Meeting Minutes

General Meeting Minutes: Thursday, September 18, 2008

Time and Location: 5:30pm, PCTB Building, Room 330/333

Present: Erin Vasudevan, Aditya Goel, Anjanli Marshra, Gelsy Torres-Oviedo, Florence Depontieu, Rong Huang, Theresa Evans-Nguyen, Crystal Watkins, Labiq Syed, Gehua Zhen, Jitka Sojkova, Kirstie Adams, Dimiter Avtanski, Rahul Jain, Minghui Xiang, Claire Nicheilleachair, Swetha Kandula, Devi Krishnamurthy, Marianne Stefanini, Juan Wei, Jianshi Yu.

Proceedings:

• Meeting called to order at 5:40 pm by Anjali Co-President of JHPDA
• Brief introduction of the current JHPDA officers including co- presidents Erin Vasudevan and Anjali Mashra, Vice President-, Secretary Crystal Watkins, Treasurer Labiq Syed.
• Minutes from the prior meeting were ammended and approved.

Subcommittee Reports:

Anjali discussed the committee heads, responsibilities and selection. The Co-President said the every committee should select up to two heads that serve as supervisor and call meetings. Responsibilities also include attending general meetings every third Tuesday of the month. Individual committees should meet and select their own individual committee chairperson. Gelsey recommended that each committee have at least two chairpersons to insure that a representative can attend the general meeting. The president reiterated that attendance to the general committee is the most important function as head of the committee. There was a discussion about selecting a committee head now as opposed to the next meeting. Anjali recommended that we let the individual committees select the remainder of the committee chairpersons.

Social Committee: Co-chairs Gelsey and Jahn. It was recommended by the committee members that the Social Committee would now be named the Public Relations Committee. Gelsey will send an email to all of the committee members to arrange the next meeting and agrees to be one of the chairpersons.

International Committee: Co-chairpersons are Rahul and Dimiter.

Scientific Seminar Committee: Yitka volunteered to be a chairperson as well as Florence. Theresa will be a member, Ming Lee will participate. Abstracts will be required in November, so committee plans to have have another meeting prior to that.

Communications committee: Kirstie will be the chairperson of communications and Erin will head the newsletter. The purpose of the communications committee is to coordinate with the committee chairperson and members of the JHPDA as well as disseminate information to other organizations at Hopkins.

Professional Development Committee: Co-chairs Rong Huang and Anjali Mishra.

Benefit Seminar: The first event for the year will be a Postdoctoral Association orientation combined with a benefits seminar. The tentative dates are for October 27th, October 31st or November 2, 2008. The committee would like the symposium to include speakers to address health benefits, security, and registration. Dr. Levi Watkins will give a general welcome. The panel will include the international office, parking, and professional development (Derrick or Donna Vogel). Four people present went to the seminar last year and commented that it lacked a brief synopsis about benefits. Individuals thought that we needed an overview of emergency procedures, tax preparation and reporting, health benefits and general facts about Baltimore. These issues are especially important due to the number of international postdoctoral fellows.

Anjali recommended that we have a panel with a power point presentation first. Gelsy suggested that the JHPDA provide the speakers with a list of common questions prior to the presentations. After an extended discussion, the group agreed to pre-solicit questions from the postdoc community using survey monkey.

Erin and others comments regarding last year's seminar included that it was well attended with over 200 people, but that the topics were too focused at times, and lost the audience's attention. The committee recommended that the JHPDA give an overview and then let the panel briefly speak and respond to questions. Gelsy suggested that each person would speak for 5 minutes and then discuss common questions and that a moderator was important for the program. One postdoc in the group said that she did not understand the name "Benefits Seminar" and thought that the name should be changed to reflect the purpose of the seminar. An insightful discussion of the structure of the Benefits Seminar followed.

Erin, Anjali and Theresa presented several potential formats for the benefits seminar. An extended discussion was held, the group voted on their preference for each format

Format of Benefits Seminar options

The decision was to proceed with the format in option number five. However, a discussion was then generated about the times designated for each segment. A recommendation was that the JHPDA talks for 30 minutes and the panel for 30 minutes, followed by questions only if time remained. Theresa was concerned, based on previous seminars, that if each speaker exceeds the time limit, then the seminar will loose the attention of the audience. Gelsy recommend that we have 15 minutes for each speaker and then a question and answer period.

* Unanimous agreement by the group that disseminating a survey helps to generate frequently asked questions.

* Suggestion to link questions to the website so that people know where to go.

Program speakers recommended by committee

1. Dr. Watkins
2. Mary Foy - registrar
3. Security - parking
4. Health Services/ Mental Health
5. International Office
6. Professional Development

There was a discussion about including the International Office in the program since a separate orientation is also planned. The committee's rationale was that almost 80% if the postdocs are international students and should know that this is a resource here at Hopkins.

A motion was introduced by Erin to keep all six speakers and seconded by Theresa. The motion carried 13-Yes, 4-No, 3 abstentions. There was a follow- up discussion about the different presentations of the panel, a comment regarding giving speakers 5 min to present and having the moderator reinforce the time limits, and discussion about what type of questions would be discussed at the end of the program. The group consensus was that providing a list of questions to the panelist in advance would be the most efficient way to cover pertinent information.

An additional discussion was generated regarding the time length each speaker ( 2 min, 5 min or depending on the topic) and the overall length of the program (60 min, 90 min or longer). After the extended discussed, the group agreed to first gather the questions through survey monkey and then allow the committee to discuss and vote on the format. Gelsy recommended that the committee share the questions generated by the survey at the next JHPDA meeting. The group agreed that at least 2 minutes should be included in the program to talk about the function and services provided by the JHPDA.

Web Page: Theresa and Devi are heading these efforts. Theresa says that she has gotten a lot of negative feedback regarding the out of date content and contact information on the JHPDA website. Devi has looked into Academic Web Pages to maintain the webpage. The cost is $3400.00 for redesign and $500.00 every year for maintenance. Theresa commentated that Derrick at PDO thought that some other sites have cost as much as $10,000. The treasurer Labiq will clarify, but it appears that the total JHPDA budget is $12,000 + a potential surplus. Last year, there was close to $40,000 surplus. The consensus was that it might be a worthwhile investment to see if we can link the JHPDA webpage to other resources. Most of the current money goes to the artwork for the design of the webpage. There was a brief discussion about using more user-friendly design software such as Dreamweaver vs. FrontPage. Labiq and Theresa said they would like to explore other companies about web pages and see what some of the options would be. There was a suggestion to get someone to design the webpage and then pay another entity to maintain the website. Erin commented that since there is no one in the group currently to maintain the website, then we should think about hiring someone. A postdoc experienced with previous webpages recommended that the JHPDA might be able to charge for advertising on the website to pay for the design and maintenance or use an R and D to get companies to potentially sponsor the website. He also recommended that if the JHPDA is able to get permission, we should consider accepting outside sponsorship and look at having a logo. The committee will discuss with the Dean of Postdoctoral affair's office about any potential policies or conflict of interest in using money from outside sources. The group agreed that even without the income, $500 appeared to be a manageable annual price for maintenance. Erin and Labiq recommended that we use survey monkey to get a consensus opinion about the specific costs of redesigning the webpage. The vote was unanimous to agree to hire/pay someone to work on the website. The committee will also explore the option of using the website to generate revenue to help fund JHPDA projects.

International Committee Discussion: The group discussed including specifics for international students including interactions with the registrar's office and taking non-credit classes. Erin commented that there are a wide variety of issues that the JHPDA would like to address for international postdocs. However, due to the scope and time limitations, Erin recommended that the JHPDA proceed with a separate orientation for international postdocs in conjunction with the International Office. One suggestion for the International Committee was to have the Orientation Seminar on a rotating 6-month cycle in January and July to accommodate the arrival of new postdocs. An additional comment was that international postdocs might need one link person to help with questions throughout the year regarding health benefits, etc. Raul is the current co-vice president of the International Committee and volunteered to head to the committee as well to assist international postocs with the transition to Hopkins and information on Visas.

Action Items:

• The group discussed including postdocs from Homewood and Bayview. Two postdocs from the Bayview Wound Care Center were present, Swetha and Jitka. Gelsy commented that Homewood appears to have its own, active Postdoctoral Association, but are involved and excited to join our JHPDA activities. Other members of the association will check on collaborating with SPH and JHU for meetings and maybe even some events. Minghui said that currently, the SPH has a successful speaker series every month.
• Meeting Adjourned at 7:11 pm.
• A group photo for the JHPDA web site as well as committee group photos and individual photos were taken following the meeting.

Future Business:

• The next meeting will be Tuesday, October 21, 2008 and will continue to be held the third Tuesday of every month. There was a discussion about whether the meetings should be at 5:30pm, but the group agreed to continue with the 5:00 pm meeting time for now.
• The group agreed as well as the committee chairs that each committee should meet before the next General Meeting on October 21, 2008. A member asked how a committee calls a meeting. Anjali said she would send out a directory of people in the group and that rooms may be accessible in the PCTB building.
• The Newsletter will be discussed on the next agenda

Minutes Submitted by Crystal C. Watkins, Secretary