Subject: Welcome to ECCC7!

From: "Robert Q. Topper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 15:18:17 -0400 (EDT)

WELCOME TO ECCC7 AND OPENING REMARKS 

On behalf of the ECCC7 Scientific Organizing Committee, the ECCC7 Web
Organizing Committtee, Chris Lent, Bob Hopkins and myself, it is my
pleasure to welcome everyone to the 7th Electronic Computational Chemistry
Conference at http://eccc7.cooper.edu . 

Feel free to browse ECCC7 over the course of the weeks to come. Comment
on, and ask questions about, individual "posters" as you see fit. PLEASE
participate in discussions, and feel free to ask any question, no matter
how small. Please use http://eccc7.cooper.edu to post ALL comments and
email about ECCC7 from now on, using your DISCUS username and password.
PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT OR RESPOND TO COMMENTS BY EMAIL. They will just end
up going to my personal mail box, and I will go crazy trying to deal with
them (if I get swamped I may just have to delete them all). 

As a reminder, the conference schedule will be as follows: 

April 2, 2001 - Conference begins 
April 19, 2001 - Interactive Session begins 
April 26, 2001 - Interactive Session ends 
April 30, 2001 - Conference ends 

During the "interactive session," all authors are responsible for checking
their contribution's discussion section frequently and responding to all
questions online WITHIN 24 HOURS OF THEIR POSTING (more or less). This is
as interactive as a conference spanning more than 17 countries, 11 U.S.
states, and almost every time zone is going to get (at least for now).
There will be no "chat sessions" in this year's ECCC. 

At this time I would like to acknowledge Eleanor Baum, Dean of Cooper
Union's School of Engineering, who provided the majority of the funding
for ECCC7. In the spirit of Cooper Union's "tuition-free" policy, ECCC is
still free and will remain that way because of her enthusiastic support.
We would welcome any donations in support of future ECCC's. 

I would also like to single out two members of the WOC; Dominic Coluccio,
who has led our web development team from its inception, and Heather
Hauck, who implemented the DISCUS PRO interface, designed the "look and
feel" of the board, and worked with Dominic to get everyone's submissions
up and running online. ECCC7 would not be happening without their efforts. 

It's my pleasure to recognize the Scientific Organizing Committee members
(Dave Ferguson, Francis Muguet, Yi-Ping Liu, Jan Gershom Martin and Mark
Tuckerman) for their efforts in ensuring the high quality of this year's
presentations. In addition, I would like to recognize Steve Bachrach, the
originator of ECCC, for talking me into doing this in the first place.
Thanks, Steve, from all of us. And let us not forget Jan Labanowski,
founder and organizer of the Computational Chemistry List
(http://www.ccl.net), which made the ECCC7 announcements possible.
CCL needs and deserves all of our support. 

Finally, I want to thank the authors for all of their patience and hard
work, without whom ECCC7 would not be possible. Let's have a great
meeting! 

Robert Topper 

Chair, ECCC7 Scientific Organizing Committee 
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
New York, NY USA 

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