Charlie McClennen         Over the last year the most rewarding and time consuming (1/2 to 3/4 time) activity has been to move the new Ho Interdisciplinary Science Center Building project forward. A commitment by Robert Ho, class of '56, for 25 million has enabled this project to move ahead rapidly as we look for the other half of the funding that will be needed. Working with faculty and staff from Geology, Geography, Biology, Physics and Astronomy, as well as Environmental Studies, we have a very exciting building designed with architects from the firm of Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott out of Boston. The integration of all the departmental and program needs including links to Olin and Wynn will transform the upper campus in the space between O'Connor, Wynn, Olin and the ALANA Cultural Center. Common and shared space lighted by many windows, some two stories high on the south side, as well as skylights, will promote the interaction of all the future inhabitants from the several departments and ENST Program. See Colgate's website for images and updates.       An open stairwell connecting the four floors should create a people friendly space with numerous study alcoves, glassed views into labs, and display cases. The expanded Geology Museum is in the creative conceptual design stage with continued emphasis on course teaching materials, New York State Geology, and fundamentals of geology for visitors. A 3-D Visualization Lab combines the functions of a planetarium, 360 degree dome projection capability with a 60 seat classroom. The outdoor rock garden will include the fitting boulders of geologic interest. The greenhouse and tropical plant conservatory is situated logically on the southeast side providing research and teaching sections far better than the existing Olin facility which will be in the shadow of the new Ho Center most of the day. Because of the hill slope, parts of the building will be below grade making it appear two stories near the Coop, three between Olin and Wynn, and for on the southeast by the Cultural Center.       This past summer the road around Olin up to the coop has been relocated closer to the Saperstein/Human Resources and ALANA buildings in preparation for the Ho center construction expected to begin fall 2005. Two years of successful construction should enable Barr & Barr Construction to complete the nearly 120,000 square foot building. The vacated Lathrop will then need some renovation in addition to removal of the old Geology and Physics laboratory facilities and equipment. Who the future residents in Lathrop will be is yet to be determined. The bottom floor of Persson Hall, where the Geography department now lives, is likely to be immediately refilled by the overcrowded Economics and Political Science departments living just above.       On a more personal note, my Venice publication activities continue slowly and my name appears respectfully on some Antarctic research publications driven by Amy Leventer and her productive colleagues deriving interesting climate relationships from the piston core samples collected during our East Antarctic Margin cruise of 2001. My lung cancer and treatments remain active but not so much as to prevent me from teaching nice seminar-sized sections of Coastal and Marine Geology over the last couple of years. I do suggest that you keep smiling and avoid smoking, asbestos dust, and radon gas. Even if I did not so expose my lungs, they are the three recognized and dominant lung cancer inducing environmental factors.