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in a lifetime, the ASA formed an ad hoc committee on the IYS last summer, cochaired by L. Keeta Jones and myself. The ASA meetings in 2020 were designated as IYS meetings. The ICA held a worldwide IYS opening event in Paris, France, at the Sorbonne on January 31, 2020. On behalf of the ASA, both the executive director and I attended, and a recording of the entire ceremony is available online at sound2020.org. Figure 1 shows Dr. Mark Hamilton of the ASA participating in the opening event as the president of ICA.
Then, on February 13, 2020, the Washington, DC, Regional Chapter of the ASA hosted the United States opening celebration for the IYS in collaboration with ASA Head- quarters. This event was hosted by the American Institute of Physics in College Park, MD, and both Keeta and I were able to attend, as were many individuals from the Ameri- can Institute of Physics (AIP) staff and ASA members from around the Washington, DC, area. In addition to showing some short ASA-related IYS videos, we had two speakers address the group in College Park. They were Josef Raus- checker from Georgetown University who talked about
“Auditory Perception and Action” and Gary Gottlieb from the Audio Engineering Society who spoke about “The Evo- lution of Audio.” A recording of the entire US IYS opening program, including these talks, is available on the ASA Facebook page. A particularly special thank you goes out
to David Lechner, chair of the Washington, DC, Regional Chapter for making this all happen.
In addition to the opening ceremonies, there are other IYS events coming to student and regional chapters of the ASA. A special online-only issue of Acoustics Today has been prepared by Acoustics Today Editor in Chief Arthur Popper in very close collaboration with L. Keeta Jones and ASA Editorial Assistant Kat Setzer. The Special Issue is available at bit.ly/3dxCju1. The Special Issue is aimed at outreach to make students, teachers, and others in local, state, and federal governments more aware of the importance of acoustics and sound generally in our society. Indeed, Keeta will be distributing copies of the Special Issue at many events around the country in the coming year. I also encourage all members to share the link to the Special Issue with their students, colleagues, and even their children’s (and grandchildren’s) teachers.
Moreover, led by the Public Relations Committee and its chair Laura Kloepper, the ASA is partnering with AIP Media Services to generate a number of short videos and press releases throughout 2020 to engage the public and let them know about sound in this special year. The IYS has been a great example of how all of ASA can come together and address a special year-long event on a fixed time schedule. See bit.ly/39w1yJH for the videos and the latest information.
At the same time, the world had to change its collective ways in a hurry in March 2020 when the novel corona- virus (COVID-19) struck across the globe. Clearly, the virus has made a major impact on all ASA members and the organization itself. Indeed, as this article is being written, all the stakeholders such as ASA Headquarters, the councils, the administrative and technical commit- tees, and individual ASA members are figuring out how the next year of meetings will be navigated.
The ASA officers and managers had their spring 2020 meeting on March 12, and many options were being considered for the meetings, including canceling, delay- ing, or shifting to online only. A plan to move forward quickly was established a few days later, and thanks go to ASA Headquarters for their speedy work. Given that many government laboratories, universities, and busi- nesses have canceled all foreign travel for the foreseeable future, the decision was made to cancel the planned
Figure 1. Dr. Mark Hamilton, Acoustical Society of America (ASA) member and former ASA president, addresses the International Year of Sound opening celebration as president of the International Commission for Acoustics, Sorbonne University, Paris, France, January 31, 2020.
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