in December the petition for a Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) student chapter was approved.  We are having an organizational meeting on January 29th.  As part of having a student chapter we are suppose to elect officers: President, Vice-President, and Secretary/Treasurer.  Being a SIAM officer is something that you can list on your cv.  George Lytle had mentioned that he would be willing to serve as president.  The job of the officers is simply to facilitate the spending of the 500 dollars that SIAM has allotted us as well as the 500 dollars that the department has agreed to give us.  The officers will hopefully  organize social activities as well as invite speakers.  Whether this means an activity each semester or an activity each month is up to you all.  

SIAM provides additional funds to send students to various SIAM meetings, see the following for a list of upcoming meetings http://www.siam.org/meetings/calendar.php.  
If you see one that you would like to attend come to the meeting.

David Murragura has suggested that we organize a trip to Oak Ridge National Lab(ORNL).  This is something we would try to get students from not just the math department to participate in.  Grad Students from the Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Engineering will hopefully  be invited to participate in SIAM activities.  If visiting ORNL is something that might interest you then come to the meeting.

If you have something in mind that you would like SIAM to do, definitely come to the meeting.