"Surpassed all previous training I've had with the government. Spot on!" "I could not honestly grade anything less than 10. Just fantastic." "The sum of all parts exceeded even the high expectations with which I began." "Much needed." "Excellent! I can't express enough how valuable this experience has been for me." "I can think of virtually nothing to improve."
These are just a few of the uniformly positive participant reactions-from government scientists, from university researchers, from the private sector-to last year's AMS Summer Policy Colloquium. Indeed, the evaluations have been glowing every year since the colloquium started in June 2001.
On 5-14 June 2005, the AMS will conduct its fifth colloquium in this ongoing series. The 10-day experience will bring another 40 people from our field together in Washington, D.C., for a brief but intense overview of the U.S. science policy process. Most participants are midcareer and funded by their host institutions, but 10 or so will be graduate students, selected by a national competition on the basis of their scientific ability and leadership potential, and funded through a grant provided by the Paleoclimate Program of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Geosciences' Division of Atmospheric Sciences. Student interest is growing. This year almost 40 students applied, a dramatic increase from last year. Word of mouth has really helped the colloquium. Sometimes it takes years to get the first participant from a given institution. But after he or she goes back home and reports, the applications start coming in a steady stream.
Colloquium speakers are first rank. They have included Congressional staffers; Congressmen (Vern Ehlers, R-MI, and Rush Holt, D-NJ); former President's Science Advisers (Frank Press, D. Allan Bromley, Jack Gibbons, and Neal Lane); top officials from NOAA, NASA, NSF, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Geological Survey, as well as the White House; noted science journalists; entrepreneurs from our field (including Joel Myers, Paul MacCready, Bob Baron, Chuck Kolb, and Cecilia Sze); and many others. Interestingly, the speakers also like the colloquium experience. They find the participants to be a lively group, they express appreciation for the generous amount of time set aside for discussion, and they uniformly indicate a desire to return.
The ten days in Washington are just the tip of the iceberg. Participants get a hefty dose of preassigned reading, and in subsequent years, are invited to special events at the AMS Annual Meeting. They are building lifelong professional collaborations as they all continue to advance their careers. Already, the process appears to be working. Graduate students in the early years of the program have entered into junior faculty positions. Faculty members from prior years are now department chairs. Some have gone on to more senior university positions and seats on important national advisory boards. Government scientist alumni are moving into leadership positions of greater purview. Alumni events at the San Diego Annual Meeting drew over 60 former participants. Many more couldn't attend because they were playing important roles in other parts of the Annual Meeting.
All this cannot happen too soon. For years, the major limitations slowing progress in our field were the lack of scientific understanding and the rudimentary state of sensing, computing, and communications technologies. Today, policy is a major constraint. Policies determine levels of investment in needed infrastructure and human resources, sustain long-standing but nonetheless fragile international agreements on data sharing, and support or inhibit the rate of transfer of R&D into new services, and much more.
I wish everyone could share my ringside seat at these yearly events. I know we face major Earth science and policy challenges, and it is tempting to become pessimistic about where we're headed. But when I meet these young people, look at their resumes, watch them dialogue with policy leaders, and see them start to collaborate with each other, I know our future is in capable hands. Today's generation really understands and embraces the link between sound science and effective policy.
[Sidebar]
There are still slots available for participants in this year's colloquium. Visit the AMS Web site at www.ametsoc.org/ atmospolicy/colloquium_summer.html or e-mail Bill Hooke at hooke@dc.ametsoc.org.
[Author Affiliation]
-WILLIAM H. HOOKE, DIRECTOR, AMS POLICY PROGRAM
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