100th Penn Biomedical Postdoctoral Council Minutes, September 08, 2008

One-Hundreth Meeting September 8, 2008, 5:00 PM (Stellar-Chance 104) BPC: Laurence, Stacy, Arindam, Sebastien, Yu-Chen, Reena, Steve, Arnaldo, Miku, Dave, Matt, Kelvin BPP: Kryste Absent: Yvonne, Tobias, Prema, Ginny, Meda, Yuxing, Duncan 1. BPP Update from Kryste: BPP Online Writing Course September 15 – December 19, 2008 New Postdoc Orientation Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 2:30-4:60 pm New registration method will include a Penn ID card reader to make attendance collection easier. Also, we will have sign up sheets for the BPC and different committees. Presenting Yourself to Your Best Advantage: Business Etiquette Workshop by Mary Mitchell Thursday, September 11, 2008 – 9:00 am -4:00 pm BPC Seminar Thursday, September 18, 2008 - 4:30-6:00 pm ESL Course: Listening and Speaking for Professional Purposes September 23 – November 23, 2008 – Tuesdays from 7:30-9:30 pm Biomedical Career Fair Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 1:00-4:00 pm 20 employers registered as of September 3rd Beginner Photoshop Workshop Tuesday, October 14, 2008 – 1:00-3:30 pm Instructor: Scott Spitzer 7th Annual Postdoc Research Symposium Friday, October 24, 2008 – 9:00-5:30 Keynote Speaker: Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., Professor at Stanford University 73 abstracts submitted by the postdocs

Beginner Illustrator Workshop Tuesday, October 28, 2008 – 1:00-3:00 pm Instructor: Mary Leonard BPC Information Session for New Postdocs Thursday, October 30, 2008 - 1:00-2:00 pm BPC Seminar Thursday, September 30, 2008 - 4:30-6:00 pm Speaker: Ed Ramos Intermediate Illustrator Workshop Tuesday, November 4, 2008 – 1:00-3:00 pm Instructor: Mary Lenoard Postdoc Insurance Plan Open Enrollment Week of November 10th – Garnett-Powers here for open sessions BPC Seminar Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 4:30-6:00 pm Speaker: John Higgins from Merck Scientific Writing Workshop with Judy Swan Monday, December 1, 2008 – 12:30-4:30 pm BPC Seminar Tuesday, December 2, 2008 - 4:30-6:00 pm Speaker: Robert Cobuzzi from Endo Pharmaceuticals BPP New Postdoc Orientation Thursday, December 4, 2008 - 2:30-4:30 pm Intermediate Photoshop Workshop Date: TBD (will be in early December)

2. BPC Committee Updates: a. Diversity—Diversity will work in conjunction with the Seminar Series to host a Science Policy speaker, Ed Ramos, from NIH on September 30th. b. PEC—Will go over abstracts for the symposium for grammar, spelling etc. Steve has also been talking with his equivalent at Vanderbilt. She is interested in learning how PEC was started and what it does. Also, a new journal at Vanderbilt is going to do a

piece on PEC. Steve will also send an email out to the general postdocs population to remind them of the services PEC provides. i. Social—Thomas Jefferson and Penn joint happy hour on Friday the 12th at Mixto. Bowling at Lucky Strikes on Monday September 8th at 9 pm. Other ideas for social activities include bowling, Art after 5, contacting the Art Alliance at 18th and Rittenhouse for space—happy hour or brunch, and attending the West Philadelphia Orchestra at Tritone for the monthly Balkan Dance party. The idea of intramurals was also brought up again; however no one seemed to jump on it. ii. Seminars—the September Seminar has been cancelled because the speaker is unable to attend. October, Nov. and Dec. are filled with UCKIZ speakers to participate. We should start thinking about speakers for the spring. One of interest is the editor of the new visual journal JoVE. We should also send an email out asking post docs for suggestions for the Spring. c. FNC—three people in August—typical questions regarding insurance registration, etc. d. Website—All additions/information should go to Sebastien at [email protected] Please submit a picture of yourself to him for the members section and updated information corresponding to your BPC tasks. Laurence sent Sebastien a link to the Graduate Student Center to put on the website. We are always invited to their functions. e. Symposium—meeting September 8th to go through oral and poster abstracts. Kryste should send Stacy stuff for manual. We have vendors—Qiagen, Roche, and Krishna (LaShauna contact) confirmed for $500, $500, and $250 respectively. Also working on Clonetech and Corning. We need to send official request letters to Qiagen and Roche. f.

Board Development—

i. Our new Treasurer is Arnaldo Diaz of the Blair Lab. ii. We are still in discussion regarding an exit interview survey and we will talk with Julie Vick in Career Services since they already have a form setup for this. iii. We are going to have a Charter revision meeting on September 29th g. Next Meeting: MONDAY October 6th, Stellar Chance Room 104