ful Digital Library. Great credit should be given to the board members at that critical time, including Hal Berghel, John Clippinger, Bill Gruener, Marvin Israel, Wendy MacKay, Christine Montgomery, Peter Wegner, and Gio Wiederhold, who were joined later by Bill Arms, Peter Polson, David Wise, and Ron Boisvert.

My four-year tenure as EIC of CACM can be best described as a transition period after which the EE would have global control over the material published in the CACM. This seemed to me inevitable, since the task of keeping a steady flow of articles representing the efforts of an entire community was beyond the scope of a single volunteer EIC.

Decisions and actions are always taken within certain contexts and an organization must be flexible and dynamic to cope with new environments. As such, the decision to have Moshe Vardi assume the re-created position of EIC will likely open new horizons for CACM. Moshe is a dynamic and well-recognized member of our community. We wish him success in carrying out his new responsibilities.

Finally, I want to say a few words about the experience I gained as a decision maker in nonprofit organizations like Brandeis and the ACM. I find it extremely important to understand the

duality between idealism and pragmatism. One of these components cannot survive without the other. As an academician and researcher my initial inclination was toward idealism. When I assumed administrative and managerial positions, such as department chair or the editorship of CACM, I immediately recognized the need to be among pragmatists. I believe that successful organizations balance idealism with pragmatism and maintain a healthy tension between the two.

At this stage of its development, computer science risks fragmentation if we do not stress the basic concepts that bind its practitioners. At the same time we cannot ignore the complexity of the world that surrounds us and drives us toward interdisciplinary pursuits. Tomorrow’s computer scientists will have to navigate wisely around the extreme of hyper-specialization while pursuing new frontiers in computer science. As we go forward CACM will continue to be the ideal venue to help our community develop new ideas and stay rooted in the basic tenets of computer science. ^c

JACQUES COHEN ( [e-mail]) is the TJX/Feldberg Professor of Computer Science at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA.

© 2008 ACM 0001-0782/08/0100 $5.00

IN RECOGNITION

The former EICs of Communications would like to recognize
the efforts of the Executive Editors who have supported us over the years.
The journey began with Myrtle R. Kellington at the helm. Her high standards and devotion to
putting out a good product were of critical importance to ACM’s publications effort. This high
standard has been continued by the outstanding EEs who followed. Our thanks to:

Myrtle R. Kellington (1958–1976)
Mark S. Mandelbaum (1977–1979),
Janet G. Benton (1980–June 1986),
James Maurer (July 1986–July 1992), and
Diane Crawford (Aug. 1992– ).