Microbelibrary - Focus on Microbiology Education Newsmagazine

Message from Division W Chairs
Current Division W Chair
I want to take this opportunity to reflect on Division W activities this year and explore prospects for the future. First of all thanks and appreciation go out to Ed Alcamo, Sue Katz, John Lennox, and the rest of the crew responsible for the production of a newsletter of exceptional quality. We are fortunate to have so many dedicated colleagues who are willing to donate their time for the benefit of us all.

Plans for the General Meeting are in place. We will have two poster sessions, a materials exchange (also called a poster session), two seminars, a roundtable, and a seminar in conjunction with a colloquium. The sessions have been planned for minimum conflict. The divisional lecturer this year is Bill Costerton. His talk is entitled: "Biofilms: The Crossroads Where All of Microbiology Meets." It is scheduled for Monday, May 20, at 2:00 p.m, preceding the roundtable on "Effective Strategies for Providing Undergraduate Research Experiences." The division business meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 21, at 11:00 a.m. You should be alerted to the change of time for the daily sessions if you didn't already catch it. The morning sessions are scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m. and the afternoon sessions to begin at 2:00 p.m. I guess the change has been put into place to enable us all to get to Mother's for lunch! The evening "sessions" on Bourbon St. are going to have to be curtailed somewhat to allow attendees to make the 8:00 a.m. scientific sessions!

As you will notice at the meeting, there are no update sessions scheduled this year. The only way we could have had such sessions was to sacrifice some of our other invited sessions. Each division has been limited to the total number of sessions they can sponsor. The General Meeting Planning Committee has interpreted the updates to be the equivalent of an invited session. If you feel that these sessions should be continued, I encourage you to communicate such to the chair of the General Meeting Planning Committee and the president of the society.

We were very fortunate this year in having the luxury of being able to sponsor four invited sessions. I imagine that in future years we can expect to only have three sessions allocated. The chair and chair-elect are responsible for planning division sessions, so it is important that the division membership give them early input so that high-quality, relevant sessions can be organized. We have some great people coming on board in July. Jean Douthwright will assume leadership as chair of the division, Kathleen Jagger is incoming chair-elect, and Janet Dettloff is alternate councilor. As division chair, I feel we need to solicit additional abstracts for poster sessions since the number of invited sessions will be limited. The number of poster sessions is not limited, and as long as we can continue to ensure abstracts of high quality, we can have productive and worthwhile interactions at the General Meeting. Jean is interested in developing new topics for poster sessions and would be delighted to receive your input. We need to alleviate the confusion concerning the scheduling of presentations needing computer or video capabilities. We know this session as "Materials Exchange," but the society has labeled these papers as posters. I am happy to have them continue to do so, for then the session does not count toward our allocation. The membership needs to be more aware, however, when submitting an abstract that needs video or computer hookups that their abstracts, if accepted, will be presented as talks in a regular meeting room.

The Undergraduate Education Conferences preceding the General Meeting have proved to be extremely popular and worthwhile. We need to continue our efforts in this area, but we also need to plan interesting sessions and accept abstracts of high quality to make the General Meeting attractive to the membership. It is at the General Meeting that many important activities of the division take place, particularly the division business meeting. To continue to grow as a division, we need to have membership involvement at the General Meeting.

It has been a pleasure to serve as your chair-elect and division chair. I appreciate the help, advice, and cooperation I have received from so many of you. The number of members in Division W is over 400 and growing. I am hoping that with dual divisional membership, our numbers will grow even more. I wish the incoming officers much success.

Philip Stukus
Denison University

Incoming Division W Chair
Many thanks to Phil Stukus for his fine work and leadership as the second chair of ASM's new Education Division (W). With your help we can continue to grow and be productive members of our society.

As chair-elect this past year I have met and talked with some of you at the second undergraduate education conference and the national meeting. Please let your colleagues know about our new division. Recently at the Florida Branch chapter and a Cold Spring Harbor Workshop I met ASM members who have not attended recent national meetings. I encouraged them (one of whom was instrumental in setting up Division W) to think about attending. I also encourage them and you to attend the third annual undergraduate meeting in Baton Rouge just before the national meeting in New Orleans. We need your help and input to be successful as a division in ASM.

Another colleague I met teaches using a creative laboratory project. Her students clone DNA into a microbe which lacks a promoter. These engineered strains are then analyzed for expression in Escherichia coli and a mammalian system. I suggested submitting this work for a poster session. What do you do that could be used by other faculty? You can gather many new ideas for innovative teaching at our sessions and share with faculty what works for you. Remember that ASM has different types of funding available to faculty who are involved in microbiology education. Call the national office for more information.

In addition to a growing homepage on the world wide web, ASM is developing a CD-ROM with microbial images of biofilms. These images will be available for use by educators. You and your students will be able to incorporate these images into multimedia presentations, on a homepage, or as a transparency. You will see demonstrations of how these images can be incorporated into our teaching and research at the Baton Rouge and New Orleans meetings.

Each year at this time we are planning for next year's programs. Please contact Phil or me with your ideas, suggestions, and constructive comments. We welcome input because your ideas help us determine what sessions we should be organizing for next year's meeting.

Remember to request an ASM Foundation Lecturer for your branch meeting. There are a number of microbiology education topics to choose from as well as excellent research topics. The Waksman foundation funds these lectures and pays all expenses.

Jean Douthright
Rochester Institute of Technology

Newsletter Planning Committee
I. Edward Alcamo, Editor, State University of New York
Marianne Crocker, Ozark Technical Community College
Betty Eidemiller, ASM staff
Sean Ervin, Saba University School of Medicine
Sue Katz, Doane College
John Lennox, Penn State Altoona
Dorothy May, Park College
Jeff Sich, Washington University