GSC Retreat -- January 25 2008

1.  History of the GSC. Co-chair Megan Cleland gave an overview of the
    early years of the GSC including the ideas and accomplishments of
    each year's committee.

2.  Goals of the GPP, presented by Sharon Milgram.

    a.  OITE has been reorganized into (1) Office of Postbacs and Summer
        Students (2) GPP (3) Postdoc Services (4) Scientific Career
        Counseling Center (5) Marketing -- external and internal.
        Podcasting via the Marketing office begins next week. Videos of
        OITE programs are already available.

    b.  Important people in OITE

        i.  Pat Sokolove -- Deputy Director of OITE

        ii. Betsey Wade -- Deputy Director of GPP

        iii. Lori Conlan -- Deputy Director of Post-docs

    c.  GPP Goals and Identity:

        i.  Dramatic expansion of teaching initiatives on campus.

            1.  Scientists teaching scientists -- certification coming

            2.  Trips to liberal arts universities

            3.  K-12 education

            4.  Mentoring -- grad students mentoring post-bacs,
                post-docs mentoring grad students

            5.  Journal clubs

        ii. Create parallel initiative in industry and entrepreneurial
            aspects of science.

            1.  Industry overview workshop

            2.  Industry in-depth workshop

            3.  Trips to companies (beginning in fall)

        iii. Develop leadership programs

             1.  Myers-Briggs workshops

             2.  Competitions for travel awards

             3.  Course in leadership/lab management

             4.  Possible separation of grad students / post-docs

        iv. Better advising

            1.  Tracking

            2.  Ability to identify problems early -- develop web-based
                communication between mentors, students, GPP.

        v.  Smaller initiatives: ESL classes, CV-editing workshops,
            providing feedback on talks/presentations.

    d.  Other news: Research symposium has been moved to the fall rather
        than spring. The size of our retreat has outgrown The Woods;
        this year we'll go to Rocky Gap, MD from July 17-18. GPP is
        figuring out how we can acknowledge those students that are
        graduating -- possibly at the Symposium.

    e.  Questions/concerns raised:

        i.  Some postbacs wanted mock interviews with grad students.
            Sharon said this may happen in the next year or two, but for
            now mock interviews with PIs should be sufficient.

        ii. Is the GPP advertising to small universities? There is
            currently a freeze on developing new partnerships until we
            have better resources for our existing partnerships. The GPP
            advertises at venues (undergrad conferences, for example)
            that target universities of different sizes.

        iii. What is the actual graduation rate? Where do they go? GPP
             doesn't have these answers, but hopes that a better
             tracking system will help determine them.

        iv. What are the goals specific to graduate students? Find high
            quality labs, develop good mentorship, get help writing
            grants, be supported in changing labs if necessary.

3.  Goals of the GSC in the coming year (discussed in small groups).

    a.  Revenue:

        i.  Season's Passes to social events will help generate seed
            money.

        ii. Make GSC t-shirts to sell, to raise money. Try to keep price
            at \$10. Athena will look into cost of screenprinting
            t-shirts. Upfront t-shirt costs may be covered by Season's
            Pass money or, potentially, a loan from FAES or FELCOM.
            Possibly hold a T-shirt Design Contest.

    b.  Community, Participation, Involvement:

        i.  To increase involvement, we'll encourage people to join GSX
            to find out about social events and off-campus activities
            (post a blurb in Weekly Compiled and/or GSChronicles).

        ii. Incentives: Bring a Friend to a meeting or social event --
            raffle off a Season's Pass or t-shirt.

        iii. Try to get new students involved in GSC from Day 1 of
             Orientation -- especially targeting the individual
             partnership students.

        iv. Increase Happy Hour involvement in conjunction with FELCOM.

    c.  Representation:

        i.  We want more recognition and support for the accomplishments
            of the GSC. We would like the handbook to reflect that GS3
            and Pathways were founded by the GSC.

        ii. We feel that Town Hall meetings were helpful. In the past,
            they got out of hand -- maybe we can arrange for mini-Town
            Halls with partnership directors and a representative from
            the GPP. Or, designate one month's GSC meeting as a Town
            Hall meeting.

        iii. Create a web forum for posting problems, solutions,
             grievances, etc where students can seek answers to common
             problems.

    d.  Graduate student relationship with NIH community:

        i.  Increase awareness -- Vanessa will write an article about
            grad students at the NIH in the NIH Catalyst.

        ii. Make graduation talks open to the greater NIH community.

4.  Committee Reports and Goals.

    a.  Academic Committee:

        i.  FAES Lab Techniques Course (presented by Marieke Mur):
            Course went well this year, however there were too few
            students enrolled, so we need to increase participation.
            There has been talk of changing the format to more of a
            journal club, or more general disease information (similar
            to Demystifying Medicine course), or
            how-to-read-a-scientific-paper; there is also the
            possibility of changing the format to no-cost/no-credit. A
            similar course may be organized for the summer students;
            this would need to be organized soon. The suggestion was
            made to have an administrator help out with the course
            rather than a post-doc.

        ii. Biophysics and Structural Biology Interest Group (Matt
            Berberich/presented by Megan Cleland): Will continue to meet
            2^nd^ and 4^th^ Thurs of each month. Aims: To create a forum
            to discuss current issues/trends in structural biology, to
            introduce other graduate students/post-bacs/researchers to
            structural biology techniques and learn how they are used to
            address biological questions, to hear from researchers who
            develop structural biology techniques and/or use structural
            biology techniques to address biological questions, to
            create a resource for graduate students who might be
            interested in applying structural biology techniques by
            providing contact information for those who are familiar
            with structural biology.

        iii. Systems Neuroscience Interest Group (presented by TJ Doty):
             SNIG coordinates monthly meetings, emails about
             neuroscience talks/events at NIH, and monthly lunch with
             neuroscience speakers. Participation has been declining, so
             a goal is to revive interest. We have found coordinators
             for 2008, and more postbacs are expressing interest in our
             meetings.

    b.  Career Development:

        i.  Pathways (presented by Nick McBride ): Our mission is to
            increase accessibility and knowledge of a variety of career
            pathways. We will be working more closely with FELCOM in the
            future. Shau-Ming Wei, Michael Gates, and Nick McBride will
            be running Pathways in the coming year. Our goal is to hold
            a career event each month. Upcoming events: 2/5,
            presentation on Ph.D. careers in clinical research and lunch
            for graduate students with speakers. In March -
            presentations on large- and small- biotech/pharma companies
            and lunch for graduate students. The format may be changed
            to presentations-then-tea rather than
            lunch-then-presentations.

        ii. GS3 (presented by Roseanne Zhao): GS3 meets on the 3^rd^
            Thursday of the month at noon; consists of 2 speakers each
            giving a 20" talk with 5-10" for questions, then feedback on
            the presentation (recently implemented). Might start
            recording presentations -- talk to Shawn Mullins about
            borrowing video camera. Might start opening up some meetings
            to PIs and postdocs.

    c.  Community Service (presented by Kim Baxter): Last year's events
        included cooking two meals for Children's Inn, National Public
        Lands Clean-Up Day, packing food at Manna Food Center. Our goals
        are:

        i.  organize a consistent, monthly event (probably Manna Food
            Center food packing);

        ii. organize three larger events each year (probably cooking
            dinner at Children's Inn, volunteering outdoors on National
            Public Lands Day, and coordinating a Blood Drive for grad
            students on campus);

        iii. increase involvement and raise awareness of our work --
             including recruiting another person to the Community
             Service committee.

        iv. Upcoming events: Manna Food Center volunteer night- probably
            Feb 11; Blood Drive- sometime in March.

    d.  Trainee Advisory Committee: Kate Callahan, Marieke Mur, and
        Christina Saikus are new to the Committee, which hasn't met yet.

    e.  Interview Committee (presented by Gayani Weerasinghe and TJ
        Doty): We'll need graduate students to come out to the social
        events on interview days (Feb 13, 15, 20-22, 27-29). Emails will
        be sent out asking for help with these events.

    f.  Public Relations Committee:

        i.  Newsletter (presented by Stephanie Guzik): People will be
            solicited to write their own sections of the newsletter. We
            may invite GPP to write a section each month or so.

        ii. Website (presented by Megan Cleland): Working on getting
            committee-specific email addresses that will not change even
            as committee make-up changes.

        iii. GSX (presented by Julien Debbache): possibly revamp website
             so that you can join individual groups such as community
             service in site -- cut down on unnecessary traffic,
             advertise GSX in weekly compiled.

        iv. FELCOM (presented by Phil Wang): combined happy hours with
            Felcom/Grad students. New rep will be Heather Pressler.

    g.  Social Committee: Upcoming event ideas include a potluck dinner
        in the lounge, an ice-skating and a museum trip in February,
        bowling at the NNMC. In the spring, ideas include horseback
        riding in April and camping on Memorial Day weekend; for the
        summer, hikes and another potluck. Another plan is to host a
        monthly happy hour, on the same day each month.

    h.  Symposium Committee: Goals include adding a graduation ceremony,
        increasing turnout, and inviting a US senator on the science and
        technology committee to be a keynote speaker. More talks by
        1^st^-years would be good, but it was argued that more senior
        grad students may not get many chances to present research and
        should be given first opportunities.

5.  Co-Chairs Reports and Goals.

    a.  2 major goals were increasing participation and finances.

    b.  Will work on 4 goals raised in discussions at retreat.