PRESIDENT'S LETTER

ASPB on My Mind

Mike Thomashow

As my year as president-elect transitions into my year as president, I would like to share with you some of the thoughts that are running through my mind re-garding our Society. The first and foremost is that ASPB, in more ways than I had previously fully appreciated, is truly a terrific organization that does much to serve our plant biology community and enrich our professional lives. This is accomplished in multiple ways. Of course, there is the publication of our two premier scientific journals, Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell. There is the annual ASPB Plant Biology meeting that, through plenary and concurrent sessions, brings us up to speed on the latest developments in a variety of areas basic to plant biology and provides a forum for young scientists to present their findings on an international stage. There are also the new, smaller, specialty meetings on specific hot topics and the efforts of the Society to identify and honor with a variety of awards those individuals who have made outstanding contributions that have furthered our scientific understanding of plant biology or who have provided leadership in agriculture or education in the plant sciences.

Another very important way in which the Society serves the membership and plant biology community is through the work of the numerous ASPB committees. I don’t have space here to write about each of these committees. However, as examples, there is the Public Affairs Committee, which provides a voice on behalf of the entire plant biology community to Congress, funding agencies, and elsewhere where our interests as plant biologists are concerned. There is the Education Committee, which promotes plant biology education and outreach in a variety of venues including workshops and booths at the annual Plant Biology meetings and participation at national educational meetings addressing science and technology issues. And there are the Minority Affairs and Women in Plant Biology committees, which are dedicated to broadening the participation of our citizenry in plant biology research and education. The important work of these committees is accomplished through the dedication and hard work of the Society’s membership and the absolutely first-class ASPB staff stationed at “headquarters” in Rockville, Maryland.

For more than three-quarters of a century, ASPB has had a role in helping the plant biology community fulfill its aspirations. There is every reason to believe that this will continue to be the case long into the future. However, there are always new challenges. One relates to the evermore sophisticated technologies that are being developed and the impact that they can have on the membership of our Society. When I was young and had to walk all those tough miles to school in the horrible weather of Los Angeles, it was a part of the culture to join the professional society that most closely represented your scientific and educational interests. In addition, there was the added benefit of receiving the journal in which you found most of the articles that were of interest to you. This saved you the time of trudging back and forth to the library. But now, through advances in technology, many of us can, through the subscriptions of our institutions, read and print articles from not only Plant Physiology and The Plant Cell, but countless other journals as well. So, given this, why join ASPB? Well, I hope the activities that I briefly touched on above offer a partial answer to this question. The scientific journals published by ASPB are at the core of our Society’s contributions to the plant biology community. However, there are many other ways in which the entire community benefits and is enriched by the activities of ASPB. By being a member of ASPB, you help support these efforts.

There are additional issues on the horizon that are very important to our Society. Perhaps the most important of these is Open Access, the “free availability and unrestricted use” of published research. As Don Ort, the editor-in-chief of Plant Physiology, wrote in his September 2005 editorial, Open Access is “the preeminent force driving change in academic publishing.” Such change poses challenges. But it also presents opportunities. I look forward to discussing this and other issues with you in future columns. For now, I’ll close by thanking you for the honor and opportunity that you have given me to serve our Society.

Michael F. Thomashow
thomash6@msu.edu