<> MENTORING AWARD
The Mentoring Award Selection Committee is soliciting nominations for
the 3rd LDEO Excellence in Mentoring Award, to be presented in May.
We are asking that nomination materials are received at the Director's
Office no later than Monday, April 21st.
Before sending in your nominations, please take time to refer to the official
guidelines as outlined on the web page at the following link:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/Director/mentor_award.html
<> CURRENT B&G PROJECTS
-- Roofing at Geochemistry will start on Monday, March 24, at 3PM.
<> LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR
At the Lamont ExCom meeting this morning I said how eerie it feels to me
to be carrying on our daily lives under circumstances of near total normality
while our nation, represented by hundreds of thousands of men and women
in the US military forces, is waging war in Iraq. It seems somehow wrong
for it to be this ‘easy’ for one nation to invade another – and that feeling
is independent of the passionate issue of whether the action itself is ‘right’
or ‘wrong’.
A substantial percentage of the folk who work on the Lamont campus are
not American. This is as it should be. Much of our work has global
consequences and we should be recruiting the best people in the world to
solve these problems. It is essential that we are able to explore and map
and observe all regions of our planet, unhindered by artificial national
boundaries. As earth scientists we should be ‘internationalists’ whose goals
and aspirations transcend national interests – the knowledge that we gain
serves all of humankind.
But perhaps I am naive.
I fear that the events of the last 24 hours will make it more difficult
for us to do our job in the decades ahead.
I do not think it is appropriate for me to state personal opinions here
about this whole painful situation – the closest I will come to that is to
commend to you, for your consideration, a speech that Robert Byrd made on
the Senate floor on March 19th.
http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_speeches/byrd_speeches_2003march/byrd_speeches_2003march_list/byrd_speeches_2003march_list_4.html
Tomorrow my youngest daughter flies home from spending spring break in
Venice. And the war goes on in Iraq.
I don’t think I will say anything else this week.
Have a safe and peaceful weekend,
-Mike