The IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) announced the 2020 Class of Distinguished Lecturers and Distinguished Industry Speakers for the term of 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2021, which are noted below.  The IEEE SPS Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Program provides a means for Chapters to have access to well-known educators and authors in the fields of signal processing to lecture at Chapter meetings. 

Beginning this year, all eligible IEEE Signal Processing Society Members were able to cast their vote for the next IEEE Signal Processing Society President-Elect. The President-Elect will sit on the IEEE Signal Processing Society Board of Governors beginning 1 January 2020 and will serve until 31 December 2021, when they will be elevated to Society President. 

New enhancements to the display of Section and Chapter data are now available in the Geographic Map within OU Analytics. Boundaries have been expanded to incorporate additional Sections/Subsections not previously included. 

New and improved monthly statistics reports are now available containing enriched visual analytics dashboards that can be used for monthly trending.  These comprehensive dashboards improve efficiency by allowing OUs to quickly access data that is relevant to them by OU, Region, Section, Grade, Division, etc.

As a reminder for continuing chapter chairs and for incoming chapter chairs for 2019, we would like to highlight a valuable resource available to you. Launched last year was IEEE OU Analytics, a web-based business intelligence tool to deliver essential metrics on memberships or subscriptions to OUs, including Societies, Councils, Technical Communities, etc. 

The title of "Memberships, Subscriptions, and More..." dashboard on the OU Analytics landing page has been renamed to add a parenthetical reference within the title to include (Societies, TCs, Affinities). There has been some confusion as to the content provided within the "Members and Affiliates" versus the "Memberships, Subscriptions, and More..." dashboard. 

Please be advised that IEEE gauges the vitality of a chapter by tracking how many meetings are reported during the year through vTools.  If a chapter reports "0" meetings for three consecutive years, the chapter is placed on a dissolution list that is reviewed at the November Board Meeting. 

The call for nominations for the SPS Fellow Evaluation Committee has been extended to 22 November 2019.  While all nominations will be considered, we are specifically seeking additional nominations for individuals with a background in the image, video, multidimensional signal processing area.  

Due to overwhelming interest in Member Driven Initiative funding, the IEEE Signal Processing Society has changed its process for submitting proposals through the program. This includes proposals for Forums, Regional Meetings, and Chapter Driven Initiatives.