July 16, 2009

The Society for Economic Botany is moving in exciting new directions at the beginning of our second half-century.  We are becoming an increasingly international society, with annual meetings being planned for Mexico and Europe in 2010 and 2012, respectively.  We are beginning to cooperate more with our sister societies, such as the Society of Ethnobiology (SoE) and the International Society of Ethnobiology.  Both of these new directions were advocated by several members who responded to our survey, and they are also among my own goals for the SEB.  Additionally, I am very pleased that the society’s Student Network is becoming increasingly active. I hope you are as excited about these new directions as I am.  To keep this letter short, I will write more about all these initiatives in the future, and here briefly mention just a few other items.

I’m sure that you all noticed the fine work of our new Editor-In-Chief, Bob Voeks, of CalState Fullerton, when you received the latest issue of Economic Botany.  Dan Moerman is a hard act to follow, given the improvements that he made during this term as EIC, and this is never an easy transition to make, but Bob is doing an excellent job at it.  We hope that Bob will be willing to continue as EIC for many years to come.

I welcome our new incoming members of the SEB Council, Jeanine Pfeiffer and Linda Lyon, both council-members-at-large, and Laura Shiels, Student Representative, as well as our new President-Elect, Mary Eubanks.  I look forward to working with you all.  Many thanks to Jim Miller, our immediate Past President, and to outgoing Council members Rick Stepp, Mary Eubanks, and student representative Arika Virapongse.

I would also like to mention that the SEB Council decided that it would be helpful to have an official meeting coordinator, who would act as a guide and resource to help the local organizers of our annual meetings, and provide the society’s institutional memory with regard to those meetings.  We were pleased that Rainer Bussmann, director of the William L. Brown Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and a very experienced meeting organizer, has accepted this role.

Finally, I’m sure that all who attended the 50th annual meeting in Charleston, SC, will join me in congratulating John Rashford for pulling together such a remarkable conference.  It will be hard to top the way the City of Charleston and the local culture were included as part of the program.  Whereas it is somewhat of a tradition to include some local cuisine and field trips to local sites of interest in our conferences, this meeting “raised the bar” in terms of making connections with the local community — both within and outside of the scientific program.  Highlights included a fascinating reception talk by Joyce Coakley on Gullah traditions, culture, and sweetgrass baskets, and several presentations about local environmental issues, from urban planning to the effects of development on the local people and land.  In truly transdisciplinary style, the symposium on African Ethnobotany in the Americas in the scientific program was linked to several cultural presentations, including local musicians, the Food Panel on African Atlantic Ethnobotany and Foodways organized by Sarah Khan, as well as the accompanying art exhibit that Sarah curated with her husband, Henry Drewal.  Sweetgrass basket makers were present in person, as well as represented in films, books, and artwork.  Those of us who had been unfamiliar with Charleston had a wonderful introduction to the city and the surrounding Lowcountry. We will remember this meeting for a long time to come.

I look forward to working with all of you during this special anniversary year.  Please contact me if you have any questions about how you can get involved in the SEB.

Best wishes,

Eve Emshwiller
University of Wisconsin—Madison

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