President's Report, 1999

America Journal of Botany is now online at site and we appreciate all the things Scott Russell did (and continues to do) on this project.
Editor-in-Chief of AJB for the next 5-year term is Karl Niklas. We appreciate his hard work on AJB during his first 5-year term as Editor and are grateful he is willing to continue. Many thanks are due to the Committee to Recommend Individuals as Editor-in-Chief of AJB: Beryl Simpson (Chair), Peter Crane, Ned Friedman, Nels Lersten and Diane Marshall.
Collection of a complete set of AJB that could be scanned for the journal storage project (JSTOR) was successful. Many thanks are due the Mann Library of Cornell University and the various individuals who loaned volumes of AJB to JSTOR for scanning.
The Editor of PSB, Joe Leverich, ends his term of service on 31 December. We are grateful to Joe for all his fine work on PSB. Now, we are faced with the challenge of finding a new Editor of PSB. The Committee to Recommend Individuals as Editor of PSB [Allison Snow (Chair), Donald Galitz and Joe Armstrong] is working on a ranked list of applicants; however, there is still time for you to be considered if you are interested in becoming Editor of PSB.
Two complete sets of PSB have been donated to BSA: one by Sydney Greenfield (Jersey City, NJ) and the other by Herbert Hull (Tucson, AZ). The Society deeply appreciates these gifts.
Contributions to the Karling and Conant Funds were made by many BSA members, and this support for the future generation of botanists is gratefully acknowledged.
The Karling Award Committee is now a BSA standing committee; see report by Jeffrey Osborn, committee chair.
The Conant Committee for 1999 consisted of Dan Crawford (Chair), Judy Jernstedt, Ruth Stockey, Pam Soltis and Brian McCarthy. All their hard work in figuring out how to award the $8,700 in the Conant Fund is appreciated.
Many by-law changes were approved by the BSA membership via a ballot in the 1999 Spring Mailing. The Executive Committee spent many hours reading, thinking and emailing with regard to these by-law changes.
An Annual Meeting Coordinating Committee is now a new BSA standing committee; this is one of the by-law changes recently approved by the BSA membership. The Annual Meeting Coordinating Committee is charged with oversight of all logistical arrangements for the annual meeting.
The Annual Meeting Program Committee is charged with arranging the scientific program for the Society; the Program Director will chair this committee.
Membership in BSA without AJB has been discussed by the Executive Committee, AJB Editorial Board and the AJB ad hoc Task Force, and a few individuals wrote letters or emailed expressing their opinions. The decision has been made to delay any action on this matter until the financial impact of having AJB online can be evaluated.
ASPT decided to established a business office at the University of Wyoming.
BSA received a check for $4,527.00 from AIBS. This money is BSA's share of profits from the 1998 AIBS Meetings in Baltimore; 285 of the 2774 registrants at AIBS indicated they were members of BSA.
The Careers in Botany booklet is slated for revision, and a committee is being formed to work on this project.
Planning for future BSA meetings is being guided by our Program Director, Wayne Elisens, and the Society appreciates all his time, devotion, hard work and clever bargaining. See Wayne's report for an update on Botany-2000 in Portland, OR, and for the status of plans to meet in Albuquerque, NM, in 2001 and Madison, WI, in 2002.

The theme for Botany-2000 is "New frontiers in botany, and the Plenary Session Committee for Botany-2000 [Carol Baskin (Chair), Barbara Hoshizaki, Chris Haufler, Wayne Elisens, Clyde Calvin and Brent Mischler] has been working hard.

Many things will be discussed during the course of the 1999 Annual meeting of BSA in St. Louis, including:

(a) Impact of having AJB online,

(b) The BSA Website

(d) Invitation to become involved in the AIBS BioOne

(e) Future activities of the Education Committee

(f) Finding a new Editor of PSB

(g) Revision of Careers in Botany

(h) Maybe some day introducing an online journal separate from AJB

(i) Planning for Botany-2000

(j) Budget planning for BSA and for AJB

and much more. Thus, you can see that BSA is an active and vigorous society!

Joint social for CBA/ABC, BSA and SBM at IBC will bring together botanists from northern Canada to southern Mexico (quite a range of latitudes, climates and biomes!) for an evening of food, fun, awards and more (e.g., Doug Soltis will give a talk). It has been a real pleasure working with Denis Barabé (President of CBA/ABC) and Ken Oyama (President of SBM) to help Wayne Elisens and Peter Hoch organize this event.
The BSA membership greatly appreciates the opportunity to hold its 1999 Annual Meeting in Conjunction with IBC. Further, we express our deep gratitude to Peter Raven, Peter Hoch, Barbara Kitrel and Barbara Schaal for all their efforts in organizing IBC and facilitating the 1999 Annual Meeting of BSA.
I appreciate the honor of being President of BSA. The members of the Executive Committee, members of the Council, Chairs of the Committees, Editors, Business Manager and Representatives to Other Organizations are dedicated, hard-working people, and it has been a privilege and a joy to serve the Society with them.

Respectfully submitted,

Carol C. Baskin

17 July 1999