Art Goldstein       Some of you know that I have spent the past year and a half on a leave of absence from Colgate while working at the National Science Foundation. In the summer of 2001 I was offered a position as Program Director for Tectonics on a visiting basis and I gladly accepted, knowing that this was an opportunity to do some very interesting things, work on a national level and have a positive impact on the tectonics research community. Program Directors are the ones who make the decisions about what proposals will and will not get funded, so it's a position with a lot of responsibility. The Tectonics Program at NSF is the principal source of research funds in this area in the US and distributes approximately $10 million annually. I began work in Dec. 2001 and really walked in to a meat grinder. Normally, two people run NSF programs but, because of some odd internal dynamics, Tectonics had been functioning with only one Program Director and he had retired in October. When I arrived at NSF I found approximately 60 proposals that had been reviewed but for which decisions had not been made. In addition, there were approximately 125 new proposals that had just arrived and these had to be sent out for review. So, there I was, the new guy on the block with no experience and no one else to help share the load. But, the good news was that I had a lot of your tax dollars to give out in grants and complete autonomy in deciding what to fund. This was really a lot of fun in addition to being a remarkable amount of work. Of course, I also had to tell a lot of people "No" and this was not quite so much fun. The Tectonics Program gives grants to about 30% of those who apply. Most people consider this to be a pretty good acceptance rate but it also means that we have a 70% rate of decline and this means that I say "No" a lot more than "Yes". No one likes to receive bad news on a proposal they worked hard on and on which they rely for the resources to keep their research alive. But I must say that I have found the vast majority of people I deal with to be pleasant, although disappointed, and eager to hear what I think can make their proposals more competitive.       In addition to reading about 250 proposals a year, sending proposals out for review, reading the reviews, running panels of experts and making lots of hard decisions, I have also had the opportunity to do a lot of other, very interesting things. I've represented NSF at various meetings and made site visits at several Universities and with several groups working in the field. Perhaps the most interesting of these was a recent visit I made to New Zealand where I spent two weeks in Fiordland, South Island, with Keith Klepeis. Keith (CU '87) is now a professor at the University of Vermont and has been working in New Zealand with a grant from NSF Tectonics (No, I didn't make this award...it would have been a conflict of interest). Keith and his co-workers ran a GSA Field Forum and I took the opportunity to see what they had been up to. I had a remarkable visit, enjoyed spending time with Keith and came away highly impressed with the work he and his group have done. The other activity I've gotten a lot from is my participation in workshops aimed at advancing what is termed "Geoinformatics". This refers to the marriage of high end computing with very large databases to compile and analyze data in ways not possible until very recently. This looks to be something that will be very big and I'm hoping to become more involved in this after I return to Colgate.       My wife, Melanie, came to DC with me and my daughter, Kate, is now out of college and living in Los Angeles. Melanie found a job with the Alexandria Public Library and found working in a large public library quite a change from the library in Oneida, where she had worked before coming to DC. She and I have REALLY enjoyed the change from what we had been doing and also having museums, restaurants and shops so close by; some things that you will recall are in short supply in Hamilton. We've done a lot here in DC and have mostly loved making repeated visits to the National Gallery of Art and the National Arboretum. As much as we have enjoyed having all the cultural advantages of living in the nation's Capitol, we have also been very frustrated with the crowds and traffic. Coming from central New York, we are just not used to having so many people crammed in to such a small space and having so many cars on the roads. For those of you who have yet to "enjoy" traffic in DC, I suggest that you skip this pleasure, park your car far away and take the Metro in to the city. As I write this we have less than a month left of our adventure here and are looking forward to moving back to the peace and tranquility of the Chenango Valley. We'll miss the excitement of being in a city but DC will still be here and we are already looking forward to coming back for visits. I'm looking forward to returning to Colgate and resuming my life as a Professor. I have lots of ideas for research and teaching and can think of few places better than Colgate to get these done. By the time you receive this newsletter I'll be back in Hamilton and, as always, hope that you will stop by and visit when you are in the area.