Actually, though, after serving on the Committee for 18 years and having worked with many of you, the issues before the Science Committee are hardly virgin territory for me. I even think I know the recipe for becoming a popular chairman. My formula was prompted by Clark Kerr's famous advice on how to become a popular university president. I do indeed intend to provide those three items, but I want to go beyond that. With those goals in mind, I intend to concentrate initially on three priorities science and math education, energy policy and the environment three areas in which the resources and expertise of the scientific enterprise must be brought to bear on issues of national significance.
Education is perhaps the most pressing dilemma of the three.
There is the predominance of foreign students in our graduate programs. There is our continual need to increase the number of H-1B visas to meet our employment needs. There is the underrepresentation of women and minorities in science and mathematics. And the list goes on and on. The evidence is easy to adduce because it's been familiar for so long.