Minutes of the CCR-FYI Steering Committee Meeting

September 28^th^, 2006, Thursday 11:00 AM- 12:00 PM

> **Members present:**
>
> **Bethesda:** Martin Guimond, Maarten Leerkes, Haiqing Li, Girish
> Patel, Michael Rosu-Myles, Stephen Maher, Heidi Erickson, Margaret
> Pratt, Hatem Sabaawy, Jonathan Wiest.
>
> **Frederick:** Susan Lindtner, Kevin Chang, Stephen Maher, Jordan
> Irvin, Veronica Hall, Arti Santhanam, Melissa Maderia, Maja Bumke,
> Gonzalo de la Rosa

**ATC Gaithersburg:** Renuka Shivendran

> **Member excused:** Gillian Whittaker, Veronique Pascal, Toby Schmid,
> Tinoush Moulei, Jennifer Shen, Kwang Suh, Martin Guimond, Tamaro
> Hudson, Swati Choksi, Elena Ambrosino.

1)  Call to order.

> Welcome to new member Micheal Rosu-Myles (mylesm@mail.nih.gov)

2\) Action Items:

Priority projects:

> [1. Updating Bylaws:]{.underline}
>
> Margaret sent out the bylaws. Please look over the various
> subcommittees and their responsibilities. We will vote on the changes
> at this meeting.
>
> Susan and Haiqing proposed to add a new sector to the ByLaws for
> "Friends of Steering Committee". It is to include post-docs who would
> like to enlist in our listserv, but not be able to attend our
> meetings. They won't have voting right. If they attend three SC
> meetings, they can become active members and have voting rights.
> Several issues related to this proposal were raised. SC officials were
> elected anomalously through listserv. How to regulate the votes from
> "SC friends" if they also share it? Should they have a separate
> listserv? Do they have a right to compete for CCR-FYI travel award?
> Active SC members are excluded from it to avoid the appearance of
> conflicted interests. Everybody is asked to send his/her input to
> Margaret. Margaret and bylaws committee will review the recommended
> changes and bring them up for discussion at the next meeting, so the
> issues are clear to vote on if needed to do so.
>
> In addition, Margaret called for volunteers to serve on bylaws
> committee.
>
> [2. Increasing the visibility of CCR-FYI]{.underline} through new
> employee orientations. Gillian and Stephen Maher conducted the third
> new employee orientation in Frederick. Swati and Martin Guimond will
> manage the operation and create a list for Bethesda and Gaithersburg.
>
> 5 new postdocs were there. The presentation lasted for 20 minutes. It
> was a success and they were asked to represent regularly at
> orientation. They will get feedback from these new postdocs 3 months
> later for any possible improvement.
>
> [3. Brown bag lunches at CCR grand rounds]{.underline}
>
> Progress on coffee and donut funds from the Director's office
>
> In order to get around the problem of low attendance at this lunch
> series we are trying to have coffee and donuts served for fellows and
> speaker right after the grand round seminar. Jonathan has sent the
> letter down the proper channels.
>
> The request was denied. However, the request for time slot right after
> ground round seminar was approved. Jonathan said there is a mechanism
> that might result in occasional coffee and donut. Haiqing was in
> charge of lunches last year, but won't be able to organize it in the
> mornings. CCR grand rounds are from 8:30am to 9:30am. Anybody
> interested in organizing the coffee time with grand rounds speaker
> should email Haiqing or Girish.
>
> [4. The Postdoc seminar series:]{.underline} Report from Maarten about
> the very successful first seminar. Do we have more speakers lined up?
>
> Todd Hardin will present later today. Haiqing will present and Scott
> Morgan will analyze the talk on Oct 12^th^ and core facility will
> present on Oct 19^th^.

Secondary projects:

-   [Compiling the 2006 survey results]{.underline}: Gonzalo has already
    started compiling the results. He will give us the results at the
    next meeting

-   [Creating the 2007 survey questionnaire]{.underline}: Gonzalo has
    offered to help Girish and the retreat committee with the next
    survey.

-   [CCR-FYI alumni database-]{.underline} progress thus far: Jonathan
    and Terry Moody are working on this.

-   [Newsletter:]{.underline} Stephen's report on future newsletter
    ideas

> Stephen Maher has published his first CCR FYI newsletter! It is also
> posted on our website. Next newsletter is due in December, and Stephen
> called for any articles or any ideas for an article to be sent to him
> by the 3^rd^ week of November. Current ideas are: professional
> societies and why should we join it; industrial jobs - good and bad
> etc. Jonathan suggested that a report for the post-doc seminar series
> be written and send to Stephen. All Postdocs are welcome to contribute
> to the newsletter.

3\) Subcommittee Reports

> [a. Retreat subcommittee:]{.underline} Monthly progress report
> (Girish, Veronica, Veronique, Gillian)

-   Keynote speakers update

Three keynote speakers have accepted.

-   Progress on letters to PIs and Postdocs for Outstanding Postdoc
    nomination (Elena, Joseph and Kwang)

Currently, 16 candidates were nominated.

-   Workshop update

Individuals are reminded to keep the retreat committee informed of
progress they have made in organizing their workshops. Ideally this
should be done ahead of time so that the retreat chair can talk about
all workshops together in the meeting rather than prolong the meeting
time.

\- Progress on career fair

We are awaiting approval of the letter to be sent to companies by Jean.
Jordan and Tinoushi are planning to help in the mailing process.

Retreat committee was asked to write a preliminary agenda report to SC.

> [b. Scientific Subcommittee]{.underline}

-   Report from The WSA meeting -- Arti, Melissa

Arti and Melissa attended the first CCR-WSA meeting in Frederick. It was
run by the CCR representatives -- Drs. Nancy Colburn, Sheue-yann Cheng
and Susan Bates. Representatives from the tenure track scientists'
organization; Staff scientists' group and the CCR-FYI (Arti) spoke.
There seemed to be concerted effort on the part of the WSA in working
towards retaining women in scientific research positions. The
conclusions were that although women and men were hired at the same rate
women tended to quit for reasons connected to family and child-care
whereas men tended to quit for better positions and better pay. The
postdoctoral complaints were mostly on the issue of available child-care
facilities in both Frederick and Bethesda. In particular, the long
waiting list and the non-staggered fee structure. Krista Zanetti the
FELCOM rep mentioned that they were working on surveying the Postdoc
population on these issues. The survey results will be sent to CCR-FYI
and WSA for recommendations that will then be forwarded to the
administration. The WSA has also agreed to work with us on formulating
specific questions for our Retreat survey that can better reflect the
issues faced by women Postdocs in CCR/NCI.

Heidi will present the same data in Oct 3^rd^ Women Scientists Meeting
in Bethesda campus.

-   [NPA]{.underline} : Kenetia Thompson of the NPA sent around request
    for [Updates to NPA Institutional Policy Database]{.underline}. This
    is an essential online resource for identifying current policies and
    practices. There are problems opening some of our links on the
    database. Also they don't have enough information on some of our
    activities. We need to send them updated information. Arti and
    Maarten are working on this.

-   [FELCOM: Heidi suggests a feedback symposium to bring all of the
    groups supporting fellows to a half a day symposium]{.underline} for
    the PIs that would inform us of the Fellow\'s concerns, and point to
    areas where we need to focus our efforts

> Heidi suggests this symposium to bring CCR FYI SC, FELCOM, Visiting
> Fellow's Committee and NPA together for PIs to understand NIH fellow's
> concerns. Heidi will report on response from Felcom. If positive, Arti
> and Heidi will work with Felcom in organizing this meeting.

Closed items:

Newsletter: Stephen Maher did a great job on the newsletter.
Congratulations Stephen!!

Announcement:

The CCR-FYI will have a picnic at Sugarloaf Mountain on Saturday October
14th. Maja is organizing this and will send out an invitation to all
Postdocs.

Adjourn meeting.