Everyone is eagerly awaiting the outcome of the search for the new NSO Director and the recommendations of the "Parker Committee," both of which are important occurrences in the history of the observatory.
At its August 1998 meeting the AURA Board approved tenure for Christoph Keller and Thomas Rimmele. Warm congratulations go out to both of them for this well deserved promotion. Having Thomas and Christoph on our permanent scientific staff is a very important step towards achieving the renewal of NSO.
I regret to report the departures of Matt Penn and Jeff Kuhn from NSO. Matt will join the faculty of Cal State, Northridge as tenure-track professor, Jeff is moving to the University of Hawaii. We wish them the best of success in their future. The very positive aspect of their leaving is that they both are joining university programs in solar physics. Solar physics and NSO badly need strong programs in this discipline at universities. Jeff and Matt are without doubt going to do a great job at that.
Elsewhere in this Newsletter you will find the full NSO Users' Committee report. I have received some feedback on the report as it was published in Solar News. The section on the RISE/PSPT funding apparently came across quite negative to the people working on the PSPT front line. Let me assure all that this was not the intention of the report as I understood it. Haosheng Lin, Jeff Kuhn, Roy Coulter and others active in seeing the PSPTs through to reality deserve a lot of credit in producing first-rate instruments, within budget, under circumstances which were often very difficult. NSO appreciates the help it receives from the Rome Observatory and the High Altitude Observatory in operating the facilities in Italy and Hawaii.
Jacques Beckers