75th Penn Biomedical Postdoctoral Council Minutes, July 10, 2006

Seventy-Fifth Meeting July 10, 2006, 5:00 PM (Stellar-Chance 104)

1. Welcome / Attendance: BPC: Frank Wilkinson, Stacy Gelhaus, Mikolaj Pawlak, Africa Wallace, David Hokey Luana Atherly, Mark Lee (new member), Hedi Schelleman (new member), and Fiona McGillicuddy (new member) BPP: Yvonne Paterson, Kryste Ferguson Guest: Karen Asenavage from English Language Programs (ELP) Absent: Sam Murphy, Seyed Hashemi, Annie Curtis, Janice Young, Tiangang Zhuang, Ying Xu 2. Update from Biomedical Postdoctoral Programs: Dr. Yvonne Paterson, Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Research Training, Director, BPP a. Update on ERACDA Grant: Yvonne talked more about the work being done on the training grant to sponsor teaching fellowships for postdocs. Postdocs will spend 75% of their time at Penn conducting research and 25% of their time teaching at partnership institutions with underrepresented minorities. Currently Lincoln University has partnered up to work with Penn while the goal is to have a total of three universities working with Penn. Postdocs will be supported on the training grant and also benefit from courses in teaching sponsored by the college for further education. The NIH currently funds 7 of these programs across the US. It is the goal of Penn to obtain funding for 2-16 teaching positions. b. Interest from other postdoc groups: Yvonne also mentioned that there may be renewed interest in other postdoc groups due to a new NIH guideline for T32 training grants, requiring these grants to contain training components. 3. Major BPC and BPP projects: Various, and Kryste Ferguson a. Symposium: Wednesday, October 11, 2006, the call for abstract will go out this week to the postdoc community. There is the expectation that we will have more abstracts this year due to the incorporation of the CHOP postdocs. Also, the rooms for oral presentations have been limited to those directly off the BRB lobby. This will keep things in one location, but the number of oral presentations will be limited to 16. This means that some requests may be turned down. It is estimated that for two post sessions, a maximum of 80 posters can be accepted. There is an attempt to hire Lisa Marshall for the day to give feedback on the oral presentations. In this case, presenters would be taped during their session and

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then be able to go over their critique with Lisa. The council is looking in to the cost and also the possibility of raising funds ourselves through donations from vendors who would be allowed space in the BRB lobby for the entire day. Help with the abstract sorting was also discussed at this meeting and it was noted that Frank, Kryste, Stacy, Dave, Hedi, Fiona, and Mark would be participating in this. There was also more discussion on speakers for the 2007 symposium and brief bios will be sent out so the council can start voting on a contact list for next year. Yvonne also suggested trying to use the Abramson next year for the symposium, this way we can accommodate more oral presentations and still be adjacent to the lobby. Career fair: Company representatives have discussed the fact that they tend to hire more in the fall and it was decided by career services that we should have the career fair in September. The next career fair is scheduled for September 27th. ELP: Kryste introduced us to Karen Asenavage who has recently joined the English Language Programs department. She attended the meeting to get a better picture of who we are, what we do, and what it is we hope to accomplish. In the future, she will be working with us to help improve our publications, grant writing, pronunciation, etc. Kumar Memorial Lecture: Frank discussed his ideas about when to start the lecture and who would be the first to give the lecture. Most likely, a postdoc in Boyer’s lab will give the first memorial lecture. Boyer’s lab would also like to be involved in the process of picking the upcoming speakers with the idea that PI’s will nominate outstanding postdocs. Possibly the first lecture will be late October/early November due to many programs already scheduled for September. Upcoming Services/Events: New programming will include a teaching workshop in November, career services sponsored events the first Thursday of every month, a business etiquette course on Saturday, September 9th with Mary Mitchell, and orientations in September and December.

4. Updates from subcommittees (20 min total) New Postdoc Orientation / Foreign National Committee (FNC): Seyed – It was called to our attention by Miku that Seyed is no longer available to conduct the Foreign National Committee mini-orientations and someone needs to fill this position. Diversity: Africa – Africa and Ivonne hosted a Diversity Committee meeting 1 week ago, but no other postdoc attended. Improved advertising strategies include postdoc emailing, flyers, and direct contacts to postdocs. It is also their wish to host a speaker and have a dinner for 10-12 postdocs to gain interest in their committee and improve overall attendance. The next meeting will be in August and the dinner may take place in October. The possibility of combining forces with the graduate student diversity committee was also addressed. Medical/Dental Insurance: Dave met with Mary Ann and they are investigating a total new medical package that would take care of health and dental insurance issues, which the postdoc community is currently facing at Penn. The next enrollment session for the United Concordia dental insurance will be Monday and Wednesday from 11-1, August 21 and 23rd. Postdocs need to be aware that they no longer carry even the minimal dental insurance through Keystone. 5. Next meeting: August 7, 2006