration, an increase of 5.2% over 2003. TheEditor-in-Chief worries about this relentless increase, butstates that a decrease would worry him still more: worryis the constant. A cadre of excellent young editors, manywith international backgrounds, have joined the staff inthe last few years. It is gratifying that APS is abletoattract individuals of this caliber, and their commitment,contributions and enthusiasm have enlivened the office.So far, the highly skilled and productive JournalOperations staff members, who assist the editors withtheir work, have been able to handle the additionalpapers without additional staff.Two additional editors are likely to be needed thisyear due to continued growth in manuscriptsubmissions, and space is once again an issue. Expansionof the editorial office is problematic, given its location inthe environmentally sensitive Pine Barrens area of LongIsland. Other options are being explored, such asprocuring additional local office space, increasingtelecommuting, and researching the possibility of anoverseas editorial office

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in recognition of the fact thattwo-thirds of authors are outside the US. These optionsare viable thanks to Prism, the up-and-running fullyelectronic editorial system that is the outcome of nearly adecade of analysis, planning, and hard work, and whichreplaces the bulky and vulnerable paper-based system.Migration of the entire office from the old Unix-basedsystem to a new Macintosh environment was part of theproject as well, and was accomplished in 2004 by thevigorous Journal Information Systems staff, withdedicated support from the Facilities Services staff duringdeployment. Another constant concern at the Editorial Office isround-the-clock continuity of service to the worldwidephysics community. On the several occasions of electricalpower failure in 2004, the propane-powered generatorwas called into duty and served with distinction. Everydesktop computer is equipped with an uninterruptiblepower supply to avoid any loss of data in the instantbefore the generator kicks in. A surprising breach inInternet service led to planning for an additional andmore reliable source and provider.New composition and production vendors have beenengaged for both

Physical Review D

and

Physical Review C.

Competitive pricing is one motivation for the switch, andbusiness continuity is another. In the event of a problemwith one of the three vendors, another could likely takeup the slack. Well-controlled expenses and savings as aresult of the new vendors allowed APS to lowerinstitutional subscription prices for journals for 2005.The issues of ethics and misconduct in physicspublishing are not likely to go away anytime soon.Several new cases arose this year, including one thatinvolved plagiarism in another journal of a

PhysicalReview

paper that was 40 years old. A broad but succinctset of guidelines on ethical conduct in scientificpublishing has been created, coming out of an IUPAP-sponsored workshop held in October, 2003. Detailsabout the workshop and the guidelines are available athttp://www.iupap.org/working/workshop.shtml.Scholarly publishers, authors, readers, andgovernment agencies continued the dialogue on “openaccess” in the past year, with the APS Editor-in-Chief andPublisher listening carefully and when appropriate,participating in the discussion. The term “open access”isslightly better defined, and there is improvedunderstanding of the diversity of the fields involved, andtheir varying suitability for the open-access model. Publicinterest in biomedical research, the field’s presentgenerous federal funding, and the level of presentationofits papers, make the biomedical field perhaps moresuited to open access than physics is. Recovery of realcosts is the bottom line, and a publisher like APS, withacommitment to updating and maintaining an archiveindefinitely, cannot enter into an unproven fundingmodel.