In this Newsletter, I’m going to take a break from IEEE finances and talk about NPSS membership. AdCom held a retreat at IEEE headquarters in Piscataway, NJ, on March 1 to discuss membership issues. We wanted to answer the question of whether NPSS was relevant to the lives and careers of our members. Of course, it’s difficult to separate the relevance of NPSS membership from IEEE membership.  So, in general, I’ll discuss the relevance of IEEE/NPSS membership and try to point out the special, unique benefits of joining NPSS. Based largely on our personal experiences and feedback from our colleagues, AdCom members came up with the following reasons to join IEEE/NPSS.

The top reason to join IEEE/NPSS is to remain technically current. The NPSS sponsors and its volunteers organize a series of outstanding conferences, which IEEE members can attend at reduced rates. No one can doubt that the information presented at IEEE/NPSS conferences and our associated publications represents the state-of-the-art information in nuclear and plasma sciences. In fact, IEEE’s conference proceedings and periodicals are typically its biggest sellers. Our members want the technical information presented at our conferences and they want it fast. NPSS conferences do a pretty good job of getting conference proceedings on the street, typically in CD format, but the archival publications (e.g., Transactions on Nuclear Science (TNS) and Transactions on Plasma Science (TPS)) have experienced significant delays as we migrated from camera-ready print to fully edited transactions. To alleviate this delay, NPSS AdCom has agreed to post conference proceedings on the web in a password-protected site for conference attendees until the CD or transactions is released. Thanks to the efforts of Jeff Fessler, papers from the 2001 NSS/MIC were posted on the web shortly following the conference in November 2001 though the first week in April 2002. We don’t have overall usage statistics, but the site registered 5662 hits originating from 178 unique sites in the two-week period from February 18 to March 3!

The second reason to join NPSS is access to our publications and Xplore^TM at incredibly low prices. The huge fixed costs to publish IEEE journals are covered by the sales of intellectual property to non-member and institutional customers. In 2002, non-members were charged $575 for the IEEE TNS and $450 for the IEEE TPS. These prices will increase 10% in 2003 as IEEE attempts to price its journals at 2/3 that of the commercial competition. In 2002, NPSS members only paid $15 for print or electronic subscriptions to TNS and TPS, and $24 for both print and electronic. In theory, these member subscriptions are supposed to cover variable costs like paper, printing, and mailing. Last year, NPSS under-recovered or subsidized these variable costs to the tune of $60,000.

In 2003, TNS and TPS subscriptions will be increased to $20 for print or electronic, which is still far short of the actual costs. Print and electronic will be $40 to simplify accounting and hopefully encourage the transition from paper to electronic. Clearly, print copies of the transactions drive our variable costs. If we migrate toward electronic media and access through Xplore^TM, these costs will drop markedly. NPSS will do everything it can to support its members, but we can’t go bankrupt doing so. In the past, we had the luxury of subsidizing member subscriptions and dues because of a large corporate surplus driven by a high-flying stock market. Future IEEE and NPSS budgets and business practices can’t be based on expected gains in the stock market.

Another reason put forth to join NPSS is professional recognition. The grades of Senior Member and Fellow are noteworthy accomplishments, especially since one’s peers confer this standing. The ability to present papers and publish in top-rated IEEE journals is extremely important to many of our members, both in building one’s professional reputation and for career advancement. Clearly, this is true for our authors who present the fruits of their technical studies at our conferences. Authors are perhaps the most important of NPSS members since they provide this intellectual property that hopefully fulfills IEEE’s mission to better mankind through advances in science and technology. On a more practical note, the intellectual property drives the IEEE and NPSS financial engine. We can’t overlook the employers and sponsors, whether in academia, government, or industry, which foot the bill to advance the field of nuclear and plasma sciences.

Finally, NPSS members enjoy an outstanding Newsletter. Thanks to Ken Dawson for his tireless efforts to publish three Newsletters each year and a Yearbook. The Newsletter keeps folks up to date and recognizes the significant accomplishments of many of our members.

A final, yet extremely important reason to join NPSS is to give something back to the community. Sounds a bit corny, but not really. Another way of saying that is: “What have you done for IEEE/NPSS?” I spent more than a quarter of a century in the radiation effects community of NPSS. Since 1974, I’ve attended nearly every IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Conference held each July and I’ve published nearly 100 papers in the December Issue of the TNS. I enjoyed, no I thrived, on being given the opportunity to present my work and to serve the community as a volunteer. To be frank, it didn’t help me that much in my job. I didn’t get any big promotions or raises. I was extremely fortunate that Sandia National Laboratories management gave me the time and support to publish and volunteer. I presented and published papers, served as a session chair, program chair, editor of the December Issue of TNS, and then as the head of the Radiation Effects Technical Committee. I was a volunteer and a contributor. I never stopped to ask what IEEE and NPSS was doing for me. I know this is true of all our volunteers. I know the feeling of contribution and accomplishment matters. It’s the volunteers that make it all work and I thank you.

So how is NPSS doing in attracting members? The 13 February 2002 issue of IEEE’s Society Sentinel reports that IEEE membership grew 3.1 percent in 2001 to total of 377,342 members, falling just short of the year-end goal of 380,000. This was the fourth consecutive year that IEEE membership has increased. Student membership far exceeded its goal, reaching 65,669 students worldwide, with 12.6 percent growth. Higher-grade memberships also grew, but at the slower rate of 1.3 percent. Although society membership growth was weak overall at only 0.2 percent, 17 societies experienced increases. The five fastest growing IEEE Societies for 2001 were: 1. Circuits and Systems, +31.6 percent; 2. Lasers and Electro Optics, +12.9 percent; 3. Microwave Theory and Techniques, +6.3 percent; 4. Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology, +5.7 percent; and 5. Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society, +4.9 percent. Vern Price, NPSS Membership Chair, reports that we have 3127 members. The greatest part of NPSS growth is in Europe, where NPSS has recently established chapters in Paris, Benelux, Italy and Ukraine.

We attribute our overall growth to Vern’s tireless recruiting efforts at NPSS conferences, the unbundling of the journals from the membership fees, and our highly professional NPSS brochure and web site. Thanks to Peter Clout for spearheading the design, publication, and distribution of the brochure and to Ken Connor and Dick Kouzes for the revamped web site. NPSS is doing its best to ensure that the most current, accurate information about NPSS conferences and activities appears on the web site, as well as links to web pages hosted by our eight technical committees.

In the final analysis, NPSS will be judged by the quality of its conferences, publications, and services that support our international membership. NPSS will always strive to support its membership. In closing, I want to once again acknowledge all the volunteers who have devoted untold time and effort – and never asked for anything in return.

Peter Winokur, NPSS President, can be reached at Office of Senator Harry Reid, 528 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510; Phone: +1 202 224-3542; Fax: +1 202 224-7327; E-mail: p.winokur@ieee.org.