The magic of being part of CSSP
“What they don’t entirely capture is what I experienced, the magic of being part of CSSP. The science advocacy and meeting with decision makers in science were essential, especially for someone leading a scientific society. But CSSP opened up so many vistas for me. You commented on some not seeing the need for networking outside of your own discipline. My role in NYSERNet brought with it the opportunity to interact significantly with people in many disciplines, and at the CSSP meetings I enjoyed three or four days of jaw dropping science. CSSP kept the sense of wonder active and alive. I’m reminded often of the closing stanza of John Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.