AT its meeting in New York City on April 4, 1959, the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Physics named Ralph A. Sawyer, dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan, as chairman of the Board. Dean Sawyer succeeds Frederick Seitz, professor of physics at the University of Illinois, who has served as chairman for the past five years. The entire period under the leadership of Prof. Seitz, from March 1954 until his retirement last month, was one of constantly increasing activity and unprecedented growth for the Institute and consequently also a period in which the Governing Board, its Executive Committee, and especially its hard‐working chairman were faced with extremely heavy responsibilities.