FUN Executive Committee Minutes

FUN Executive Committee Minutes

FUN Executive Committee Minutes

November 13, 2010 San Diego

Started at 7:05 pm

Attending: Ron Bayline, Beth Meyer-Bernstein, Bob Calin-Jageman , Leah Chase, Shelly Dickinson, Gary Dunbar, Alan Gittis, Bill Grisham, Jean Hardwick, Mary Harrington, Kurt Illig, Bruce Johnson, Chris Korey, Sonoles de Lacalle, Andy Mickley, Mary Morrison, Gary Muir, Julio Ramirez, Elaine Reynolds, Jeff Smith, Jan Thorton, Eric Wiertelak, Jennifer Yates, Jared Young,

Elaine Reynolds filling in for Carol Ann Paul as secretary

Election Results (Shelley Dickinson)

Shelley thanked Chris Korey for running election on survey monkey

  • Acknowledgement of Outgoing Officers: Thanks to Chris Korey (leaving past president post) and Jennifer Yates (leaving president post), Jeff Smith, Gary Muir and Leah Chase (leaving councilor post), Sonsoles Lacalle (leaving treasure post)
  • Recognized Incoming Officers: Elaine Reynolds as president-elect, Jan Thorton as incoming secretary, Ron Bayline as incoming treasurer, Amy Jo Staumeyer, Kurt IIlig, Beth Meyer-Bernstein and Jeff Smith as incoming councilors
  • We need to fill the treasurer elect position

Shelley thanked Alan Gittis for his service on PECC

Officer/Committee Reports

Nu Rho Psi (Andy Mickley)

  • A proposal was mailed to everyone for a transition plan. This plan was included in constitution and specified officers to be elected, and other details of the transition to independence from FUN. Andy surveyed the membership and they thought the organization was ready to go independent. The transition is slated to occur in 2012, leaving a year to get structure in place and to apply for non profit status
  • In closed session, the executive board approved the transition plan.
  • JUNE (Gary Dunbar)
  • A new issue of JUNE was published prior to meeting with 9 articles and 2 editorials. Gary recommend article by Alan Gittis in particular.
  • Bill Grisham is nominated as the new editor and Eric Wiertelak is nominated for associate editor. Gary also asked the executive committee to consider expanding editorial board to include. The executive board approved these nominations and changes in the editorial board in the closed meeting.
  • JUNE now has a PsychInfo listing and abstracting in Elsevier. We are still attempting to get in pub med
  • The JUNE bylawsneed to be updated (Eric will be bringing those changes to the Business meeting for a vote)
  • Gary asked for a few minutes at the FUN social to present awards.
  • JUNE budget, emailed to everyone, to be approved in closed session
  • Gary was asked about the regularity of issues. He explained difficulties with trying to commit to a regular schedule. JUNE is planning on two regular issues (fall and spring) plus a commitment to a third special issue for the Pomona meeting
  • Public Policy (Julio Ramirez)
  • Over the year, Julio distributed via email information about issues relevant to science and education. There will be lots of activity in a few months with budget issues as Republicansnow control Congress. Arlen Spector efforts to pass a budget for NIH failed. The good news is that increases have been proposed by Obama administration. The bad news is that the Republican’s Pledge to America is not friendly to science and education. The pledge returns the budget to 2008 levels. Julio urged us to become active with our members of congress, send letters etc. and advocate. He mentioned opportunities to present to congress on undergraduate research.
  • SOMAS (Ramirez)
  • Julio thanked FUN for its budget supplement for SOMAS and he has submitted request for next year and hoped it would be funded. At luncheon today announced new SOMAS faculty, 4 awardees from24 applicants:
  • Joel Bish, Ph.D., Ursinus College
  • Carolyn Pytte, Ph.D., Queens College, CUNY
  • Latha Ramakrishnan, Ph.D., Saint Cloud State University
  • John Ramcharitar, Ph.D., St. Mary’s College of Maryland
  • Julio presented assessment on first 6 years of SOMAS. 18 total scholars who have published 83 papers, 5 per scholar, 40 of which involved students coauthor. 16/18 SOMAS scholars have funding totaling 6.2 million. 8 have received internal recognition and awards, 6 have been tenured. 8 hold national and local leadership positions, 7 are involved in FUN leadership. All 18 students working with SOMAS scholars are continuing to pursue educational, many ultimately interested in PHD programs
  • A question was asked about the decrease in applications. Originally SOMAS had 50 or so, and it seems like the URM designation has reduced applicants although the intent was for the designation to be broad. SOMAS was advertised in the Chronicle, APA, Neuroscience Nexus, CDNP, and FUN. Julio was willing to accept other suggestions. Support of the program is by HHMI currently with Davidson College
  • The request for funds for SOMAS was approved by the executive committee in closed session
  • PECC Report (Gittis)
  • Alan reported on his experiences with the committee suggesting the short term outlook was not so good but we need to work on interaction with SfN on a long term basis. Currently FUN has lost liaison position on the committee. He also felt like BAW is losing momentum. He felt that the committee is focused on public relations, and PR work and that the educational mission is secondary. If this is so, does FUN belong here?
  • In terms of the future for the liaison position, we need to think about and discuss a broader educational mission for FUN. Does FUN have a role in public education in addition to educating neuroscience majors? If so, we need to articulate that better to SFN. We need to lobby for change in policy to extend outreach definition to K-16. Some things are done better at undergrad level (animal research for example). Other initiatives-animal research civil debate for undergrad campuses
  • Jen-asked for explanation about lost liaison position. Alan suggested that SfN was trying to make the committee smaller and in general didn’t automatically renew positions. But why FUN was eliminated, he still doesn’t have an answer. We can put up a candidate for the committee. Maybe FUN should find a better committee? professional development??
  • What are FUN’s goals for the organization in terms of public education? Should we do a membership survey on this? How do we want to intereact with SfN? FUN could generate outreach or toolbox/kit and idea, collect information about our current work as a group. What is the organization or its member’s role in informal education with museums etc. Should we prepare a white paper?
  • cNDP Report (Johnson)
  • Bruce sent around a report, Report focused on cNDP’s interest in supporting FUN based on some questions that went out to FUN executive committee. The report outlines priorities for cNDP support of FUN. Bruce went over some aspects of the report.
  • FUN is valuable to cNDP, We have power within the organization since many undergraduate programs are members and if more undergraduate program and department join then even better.
  • Fun should emphasis/focus on things that are joint goals for the organizations. CNDP has somethings they are interested in supporting and some of the things we identified are things should we be doing better for ourselves.
  • Its the relationships within the organization we need to build. Being a presence is important.
  • , Bruce answered a question about membership and how to join. There was discussion about the application and how it could be better to recognize that some programs are undergraduate only. There was some question about what does a institution get out of being a member. Institutional membership is essentially a membership in SfN,
  • Should we let cNDP use our mailing lists?
  • We should use cNDP as a organization to support recruitment of undergraduates to graduate programs. Need some communication to cNDP membership. We need to better link FUN posters to graduate recruitment. We talked about idea about changes to make poster session more visible and possibly a recruiting lunch, There are modelsin other organizations we should check out.
  • Timeline for new cNDP liaison-Late winter, early spring, go to meeting in the spring with Bruce
  • New cNDP Travel awards for undergraduates program members
  • Bruce gave us schedule for the spring 2011 meeting, Jennifer submitted an abstract for a session focused on undergrads, in the format of a panel discussion, based on Olivo’s symposium.
  • FUN equipment loan program (Hardwick)
  • Applications-Because of Carol’s sickness, Jean took over, and she plans to recognize people at social. We need a full time person to run this program and we need more vendors and sponsors and we need to increase the advertisement for program. Jean emphasized that the executive board should make this a priority. Advertising in exhibitor guide was suggested as idea. Jeff Smith volunteered to take responsibility for the program. A presidential committee to support this program and chaired by Jeff Smith was approved by the executive committee in closed session.
  • Award Status-The winners of the 2010 equipment loans were
  • Robert Flint, College of Saint Rose, receiving a SR-LAB System, from San Diego Instruments
  • Leah Chase, Hope College, receiving a Kinder Scientific Startle System
  • Adrienne Betz, Quinnipiac University; Photobeam open field activity, San Diego Instruments
  • Education committee (Wiertelak)
  • Eric told us that the 2011 Pomona FUN workshopplanning was underway, July 29-31 and they were in the process of developing a list of session and leaders. The local host is Karen Parfitt. There will be a general announcement etc in spring. The meeting continues to be based on business model to generate funds.
  • The consulting service going well. Eric suggestedthat consulting be tied to program membership as a way to expand that membership. Bruce and Mike Rusio, reappointment Eric and Julio,
  • Eric Wiertelak, Mary Harrington and Chris Korey went to Germany to work on creating a FUN study abroad program with German neuroscience programs. For this year we will have a summer abroad program in Berlin and Munich through College of Charleston. chris is working on website etc. and he is also working on semester abroad that would coordinate teaching with research . Hopefully a full semester at Munich. A FUN member will teach with the program and may be ideal for someone going on sabbatical.
  • Website update (Calin-Jageman)
  • Everything is going well with the website. Bob submitted a report and went over the data it. Student content gets most hits. One problem he found was that getting members to add content is difficult and we need to work on advertising or encouraging this.
  • Bob is working on a website for Pomona conference.
  • We need to keep better track of member’s information, number of members and year people joined. We need publicize and increase membership. Use the membership for feedback and to generate a mailing list. Should we share our membership/mailing list with other organizations?
  • We need to clean up some listserve problems.
  • What should we do with sponsors (institutional/programs) and membership renewals? What do we do with people who don’t renew? Is someone responsible for contacting people that don’t renew?
  • Social/Poster Session (Korey)
  • We have 120 posters and are the largest social at SfN. We will have the usual program.
  • Brain Awareness Week Committee (Yates)
  • BAW Travel Award-We had 6 applications and one winner.Tayler O'Connell, Ohio Wesleyan University , announced at BAW session.
  • Booth (Bayline)
  • T-Shirt design contest-T shirt design winner
  • Everything is ready to go with the booth, we have pins, Tshirts etc. Pretty good coverage with volunteers only a few slots need to be covered.
  • Fliers on FUN activities, information for distribtion at the booth
  • Treasurer-Finance committee (de Lacalle)
  • Booth pays for the SfN meeting expenses ($14,000)
  • Membership money pays for JUNE budget/travel award or two/SOMAS contribution
  • Travel awards largely come from donors. Grass endowment (bonds) covers some travel awards, need to reinvest theses
  • $25,000 left over at year end, need to work on membership renewals, increased membership, institutional memberships.
  • There was a discussion of the value of institutional membership or even membership.
  • Sonsoles needs meeting minutes for tax records. She is trying to find the original notes/minutes/paperwork about FUN.
  • The budget for 2011 was approved in closed session by the executive committee

Closed Session:

Votes

1. Proposal for NuRho Psi to become independent from FUN. Approved

2. Changes for JUNE- Nomination of Bill Grisham as editor, Eric Weirtelak as Associate Editor, and Christina Meade and Raddy Ramos to review board. Approved

Addition motions will be brought to membership (expansion of review board, adjustment for structure in bylaw) Approved

3. Establishing an Equipment Loan supervisor position

4. Establish supervisor position for Equipment program-Jeff Smith replacing Jean Hardwick. For this year it will be a presidential committee with Jeff as chair. Jeff will appoint people he needs to help and will propose an bylaws

amendment for next year

5. 2011 budget-Approved

JUNE-discussion on budget issues, next year we need a requested budget with actual expenses from previous year,

SOMAS contribution-Approved

Questions to continue discussing

Liaison position on PECC, should we pursue this?

Should the organization pursue a role in outreach?

Talked about role and relationship with cNDP

Membership Questions-permission to investigate further about these questions, communication with members via email with exec committee and with Bob

Website/listserves

Membership issues/committee

Dues tracking/dues due dates

Years of membership/FUN Fellows

Email list for FUN member access-do we want this?

maybe have a checkbox on membership form

Closed at 11 pm

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