Annual Reports of the Officers and Standing Committees

• Officer Reports
  • President's Report
  • Treasurer's Report
  • Secretary's Report
  • Intersociety Liaison

• Committee Reports
  • 2004 Program Committee
  • 2004 Local Host Committee
  • Nominating Committee
  • Committee for the Advancement and Encouragement of Neurochemistry in Latin America
  • Standing Rules Committee
  • Marian Kies Award Committee
  • Jordi Folch-Pi Award Committee
  • Basic Neurochemistry Editorial Board
  • Membership Committee
  • Public Policy, Outreach and Publicity Committee
  • Presidential Advisory Committee
  • Young Investigator Education Enhancement Committee
  • 2005 Program Committee
  • 2005 Local Host Committee

Officer Reports

President's Report

Since I assumed the office of President at the last council meeting in Newport Beach, in collaboration with the Council and the Officers of the Society (Treasurer, Secretary, and Past-President) a number of things have been accomplished as listed below:

A special council meeting was convened at the Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans. The meeting was well attended and allowed us to get some serious issues resolved without the constraints of time that the Council meetings operate under at the annual meeting. (See below)

At the Council meeting at Neuroscience, the meetings were planned for four years in advance: NYC- 2004 (Bob Ledeen-Program Chair; Bob Gould-Local Host Chair); Madison-2005 (Doug Feinstein Program Chair, Ian Duncan-Local Host Chair); 2006 Portland (Monica Carson-Program Chair, TBA Local Host Chair); 2007-Cancun (joint with ISN no chairs named yet). This future planning has allowed us to get excellent room rates and to publicize our meetings in advance. The advance publicity should be evident to you at the NYC meeting during which we will publicize the Madison meeting.

The offices of Treasurer elect and Secretary elect were established to allow for an orderly transition in these offices. On-line voting was utilized for the first time and appeared to work well. Jean Merrill was elected to the office of Treasurer-elect and Gary Gibson was elected to the office of Secretary elect.

All the standing committees of the society were reformulated with each committee having new members serving. Terms have been established for each committee member. Half the committee will rotate off each two years and a new chair will be appointed every 4 years. This was a labor intensive and tedious task but well worth the effort. Rotation and terms of appointment will insure that more members of the society (especially the younger members) will play a role in the society and create loyalty to the society.

The former two committees which related to Latin America (Inter-American Cooperation Committee and Young Latin American Scholars Committee) have been combined into a single committee: Committee for the Advancement and Encouragement of Neurochemistry in Latin America. This will allow us as a society to deal more efficiently with all matters Latin American.

A committee has been established to advise the President on matters related to the future of the society. This committee is appropriately named the Presidential Advisory Committee. It function is to develop new ideas and initiatives which will keep the society moving ahead.

A jointly sponsored ASN/ISN reception was held at the last SFN meeting to encourage attendance at our meetings. The reception ran for two nights and was well attended. We plan to hold this reception again at the next SFN meeting. We were too late last year to get the event in the official program- but this year wit will be listed and we are hoping for continued good attendance.

Mailing letters of invitation more aggressively advertised the NYC meeting with the program to neuroscience departments in the NYC vicinity.

This appears to have been a good strategy based on the strong preregistration for the meeting.

A number on innovations will be initiated at the NYC meeting:
A conversation room where people can sit and exchange ideas etc.
Lunches with speakers and symposia participants- almost sold out at this point.
Four oral sessions orientated toward younger speakers.

The financial picture for the NYC meeting looks good in spite of the cost for the venue. If we finish in the black or break even it will be the first time in several years.

Planning for the Madison meeting is well underway and we should have an outstanding venue and program again for 2005.

In spite of these advances there continue to be concerns, which need to be addressed. Collection of dues continues to be a problem with 614 paid and 303 due- (Have you paid your dues?) We need to develop a strategy to collect this money in a timely manner. In addition financial arrangements for the session organizers need to be clear prior to accepting a symposia, workshop or colloquium for the meeting. We need to have a consistent policy of what we offer to each participating speaker. We also need to continue to pursue a possible journal for the society for a number of reasons including raising the visibility of the society and providing (eventually) an income stream for the society. There continues to be interest from a number of publishers in helping us get a journal started. Our annual meetings need to be better attended to maintain our financial viability. We need to develop a membership brochure for recruiting new members to the society. We also need a sustainable source of support for our Latin American program.

Overall the ASN is in good shape and continues to improve. I thank all of you for your input and help in continuing to improve the society and secure its future.

George De Vries, President

Treasurer's Report

ASN incurred a considerable loss in assets during the 2003 fiscal year, $38,459, largely from expenses for the 2003 Annual Meeting in Newport Beach, California (see itemized 2003 budget below). The escalating costs of annual meetings pose a looming threat to the ASN budget, which closed the 2003 fiscal year with total assets of $364,224. For the 2003 meeting, two factors contributed to a deficit of nearly $60,000: a relatively low attendance level (less than 450 registrants) and a high ratio of speakers to attendees (nearly 1 in 3 participants were speakers, most of which were reimbursed for their participation). A number of policy changes are being entertained to trim costs or generate additional income for the annual meeting. One positive development has been the addition of Dr. Jean Merrill as fundraiser in 2003 and Treasurer-Elect in 2004. A long-standing ASN member, Jean has been simply phenomenal in raising money from pharmaceutical companies - for the 2004 NYC meeting, Aventis alone contributed $40,000 for the 2004 NYC meeting and over $5,000 for the Marian Kies fund.

The society continues to carry out its mission of mentoring young neuroscientists by disseminating travel awards. For the 2004 New York City ASN meeting, $20,000 was distributed for Young Investigator Awards, $12,000 for the Young Latin American Scholar Award, $1,500 for the Marian Kies Award and $1,500 for the Folch-Pi Award. The society gratefully acknowledges the $4,500 contribution of our former president, Dr. Nick Bazan, to facilitate the travel of our valued Argentinean colleagues to the 2004 meeting.

FY2003

Secretary's Report

Amendment to the Bylaws
At the special meeting held in New Orleans on November 9, 2003 during the SFN meeting the Council voted to submit a proposal to the membership to amend the Bylaws to create the positions of Secretary-Elect and Treasurer-Elect. Working with Cara-Lynne Schengrund, ASN's Parliamentarian, I set up an online form for the membership to vote on these amendments and sent out an email announcement to the membership requesting their votes on February 14, 2004 with a reminder on March 3, 2004. Both amendments were passed by the membership on April 8, 2004. Of the 171 ballots that were cast 166 were valid. The amendment to create the position of Treasure-Elect was approved 162 to 2 and the amendment to create the position of Secretary-Elect was approved 162 to 3.

Special Election for Secretary-Elect and Treasurer-Elect
The Nominating Committee polled the membership for nominations for these two new positions using electronic communication. The resulting slate was Gary Gibson and Steve Levison as candidates for Secretary-Elect and Jean Merrill and Joe Eichberg as candidates for Treasurer-Elect. I set up an online voting system with the option of voting by mail or fax and emailed the membership requesting votes on June 25, 2004 with a reminder sent on July 14, 2004. The deadline was July 23, 2004. We received 169 valid votes online and none by mail or fax. Sheilah Jewart served as the official teller. The tallies for the two positions were Gary Gibson, 94 and Steve Levison, 68 for Secretary-Elect and Jean Merrill, 92 and Joe Eichberg, 75 for Treasurer-Elect. George DeVries has contacted the candidates. The terms of the Secretary Elect and the Treasurer Elect will be for the year (2004-2005) prior to assuming the duties of Secretary and Treasurer, respectively, for the term of 2005-2007.

Membership
I have worked closely with the Membership Committee in gathering approvals from Council for their nominations for new members and writing welcoming letters. Additionally, pursuant to the motion passed by Council, I sent letters in January to speakers at the 34th annual meeting that were not members of ASN inviting them to join and offering a year's free membership. Of the 68 letters mailed we received 25 applications for membership. We plan to make this offer this year.

Web site
I continue to maintain the ASN web site primarily because it is easier to do so than to find and train someone else. To move some of the web site responsibilities the Internet Committee, I am working with Dr. Eric Klann, the chair of the Internet Committee who is also at Baylor College of Medicine. I will also offer to move some of the responsibilities to the incoming Secretary. At this point I do not think it is justifiable to hire an outside service for our web site. I have sent in an application to formally register the web site with the Library of Congress. The expenses associated with the web site are $239.40 for web hosting and $30 for copyright registration.

Newsletter
For the past few years ASN's newsletter was incorporated with other regional newsletters in the "Neurochemistry News" sponsored by the International Society for Neurochemistry at no cost to us. At their annual meeting in 2003 the ISN Council voted to reduce the size of the "Neurochemistry News" that is mailed to the membership and move more to relying on an online version. The June 2004 issue of the newsletter was the first using this format. The ASN portion of the newsletter is a little more than a half page. The bulk of the ASN news is on the web site and is regularly updated. If the Society wishes to include a hard copy newsletter that contains more news than that contained in the abbreviated "Neurochemistry News" we will have to do this on our own. It is my belief that the online version of the ASN Newsletter is sufficient for our needs and is certainly more economical and current than a hard copy version so I recommend that the ASN only publish an online newsletter.

Email Announcements
We have been using email announcement with greater frequency and relying on them more. I continue to attempt to keep the number of announcements low in order to keep their impact high. We are using the listserve service at Baylor College of Medicine at no cost to us but access is limited to BCM personnel. Currently, of the approximately 920 members, approximately 860 have valid email addresses. Therefore, not all members receive email announcements.

Directory
At this time there is no plan to publish a hard copy of the directory of ASN members but to solely rely on the online version. To date, I have refused requests from companies and individuals for our directory listing which could be a revenue source. Council may wish to establish a policy for selling our membership list to companies.

David Shine, Secretary

Intersociety Liaison
I would like to acknowledge the excellent job done by Regino Perez-Polo who held the position of intersociety liaison from 2002-2004.

The ISN council met in Paris in August 2003 because the ISN meeting in Hong Kong had been cancelled. Peter Dunkley completed his term as the President of ISN and Arne Schousboe is currently the President of ISN. The other ISN officers are Roger Butterworth, Treasurer and Augustina Garcia, Secretary. Current ISN Council members are Vera Adam-Vizi - Hungary, George DeVries - USA, Fernando Garcia de Mello - Brasil, Gianfrancesco Goracci - Italy, Kazuhiro Ikenaka - Japan, Mary McKenna - USA, Polycarp Nwoha - Nigeria, Peter Roberts - UK, Ursula Sonnewald - Norway, Hermona Soreq - Israel, Bernard Zalc - France.

During this meeting the site was chosen for the Joint ISN/ASN Meeting in 2007. ASN President George DeVries was present (he is also an ISN Council Member) and Wendy Macklin, incoming President for ASN was also present for the selection of the meeting site.

Joint ISN/ASN Meeting in Cancun in 2007
There were two proposals for the joint ISN/ASN meeting in 2007, from Montreal, Canada and Cancun, Mexico. These were presented to the ISN Council and also the current ASN officers and Wendy Macklin, who will be ASN president in 2007. The proposal from Cancun was approved by a majority. It was thought that the local neuroscience community is somewhat weaker in Mexico compared to Canada (Montreal) and that a meeting held in Mexico would be of great importance for the neurochemistry in Mexico as well as South America. This aspect needs to be considered when a decision is made since one of the aims of having the biennial meeting is to promote neurochemistry in areas where it may be less well developed. The student's fee was also debated as the fee was lower in the proposal from Cancun than that of Montreal, but it was concluded that if necessary the student's fee could be changed. Council also considered that the hotel rates in Cancun were substantially lower than those in Montreal.

The 21st Biennial Meeting of the ISN held as a joint meeting with ASN August 19-24, 2007 at the Centro de Convenciones Cancún, Cancún, México (Details of the proposal taken from the Minutes of the ISN) The neuroscience community in Mexico City represented by Dr. Ricardo Tapia, Dr. Herminia Pasantes and Dr. Julio Moran had suggested Cancun as the venue for the 2007 ISN to be organised jointly with the ASN. Cancun has a spacious conference facility where four large lecture rooms are available together with space for poster presentation. This is within walking distance surrounded by a number of hotels of different categories ranging from five stars to adequate student accommodations. The prices range from USD 60 to 120 per night. Cancun is easily accessible from a large number of cities in North and South America as well as from Europe. Accessability from the Asian Pacific region is somewhat more complicated. The registration fee was estimated to be 350 USD. Arne Schousboe had inspected the site as well as the hotels and clearly the facilities are excellent for our needs. The proposal was presented by Ricardo Tapia. The proposal for the Cancun meeting was approved by the ISN Council.

The 20th Biennial Meeting of the ISN will be held jointly with the ESN in Innsbruck, Austria August 21-26, 2005. Alois Saria is head of the local organizing committee. The Program is excellent and is on the ISN web page. Phil Beart is the Program Committee chairman. The deadlines are listed in the table. The ISN always provides a large number of travel awards for young investigators.

Conference Committee
The ISN Conference Committee has a substantial budget to support small conferences and meeting sessions. The committee provides financial support for the organisation of small conferences on specialised neurochemical topics (up to US $ 15,000). Additionally, the ISN-CC sponsors neurochemistry symposia within meetings of other scientific societies or groups (up to US $ 7,000). Applications are examined by the ISN-CC and are granted on a competitive basis according to guidelines listed on the ISN web page. Individuals in ASN should be aware of this and apply for ISN support when appropriate.

Focused meetings
The ISN will support regional focused meeting during "off years" when the ISN meetings are not held. The budget for the 2004 Focused Meeting was ~$150,000 USD. These meetings will rotate through the different regions (Americas, Europe, Asian Pacific).

ISN Committee for Aid and Education in Neurochemistry (CAEN)
Steve Pfeiffer is the Chairman of the CAEN Committee. The ISN Committee for Aid and Education in Neurochemistry (CAEN) has been very active during the past two years funding travel and equipment needs for investigators in disadvantaged countries. In 2002-2003 CAEN funds were dispersed to scientists from 19 countries (Argentina, India, Brazil, Uruguay, Russia, Hungary, Canada, Croatia, Congo, Nigeria, Morocco, and Bulgaria, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Armenia. This support has been for small research grants for the applicant's laboratory (2), attendance at scientific meeting (6), support of neurochemistry schools, workshops and meetings (3), and travel to carry out research in another laboratory (3). In addition, CAEN oversaw the awarding of $28,000 in one-time small research grants to 16 Argentinean neurochemists; the selection committee was made up of a small group of non-competing Argentinean scientists (Podesta, Paladini, Caputto, Pasquini) chaired by Dr. Eduardo Soto.

In 2003-2004 the committee has also been very active and support has been given to scientists from a number of countries including funds for our colleagues from Argentina to attend the ASN meeting.

Liaison Committee
The ISN has formed a Liaison committee to facilitate interaction with other societies. The chair is Hermona Soreq from Israel. The individual members interact with specific societies. I am the member designated to interact with the ISN.

This is a time of excellent relations and cooperation with the ISN as the leaders of both societies are intent on fostering intersociety cooperation. This is particularly important as the planning for the 2007 joint meeting progresses.

Mary C. McKenna, Intersociety Liaison

Committee Reports

2004 Program Committee
The work of this committee is nearing completion. Last year our selection of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel as the meeting site in New York City resulted from successful negotiations with the hotel by Sheilah Jewart, our new ASN Business Manager and Meeting Planner, including a room rate of $175 (incredible for this landmark hotel). The Program Committee invested considerable effort in selecting 4 excellent plenary speakers: Bruce McEwen, Susumu Tonegawa, Martin Schwab, and Marianne Bronner-Fraser. Their lecture topics reflect the broad interests of ASN membership.

The first meeting of the Program Committee occurred the day after the Newport Beach meeting, and proved useful for determining general policies. We also reviewed many session proposals that had been submitted by the membership; more came in subsequently. These were generally of high quality so most were accepted, and the program includes 20 symposia plus 4 workshops. The committee decided not to include colloquia, these being virtually indistinguishable from symposia in terms of content. This was also in accord with the committee's decision to reduce program density. In keeping with tradition, 2 of the symposia were organized by winners of the Marian Kies and Jordi Folch-Pi Awards. Four sessions of oral presentations by students/postdocs were organized by Sandra Hewett, Karen Chandross, and Monica Carson. Finally, a bumper crop of poster abstracts were received, requiring poster sessions on all 4 days of the meeting.

A pre-meeting all day workshop on RNA interference (Aug. 14) has been organized by Nick Ingoglia with 5 or 6 scheduled speakers who will explain the basic theory, methodology, and applications of this relatively new field. Pre-registrations indicate substantial interest. The final program brochure will be printed in the near future, and we are in the final stages of reviewing the abstract volume to be published by Blackwell. The Program Committee has done its best to organize a meeting that will serve the interests of ASN membership.

Robert Ledeen, July 14, 2004

2004 Local Host Committee
We helped identify the meeting site, the Waldorf-Astoria, the reception site (SkyLight Room at Waldorf), site for the student-postdoc dinner (Marion's in the Village) and the Banquet (Tavern-on-the-Green). We also arranged a speaker for the banquet (Cheryl Dreyfus) and an activity (tango lessons and dancing). We arranged the audiovisual with staff from the Waldorf, and exhibitors for the meeting. We pressed the program committee to increase the time allotted for poster sessions and interactions with exhibitors. We organized volunteers to help at registration and at the sessions. We also obtained information to be distributed at the Waldorf on nearby restaurants. Sheilah Jewart and George Devries assisted us in many of these activities.

Bob Gould, Chair

Nominating Committee
A special election was held to fill the newly created ASN Officer positions of Secretary-elect and Treasurer-elect. Starting at the ASN Annual Meeting in August of 2004, Dr. Gary Gibson will serve as Secretary-elect and Dr. Jean Merrill will serve as Treasurer-elect. In 2005, Drs. Gibson and Merrill will assume the roles of Secretary and Treasurer, respectively, for the 2005-2007 term. Thanks go out to Dr. David Shine, the current ASN Secretary, for generating an electronic format for the nomination and voting process, and to all those who took the time to respond and direct the leadership of the ASN.

Regina Armstrong, Chair July 2004

Committee for the Advancement and Encouragement of Neurochemistry in Latin America
CAENLA was created earlier this year by initiative of ASN President Dr. George DeVries to replace and consolidate the efforts of the two former committees that were dealing with promoting and enhancing the communication between US and Latin American neuroscientists, namely the Young Latin American Scholars Committee and the Inter-American Cooperation Committee. This year the major function of CAENLA has been the selection of the Young Latin American Scholars. By the April 15 deadline, the committee received a total of 14 applications from four Latin American countries, and selected the top 6 candidates (5 graduate students and one post-doctoral fellow) disbursing a total of $12,000. The plan for next year is to grant another 5-6 awards. Our committee met for the first time at this meeting to revise the eligibility and selection criteria for the YLAS awards, and to discuss the creation and distribution of a list with the names of senior ASN members who may be willing to host prospective scholars. Finally, the committee would like to thank Dr. Jean Merrill and Aventis Pharmaceutical for their generous donation of $15,000 to be used for these scholarships.

Oscar Bizzozero, Chair

Standing Rules Committee
The Standing Rules Committee submitted changes to the Standing Rules to provide guidelines for the election and duties of the Secretary and Treasurer elect. Each committee member was asked whether they had any suggestions for change to the Standing Rules (none were received). This Chair contacted David Shine and asked that he insert editorial corrections approved at last years meeting into the By-Laws and Standing Rules. This he did. Understand that there has been some committee restructuring (eg Latin American Committee) but have received no specifics, they should be sent to this committee so that the appropriate changes can be made.

Cara-Lynne Schengrund, Chair

Jordi Folch-Pi Memorial Award Committee
The Committee solicited nominations for the Folch-Pi award through announcements on the ASN and Society for Neuroscience websites, as well as via some personal contacts. Nine nominations of excellent quality were received. A consensus was quickly reached after discussion and balloting via email. The 2004 award recipient is Dr. Lucia Notterpek, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, University of Florida. She will be present to accept the award. The strongest of the other candidates have been encouraged to apply again next year.

The Committee will meet during the ASN meeting in New York to review award criteria and procedures, and to consider how the monetary component of the award, which has not changed for many years, might be increased.

Members of the Committee besides myself were: Gary Gibson, Eric Murphy, Brian Popko, Grace Sun and Bob Zand. They deserve enthusiastic thanks for their contributions and good judgment.

Joe Eichberg, Chair

Marian Kies Award Committee
Marion Kies Committee Members consist of Drs. Rick I. Cohen (Chair), Patrizia Casaccia-Bonnefil, Mary Pacheco, Anthony Campagnoni, and Etty Benveniste.

Applications were solicited by advertising in the ASN mailings and by encouraging colleagues to nominate their most innovative and competitive students. This year the committee received exceptional nominees and selected Dr. Michael A. Fox based on his overall high scores. Michael graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, and did his thesis in the laboratory of Dr. Babette Fuss from the Dept of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Michael has recently graduated, and moved to a post-doctoral position at Harvard University in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the laboratory of Dr. Joshua Sanes. Michael has done outstanding work in the field of oligodendrocyte development that has a global impact in the field of myelination. This taken together with his strong letters of recommendation, high quality of publications, active involvement in the scientific community and extracurricular activities gave him high scores in all categories evaluated.

Rick Cohen presented Michael with the award following the plenary lecture on Monday, August 16, 2004 and both Michael and Dr. Fuss, said a few words.

The committee met on August 16th to discuss the applicants, the results, and for ways to improve the application and review process. We would also like to invite suggestions from ASN members. We encourage you to begin thinking about nominating one of you most outstanding graduate student's for next year's meeting.

Rick Cohen, Chair

Basic Neurochemistry
The seventh edition of Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, Cellular and Medical Aspects is now in preparation. Elsevier /Academic Press has been selected as publisher. The new edition will feature all figures in full color, a CD and about 60% new authors and content and 15% entirely new chapters. The expected publication date is summer of 2005. [Note: I'm asking LWW for latest figures on sales for 6th edition, and if they plan another printing].The senior editors for this new edition are: George J. Siegel, R. Wayne Albers, Scott Brady and Donald Price. Section editors are: Nicolas Bazan, Joyce Benjamins, Joseph Coyle, Jean DeVellis, Stephen Fisher and Sangram Sisodia. Bernard W. Agranoff, who has been a co- editor of Basic Neurochemistry since its inception in 1972, has retired as editor.

George Siegel, For the Editors

Membership Committee
There are 76 new regular ASN members this year. There were four additional applications that were not processed but returned to the applicant to obtain sponsorship. The membership committee considers sponsorship of an application as a first line of evaluation. The membership committee will urge council to consider to having an all-electronic submission form for next year. The majority of applicants (90%) were electronic this year.

New ideas for increasing membership to be discussed include 1) presenting new Ph.D.'s with a one year free membership if their Ph.D. director is a member in good standing, 2) having a link from the Journal of Neurochemistry website to the ASN website and specifically to the new member application. The membership committee will press on to meet their responsibilities without a budget.

James R. Connor, Chair

Public Policy, Outreach and Publicity Committee
Over the last year, this committee has had two primary missions:
1) To determine and arrange the Public Outreach Forum for the annual ASN meeting
2) To publicize the society and its annual meeting

This year's public outreach session focused on "Current and future directions in multiple sclerosis research/treatment" and was co-organized with the New York chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The New York chapter publicized the public outreach forum to their entire New York area mailing list (8000 addresses), posted an announcement of the outreach forum on their website and conducted the preregistration for this event online via their website.

This year several different venues were used to publicize the annual meeting. Sheilah Jewart arrange to have 1/2 page meeting announcements posted in The Neuroscientist, Developmental Neuroscience Journal and Neurosignals Journal by allowing their publisher (Karger Press) to publicize these journals at the meeting for no additional cost. Announcements of the annual meeting, the meeting awards (Marion Kies and Jordi Folch-Pi), and the call for session proposals were posted on the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) website (classified section) beginning in January 2004. An announcement of the 2004 ASN meeting was also posted in the February SFN newsletter emailed to all SFN members. Finally, a letter inviting attendance to the 2004 ASN meeting from George Devries was emailed to CRISP databased generated email list of principle investigators of neuroscience research and training grants.

The committee explored publicizing the annual meeting in major science journals (such as Science, Nature, Cell). However the very high cost of advertising in these journals was not felt to be justified because most of the readers of these journals were not neuroscientists and thus not potential attendees of the ASN annual meeting. Therefore, the committee and the ASN council decided (at the November 2003 council meeting) to continue the current plan of publicizing the ASN annual meetings to neuroscience targeted audiences via low cost online announcements and by trading meeting access for ad space in neuroscience journals.

Monica Carson, Chair

Presidential Advisory Committee
In recent times, there has been a proliferation of scientific societies and perhaps an even faster increase in the numbers of scientific meetings which are held per year. In the face of this, many societies have been experiencing a decline in membership and attendance at their annual meetings. This committee was formed last fall and charged by the President with developing workable strategies for maintaining / increasing membership in the ASN, enhancing it's image in the scientific community, and strengthening the ties between the ASN and its members. The committee consists of 12 members (Minnetta Gardinier, Peter Baas, Tim Coetzee, Cinzia Della Russo, Ed Hall, Jean Merrill, Lucia Notterpek, Terri Wood, Jun Yoshino, Joe Watson, Robin Miskimins and Pamela Knapp, Chair) who represent a cross section of the Society in terms of their professional affiliations and their length of membership. A small group was able to meet at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans last Nov. Our discussion centered around ASN membership and annual meeting attendance levels. The fact that a majority of the attendees at our most recent meetings have been non-members of the ASN raises a serious concern that the annual meeting may not be adequately serving the needs of many ASN members. Specifically, a suggestion was made that the meeting used to serve as an exchange of information between members and perhaps ought to return to that orientation - with fewer outside speakers, and a refocusing on presentations by the membership. It was felt that this would also strengthen the ties of members to the Society. Other suggestions included a need to showcase student and postdoctoral presentations. Many of us "old-timers" remember giving our first platform talks at this meeting, and have been hopeful to maintain that tradition in our own laboratories. This type of strategy might also help to attract/maintain a new generation of members. Another suggestion was to showcase key foci on a bi-annual basis instead of having a totally general meeting. This might increase attendance at the posters by creating a critical mass of attendees in certain research areas. This would have to be carefully crafted because too narrow a focus might dissuade attendance.

We will have a much larger percentage of the committee present in NYC, and will continue to identify problems and formulate strategies. Ongoing discussions after the NYC meeting will occur both on-line and at committee meetings at the upcoming Neuroscience and Cell Biology meetings.

Pamela Knapp, Chair

Young Investigator Education Enhancement Committee
This year the YIEE Committee consisted of 4 members: Richard H. Quarles, Chair, NINDS, NIH, Bethesda, MD; Susan McGuire, Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, IL; Govind Vatassery, VA Medical Center, Minneapolis, MN; and Andrzej Wieraszko, College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY. The committee gave 34 travel awards totaling $20,000, with the amounts of individual awards varying depending on travel distance and other considerations, such as number of applicants per lab and the applicants' history of previous awards. The final awardees were divided as follows: USA, 29; Canada, 4; and Uruguay, 1. The committee was challenged by the fact that the total number of applications this year increased by more than 50% and the number from Latin America doubled. Fortunately, thanks to an initiative by George DeVries, an interaction with the Committee for Aid and Education in Neurochemistry (CAEN) of the ISN resulted in the CAEN providing travel awards for many of the Latin American applicants. The ASN is very grateful to CAEN-ISN, because essentially all of the qualified Latin American applicants received significant travel awards to attend the New York meeting either from CAEN, the ASN Young Latin American Scholars Committee or the YIEEC. At this year's meeting a prime objective of our committee will be to develop procedures for more efficient interactions with other funding sources and modify the application process in ways that will help the committee more effectively evaluate merit and need.

Recipients of Travel Awards:

2005 Program Committee
The program committee began efforts to organize the 2005 Madison meeting. Committee members were selected in December 2003, and totals 23 members and two ad hoc members (listed below). Members are divided into 4 thematic groups (Building the Nervous System; Glial Mechanisms & Injury; Metabolism & Cell & Molecular Biology; Neurodegeneration & Disease) which provides the basis for proposal review and program organization. The committee developed suggestions for plenary speakers, and the following 4 speakers were invited and agreed to give lectures: Klaus Nave, speaking on aspects of myelin structure; Stuart Lipton, speaking on excitotoxicity in neurodegenerative diseases; Mu-Ming Poo, speaking on axonal guidance and synapse formation; and Mary Beth Hatten speaking on neural cell migration and maturation.

Members of the program and local host committees visited the Monona Terrace Convention center in Madison, and selected rooms and halls for the meeting. While there, discussions were held with representatives of the Promega corporation (located in Madison) who will sponsor several events at the meeting. Additional sources of support are being pursued by committee members.

A flyer requesting proposal submissions was sent to the membership in May, and the proposal form was posted on the ASN website. An advertisement was placed in the newsletter of the Society for Neuroscience, and emails sent to members of various neurochemistry, neuroscience, and glial groups. An emphasis is being placed on recruiting young investigators to chair or co-chair sessions. By the end of June, we received two complete proposals, several promises, and numerous inquires. If necessary the deadline for proposal submission will be extended to the end of September. The committee reviewed and improved the exit survey, and will take into account results of previous surveys when selecting sessions.

Our current key task is to decide on the topic for the Saturday pre-meeting workshop. Suggestions include covering nervous system regeneration; or a having combined proteomics / genomics / metabolomics meeting. Further suggestions are welcome.

Douglas L. Feinstein, Chair

2005 Local Host Committee
Planning for Madison 2005 is well underway and the site promises to be a great success. The membership of the committee is listed below, it consists predominantly of people from Madison, but with important Chicago connections to ensure maximum publicity and attendance from there as well. A detailed update of activities and plans will be presented in New York. In summary, progress is as follows.

1. Hotels
Sheilah Jewart has negotiated very favorable rates with the Hilton which is adjacent to Monona Terrace, and the Concourse Hotel. Rates are much less expensive than in many past conference sites.

2. Monona Terrace
A fantastic site for the meeting and associated events. The opening reception will be held out doors, weather permitting, on the terrace overlooking Lake Monona. The banquet on Wednesday night will be held inside the convention center.

3. American Players Theater (APT)
A unique event for ASN will happen on Tuesday night when we will make an outing to APT, a nationally renowned Shakesperean company who perform in a beautiful outdoor theater west of Madison. We want to get an idea of how many people would like to attend by the end of 2004 so they will block off seats for us.

4. Exhibitions
We already have some major companies, especially Promega who will exhibit. Hopefully a number of these will be important sponsors.

5. Site Visit
The President of ASN, George DeVries, the Scientific Chair, Doug Feinstein, and Sheilah Jewart visited Madison this June to preview the site and locations that we might use. The visit went extremely well and everyone is upbeat about 2005.

Ian Duncan, Chair