The Presidents of the joining societies will offer special events throughout the week. These events will include keynote speakers and awards for various competitions such as the student Presidential Scholarships, Diatome Award and MSA Traveling Poster Awards and the Presidential Symposium: The Golden Anniversary of Imaging the Atom (Symposium #42). All attendees are strongly encouraged to attend these events to congratulate award winners and listen to the keynote presentations. Times for all events will be announced in the meeting Expo.

The winner of the IMS Henry Clifton Sorby Award will be announced in the Spring of 2005. The prize will be awarded and the winner will present a lecture on the morning of Monday, August 1 in advance of the Metallographics Techniques and Applications Symposium (Symposium #36). Please check the meeting schedule for the exact time and location of this event that will honor the outstanding achievements of the awardee.

As in years past, we are pleased to feature an exhibit of the works of David Scharf at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2005. The art exhibit will be displayed in a prominent area of the Honolulu Convention Center that is accessible to the public. A must for families of meeting registrants.

"Microscopic Explorations" is a highly successful manual for teachers; it is the result of a collaboration between MSA and the science educators at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. It uses microscopes to introduce middle school students to scientific observation and inquiry. A LHS-trained science educator will present effective ways to use Microscopic Explorations in the classroom to a group of Hawaiian teachers; meeting attendees (and spouses!) will be welcome to attend. LHS education programs are already in operation around the Pacific, in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Singapore. "Microscopic Explorations" has been used in the Philippines, and other LHS manuals are in use in Thailand.

Through the years MSA council members have received many requests from meeting attendees to allow their children the opportunity to participate in the meeting by viewing the exhibits. With the anticipation that many families will be attending the Hawaii meeting, the councils of the joining societies and the program committee will sponsor a session aimed at children of all ages, including those of us that still consider ourselves children. A keynote speaker will present a number of interesting images, ranging from insects to atoms, that will demonstrate the wide range of science that the imaging technologies represent. Following the presentation, children will have the opportunity to participate in a guided tour of the exhibit floor and to visit some of the exhibitors to view the microscopes and see how they work. Please check the Meeting Expo and Daily Newsletter for the scheduled time of this exciting session designed to pique the scientific interest of children of all ages.

The computer workshop and software exchange will be operating throughout the Meeting and will be located on the Exhibit floor adjacent to the society information booth. Participants can view and discuss the more than 500 Mbytes of data, programs, general information and images available in the public domain software library. A limited number of Mac and PC systems will be available for viewing, discussing and copying programs. In addition, a number of connections to the Internet are planned and will be available to all conference attendees to provide access to Email and WWW services. This will be contingent upon availability of systems with respect to any other workshop or meeting demonstrations and the arrangements with a local Internet Service Provider. The Workshop and Internet Cafe will only be available during normal Exhibit hours.

Signup sheets with titles and descriptions are at the MSA Education table in the MSA Mega Booth. When you sign up you will be issued a ticket, which you will need to renter the Hall after it is closed. Details of these tutorials will be listed approximately 1 month before the meeting and will be posted on the Meeting News WWW page.