“I will not have …” These are the words of Kelly Sullivan, then President Elect of Sigma Xi, written in an email to the members of the Committee on Qualifications and Membership in the run-up to the March 2012 teleconference meeting. In context she was responding to an agenda recommendation of mine to extend the Society’s membership campaign to persons with professional doctorates who were otherwise qualified — meaning with the requisite peer-reviewed publications. Bear in mind that this discussion occurred following the November 2011, Annual Meeting during which the Assembly of Delegates, unwisely in my opinion, adopted a resolution to offer Associate Membership to selected high school students. Continue reading →

The issue at the foot of the leadership of Sigma Xi, whether President Kelly Sullivan or Executive Director Jerry Baker will ever tell the 60,000 members the facts and circumstances surrounding the resignation of Fr. Dr. Thomas Acker as President Elect may seem to be resolved. To no one’s surprise (especially not to mine) no statement has been forthcoming from either of these otherwise voluble persons. Continue reading →

The initials CFiT in the realm of speaking of aircraft accidents means “Controlled Flight into Terrain.” The expression means exactly what it says, the result of flying a perfectly good functioning airplane under full control of its flight crew into a mountain, level ground, or by implication, the sea. Sadly, it is an all-too-common kind of accident. Two recent events in Europe come to mind. The first is the crash in Smolensk, Russia, on April 10, 2010, of an official plane carrying the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria, and other Polish dignitaries. The second is the crash in Sweden of a Royal Norwegian Air Force transport into the side of Mount Kebnekaise, the highest mountain in Sweden, on March 15, 2012. Suffice it to say that these crews, for whatever reason, did not know where they were and where they were going. Continue reading →

Here is my first-person report on an episode casting light on the decision-making prowess of Jerry Baker as Executive Director of Sigma Xi. Make of it what you will.

On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, a native Norwegian, committed in Oslo and nearby Utøya one of the most heinous mass murders of all time. He killed 77 people, injuring many more seriously, in his rampage. On the same day he published on the Internet his 1518 page manifesto of hate. Continue reading →

The Sigma Xi Board of Directors is dysfunctional. With exceptions, unfortunately in the minority, the members of the Board have ceded authority to the President Kelly Sullivan; they cannot, however, cede responsibility. This situation results in the rule of one, a dictatorship. In common parlance the Board is a rubber stamp. However, if the President should get into any kind of trouble while speaking for the Board, then the ineffectual ones take the hit. Continue reading →

The time has come for the Board of Directors of Sigma Xi to dismiss Jerry Baker from his office of Executive Director. The proximate cause is his failure to act in the best interest of the membership, in particular with relation to his silence on the facts and circumstances surrounding the resignation of Fr. Dr. Thomas Acker as President Elect. Continue reading →

The Rev. Thomas Stephen Acker, S.J., Ph.D., was President Elect of Sigma Xi, then resigned his position. The terse announcement on the Sigma Xi web site said this: “UPDATE: As of August 1, 2012: Thomas S. Acker, S.J. has resigned.” Despite an extensive search I have not been able to locate a single other notification of any kind to the membership of Sigma Xi relating the facts and circumstances surrounding Fr. Dr. Acker’s resignation. An election is now in progress to determine his successor, yet still no explanation comes from Sigma Xi. Continue reading →

The short-term resolution of events surrounding the Committee on Communications and Publications has come; the long-term resolution yet awaits. My attempt to remove Kelly Sullivan from her Presidential office by Constitutional means failed. This is a disappointment, but not a surprise. She has faithful followers in high places, though in my view they elevate the cult of her personality above the interests of the members, a misplacement of duty. Insofar as I had determined, and had declared, that I could not and would not work with the President, the only honorable course of action open to me was clear. I submitted my resignations without regret from all Committee memberships. Continue reading →

The time has come for the Board of Directors of Sigma Xi to terminate the Presidency of Kelly Sullivan. The proximate cause for my call is the loss of confidence in her leadership by me and others in the governance of the Society with whom I am in close contact. The past few weeks, especially, have been contentious in seeing the accelerating pace of resignations from the Board by able senior members citing serious difficulties in relating to the President. This departure of quality leaders, and the cause for it, must come to an end. Continue reading →