The Things That Count:
Presidential Address
Presented at the Plenary Session, Annual Meeting, 10 November 2013
ROBERT N. WIEDENMANN
These words represent my perspective
on the state of the Society. Even though I
am someone who loves data, I do not cite
facts and figures about everything we did
over the past year. Instead, I present my
view of ESA now, our future, and why we
are going there.
To assess the State of the Society and
our future, we need to look back. Not 125
years back to the very beginning of the
Society, but just a few years, to the renewal of ESA in 2007. The renewal, envisioned
by our leaders and Governing Board and
ratified by our members, was a landmark
milestone in ESA’s history, and its timing
was fortuitous—the right people with the
right ideas at the right time. The renewal
set us on a new path, made us stronger,
and made possible long-term plans. It provided greater autonomy and redistributed
responsibilities and leadership. And most
importantly, the renewal set the stage for
real and significant change in our Society.
What Do We Face Today?
Fast-forward 7 years to what ESA faces
as a professional society. I have heard it
said that we are the luckiest people living
at the unluckiest time. Does that phrase
apply to our Society and our members? Is
this truly the unluckiest time?
We live in a time of increased connectivity and communication, with research
tools that were unimaginable a decade ago,
but we also live at a time of shrinking or
re-directed resources; a time of increased
relevance and importance of science, yet
a time of decreased influence. We live in
a world that is changing rapidly, at an
ever-increasing pace.
Our Society faces external issues (environmental, social, and economic) and forces that historically have been beyond our
control (funding, regulations, and public
American Entomologist • Volume 60, Number 1
perceptions). We also face internal forces and changes: membership numbers;
demographic shifts; competing demands
and interests of our members; and the
need to be relevant. Are we indeed the
luckiest people at the unluckiest time?
Actually, I believe we make our own luck,
and that, in fact, these are the luckiest of
times, the best of times for ESA.
Where Are We Going and
What Have We Done?
I believe ESA is at another landmark milestone, on a par with that of the renewal. I
believe we are at a point that we can capitalize on the promise that was enabled
by the renewal, and that we can enact
real and lasting changes. And so we have.
Three years ago, we created three guiding principles that define who we are, and
those have served as the guiding force
underlying the pursuit of our mission:
where we go and what we do.
We stated that:
1. ESA has a social responsibility to
develop all of its members;
2. The science of entomology is global,
therefore ESA is global; and
3. To realize our profession’s full potential, ESA must increase its influence.
Guiding principles for where we
go and what we do: social, global,
influence. What have we done toward
those principles this year? Actually,
quite a lot.
Social: the direction begun under
then-President Del Delfosse.
We sought to broaden our identity, to move
from being exclusive (focusing on what sets
us apart from other disciplines or societies) to being inclusive (focusing on what
unites us with each other and with other
disciplines). We sought to develop the next
generation of leaders through greater participation, sharing responsibilities and ideas,
and showing students and early professionals that their ideas matter, that they matter.
They belong. They are our future.
Global: building on the lead provided
by Past President Grayson Brown.
We moved toward providing a means
for exchange and to serve as a clearinghouse for information of value to other
societies worldwide. We have developed
meaningful partnerships with other societies, with the Entomological Societies
of Canada and Japan, and the Korean
Society of Applied Entomologists as a
start. And we are taking the lead in global entomological issues, begun last year,
taking shape this year, and carrying that
lead role into the future.
Influence.
This year has seen a new focus on science policy. The Science Policy Committee crafted a roadmap for us to develop
a policy agenda with entomology at the
forefront and actions to come from that
agenda. I have asked the Governing Board
to support us further in this endeavor as
we seek to have greater influence.
We are supporting our members to
become leaders and spokespersons for
national issues and our policy agenda. We
do so to stay relevant, to be at the table
when decisions are made.
We recognize that the status quo is not
sufficient for the future of our Society or
for our discipline. Maintaining status quo
means we will be marginalized and at the
mercy of others making decisions and
policies. What we have begun is to seek
to act and lead, not react and follow—to
change the status quo.
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Why Are We Going There? Why
Pursue These Guiding Principles?
Albert Einstein wrote, “Not everything that
can be counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted.” The difference
between what counts and what is counted
matters. Those things that can be counted
are certainly important:
■■ Membership—How many members? Is that number increasing or
decreasing?
■■ Publications—How many papers
are in our journals? What are their
impact factors?
■■ Influence—How many congressional visits? How many position
papers or sign-ons?
■■ Finances—How much money do
we bring in? How much do we
spend?
Those all can be counted, yet not everything that can be counted counts.
Those things that count are not the numbers of our members, but the successes of
our members. Not the impact factors of
journals, but the impacts of those papers
in our journals. Not how many congressional visits, but the outcomes of those
visits in funding or legislation. Not how
much we spend, but how the money we
spend furthers our society and our goals.
We do the things that count, yet perhaps
cannot be counted.
ESA gains when we invest in our members, and we create opportunities for those
members to become leaders and make an
impact. We contribute new basic knowledge that can show us our world in a new
way, or we create knowledge that can be
applied to solve problems. Our findings
influence the economic and social well-being of our world, changing lives. But we
need to make sure everyone knows. We
conduct great science, but we often do
not convey its importance. Information
that we keep to ourselves is as useless as
data that we collect but never publish. Our
role is to make sure policy makers, decision makers, and law makers know what
we find and what it means, in terms that
resonate with them.
The things that can be counted AND
the things that count. One of my favorite
quotes is one that I found in the Chronicle
of Higher Education a few years ago: “Vision
without resources is just hallucination.”
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This quote may seem silly, but I believe it,
and I believe it applies to ESA. But I also
believe a corollary: “Resources without
vision are a wasted opportunity.” I believe
that, too, is true and that it also applies
to ESA, because we have leaders with a
vision, and because we have resources
available to use.
ESA is in excellent financial health. The
Governing Board established a financial
reserve to buffer us from bad times, and we
designated a strategic reserve that allows
us to take action and invest in new initiatives. You do not pay dues just to fill
a savings account or amass funds, but to
use those funds to move our Society in
new directions, to act and to act boldly.
And so we do.
ESA has resources. Financial resources, certainly, but most important, human
resources: the members that will help us
live by our guiding principles and make
the most of the opportunities presented—
little higher than we think we can reach,
because although the goals are great, the
path is greater. Regardless of whether we
achieve our specific goals, we will be a
greater and stronger society by the actions
we take along a bold path.
What Will the Outcome Be? How
Will We Know if We Get There?
Our goals and our guiding principles lead
us in a direction, an upward trajectory,
but not to an end point; toward goals that
require a marriage of vision and resources.
The ESA leaders that proposed the renewal nearly a decade ago had a vision. Your
elected Governing Board and leaders
of today have a vision. And our healthy
Society provides us with resources, both
financial and human—resources that were
made possible by the renewal.
How will we know we are getting there?
We will know we are reaching our goals
when developing the potential of all our
“ESA gains when we invest in our members, and we create
opportunities for those members to become leaders and
make an impact. We contribute new basic knowledge
that can show us our world in a new way, or we create
knowledge that can be applied to solve problems.”
to ensure our vision is not just hallucination, but also to ensure we do not waste
opportunities. By our actions this past year,
we have demonstrated that we have not
wasted the opportunities presented us.
What do we provide by having greater
social responsibility, global reach, and
increased influence? We provide relevance
and value to members, to you. We do the
things that count as well as those things
that can be counted.
Will We Get There?
What if We Don’t?
We move toward greater social responsibility, global reach, and increased influence, and toward greater relevance and
value to the members. To do so, we must
have a clear vision and invest our strategic
resources wisely.
To be more relevant, we need to aim
high and keep our eyes on the prize. Living our guiding principles means setting bold goals and defining a bold path.
And maybe we need to set goals just a
members results in an engaged and inclusive membership. We will know we are
reaching our goals when demonstrating
our global leadership results in partnerships to tackle some of society’s most
pressing issues. We will know we are reaching our goals when we serve as the voice,
the source, exerting influence on society
through science policy. And we will know
we are reaching our goals when our future
members assume that a socially responsible, globally relevant, influential ESA
is how we have always been—and that
becomes the new status quo.
This past year, we have acted boldly and
we have invested in the future of our Society. Our many and diverse actions have
produced real and lasting change. We are
positioned for even loftier goals and greater
change, and I ask you to support us now
and in the coming years as we continue
to live by the guiding principles, as we
seek an outcome of “Science Impacting
a Connected World.” Thank you for your
partnership.
American Entomologist • Spring 2014