MASS AWIS ELECTS ITS FIRST BOARD OF OFFICERS
Congratulations to our growing chapter!!  Not only have we hit 70 members, but we have successfully completed our first Board Election.  Thanks to everyone who came for our Elections and Planning meeting...we got some great ideas for the coming year.  Make sure to reply if you can help with any of the upcoming programs or volunteer opportunities...you can see Rebecca's 2006 Programming email with the details on our yahoo website: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/massawis/  
JOIN AWIS NOW!!  There will be many advantages to membership in the coming year, so go to www.awis.org and join the mass chapter.
The 2006 MASS AWIS Board:
President--Joanne Kamens
Vice President--Rebecca Pitts
Vice Preisdent--Rosa Melendez
Administrator--Karen Yee
Treasurer--Kristin O'brien
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OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST
-National AWIS Annual Giving Campaign
-Science Buddies volunteer opportunity
-Local items of interest from the AWIS Washington Wire (become an AWIS member to get your own!)
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-National AWIS Annual Giving Campaign
For the past 35 years, AWIS has supported women in all areas of science and engineering at the national and local levels by providing a network, a resource, and a voice.
While AWIS has accomplished much to advance the opportunities for women in science and engineering over the last 35 years, our work is far from complete. Statistics show that the number of women pursuing science degrees has grown considerably over the last 30 years, but a lot of work remains to be done to bring to parity the number of women in high level scientific posts. We must continue to advocate for women until their full participation in the science career of their choice is a given. In addition, we must continue our efforts to assure that the salaries and the status of women scientists are commensurate with their talent and contribution.
Hard work by our board, chapters, and staff to develop outreach programs in 2005 helped to ensure that we continue to achieve our goals. You can see an outline of these programs at http://www.awis.org/about/projects.html Developing programs is one thing, but implementing is another and something we do very well. We would not have been able to sustain the enormous impact AWIS has made over the last 35 years without the support of all our members and friends. And we will not be able to help the next generation of women without your continued support.
AWIS is committed to keeping the benefits of membership accessible and affordable for all by keeping our annual dues modest, because we believe that the more extensive and diverse our membership is, the stronger and more effective our voice will be. But the ability of AWIS to reach more women without increasing the dues is only possible if members can consider a gift to AWIS above and beyond membership dues.
Please visit https://secure.serve.com/awis/donate.html to contribute to AWIS through our secure site.  Contributions by check can also be sent through regular mail to:
AWIS Annual Giving, 1200 New York Ave. NW.;  Suite 650, Washington DC 20005
Sincerely yours, Nancy Bakowski, AWIS Executive Director  and Elizabeth Ivey, AWIS President

-Science Buddies Volunteer Opportunity
Science Buddies provides free online resources focused on helping pre-college students do better science fair projects.  During the last school year, over 215,000 visitors used the Science Buddies Topic Selection Wizard to help find a science fair project idea, and over 850,000 visitors used the Science Buddies site.  Usage so far this school year is running 3-4 times higher.  There is a great need for this type of resource.  
Science Buddies is looking for volunteers to help with its mission by providing ideas and project "Starter Kits" for science fair projects.  This is an opportunity to reach an average of 10,000 students per  school year with a one-time donation of the day or two it takes to prepare a kit. 
For more details, visit the Science Buddies how to volunteer webpage:  
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/participate_starter_kit.shtml  or contact Andrew directly: andrew@...

-Local items of interest from the AWIS Washington Wire
Women on the Rise The famous remarks of Harvard University President Lawrence Summers speculated that female scientists may have difficulty winning tenure because of differences in "intrinsic aptitude," - and the furor generated by these remarks has actually had positive a effect on the debate about discrimination against women in academic science. In the aftermath of his remarks, a number of universities, including Harvard, have taken steps to improve the climate for female scientists and other women on their campuses. For more on this, visit http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/11/07/s14/1.

A Decade of Progress for Women in Science Nancy Hopkins, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes her view of where academic women are, where they've been, and where they're going. She hopes for "perhaps a gender-blind workplace in another decade (or two)." To read the viewpoint of this pioneer woman scientist, visit http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/11/07/s17/1.