Georgetown University Tau Chapter

Letter from the President: Dr. Jean Kelley It has certainly been an honor to serve this past year as the President of the Tau Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International.  The support of the board and various committee chairpersons has been wonderful.  The chapter successes this past year will provide the momentum needed to formalize our strategic planning and to continue our work in ensuring a strong financial base to meet our goals for the next years.  Two major accomplishments this year have been the launching of the georgetownsigma.com website and a shift to on-line banking capability.   Thanks to Aubrey Hall and Marianne Lyons for their leadership in these areas. I would especially like to thank the Leadership and Succession Committee under the leadership of Rayma Skinner for the excellent slate of candidates that was presented to the membership for a vote this spring. This year the committee was again successful in finding a minimum of 2 candidates for each of the positions.  The following individuals were elected:  Charles Hall, President-Elect, Catherine Kopac, Vice-President and Colleen Norton, Undergraduate Counselor.   A total of 234 ballots were returned by the requested postmarked date.  Having a president-elect this chapter year will guarantee a smooth transition in leadership in summer 2007.  Additionally, Charles Hall has agreed to lead the strategic planning initiative that began in early 2005.  If you are interested in being more involved in the strategic planning work or other committee work please contact any of the Board members. During this past year I had the opportunity to participate in two region 12 conference calls and share information about the work of our chapter.  Additionally we had five board meetings and one business/program meeting that was held on March 16, 2006 as well as a business/transition/officer installation meeting that was held in June.  Chapter members also participated in the Chesapeake Consortium 5th annual consortium research day.  This year, as noted in an earlier website article, we were pleased that a poster presentation by a current graduate student and a recent (2005) graduate was part of the program activities.  We also continued our sponsorship of two school activities that focus on research – the undergraduate senior scholarly projects and the annual graduate student scholarly project presentations.  This year the graduate student scholarly project presentations will be on December 8, 2006.  We will also post on the website information about the 2007 Chesapeake Consortium research day.   The Lambda Eta chapter at Salisbury University will host the event.