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February 2012 • Volume 46 • Number 2
Communicating the Value of Plant Science Carol A. Ishimaru, APS President, cishimar@umn.edu As APS president, it is my privilege to select the topic for the society’s 2012 Annual Meeting. An idea for it came to me while sitting in an APS meeting last year. We were discussing the society’s agenda for its annual public policy meeting in Washington, DC, when it dawned on me that many of the issues our profession faces could benefit from improved communication about what it is we do and why we do it. The pressure to produce more and better food for the world’s growing population has never been greater. According to recent projections, by 2050, we must produce twice as much food as we do today. We also live in a time of unprecedented advances in plant health science. How can it be then, given the needs and our ability to address those needs, that the Carol A. Ishimaru public base for plant pathology and related sciences has been eroding, leading to significant reductions in the number of faculty, students, and departments of plant pathology in the United States? During that meeting, I naively decided on “Communicating Science” as the topic for the APS Annual Meeting. My exhilaration was short lived, as I soon began to realize the challenge of organizing a plenary around a topic I know little about and for which I have few connections. Nevertheless, the journey so far into the possibilities for a plenary on communication has already broadened my awareness of how important this topic has become. Other scientific societies, like the American Society of Microbiologists, are also launching initiatives in this area. Communicating science is a core function of APS; it’s part of the APS vision statement (www.apsnet.org/about/visionoverview). APS plays a vital role in communicating our collective message to the public and private sectors. It’s also one of the five interacting “areas of endeavor” identified in the comprehensive report “Vision of Plant Pathology in the 21st Century,” which was written by a group of APS members. In the “Vision Tree,” education is the roots of the tree, while its branches are initiatives affecting the research and practice of plant pathology. What keeps the initiatives connected and supported by its base is a scaffold of coordinated communication networks. Your leaders on council use the APS vision and strategic plan to align all of the efforts of the organization. Council is in its second year under the new governance structure. It meets more frequently than in the past and focuses its agenda on big strategic issues affecting members and the profession. Three in particular, the future of plant pathology, international society relations, and industry relations, will continue to be a focus this year. Council has also been evaluating the effectiveness of its communication with the APS membership through its many APS offices, boards, and committees. One of the things I’m most excited about from council’s fall retreat is the decision to release funds to pursue the development of six member-driven initiatives. Some of the items came directly from Communicating the Value of Plant Science continued on page 23
News Picture Your Photos on the New APS Journal Covers in 2012 The new year brought a fresh new look to all three of the society’s research journals. “Color photographs are the focal point of the redesigns and the addition of white space and new typography give the journals a clean, crisp modern look,” said Tony Keinath, chair of the APS Publications Board. The Publications Board asked the society’s design and production team to revitalize the covers with larger, more prominent images to show off the excellent science within our journals. Phytopathology gets color on its cover for the first time ever, and Plant Disease gets its first facelift since the 1980s. The MPMI logo vanishes and is replaced by a larger screened MPMI acronym. Many of the scientists that publish in Plant Disease, Phytopathology, and MPMI produce excellent images to enhance their research and these covers are designed to showcase those images. If you submit your work to any of our journals and wish to have images considered for the covers, be sure to include your highest resolution color files when you submit your papers in order to get consideration for cover placement. Visit http://apsjournals.apsnet.org to view thumbnails of each of the journal’s new cover designs and submit your research. n
In this Issue Editor’s Corner .......................................... 22 APS Foundation ........................................ 26 Outreach ................................................... 27
People ....................................................... 30 Classifieds .................................................. 34
APS Journal Articles .................................. 35 Calendar of Events .................................... 36