The stars seemed aligned just right for Alpha Chi's March 22-24 national convention in Savannah. Astronaut Clay Anderson, the 2001 Distinguished Alumni Award winner, is set for the other major address. Although space exploration stories are not in the news every day, in the week March 21-24 the old Russian space station Mir flames to earth in a planned demise and an American millionaire butts heads with NASA over his desire to accompany the next flight to the International Space Station.
Space is on page one.
A late winter storm blows north out of Savannah just in time, leaving sunny skies and balmy temperatures for the convention. Had Alpha Chi begun a day earlier, a freezing wind would have spoiled the popular moonlight riverboat cruise on opening night. The first-ever Chapter Workshop, held in two sessions on Thursday and Saturday afternoons, gave students and faculty lots of ideas to work with for improving their local chapters. More than 200 students, including a few alumni members, made scholarly or artistic presentations.