84th Penn Biomedical Postdoctoral Council Minutes, May 07, 2007

Eighty-fourth Meeting May 7, 2007, 5:00 PM (Stellar-Chance 104) 1. Welcome / Attendance: BPC: Stacy Gelhaus, Mikolaj Pawlak, Dave Hokey, Yuko Kimura, Arindam BPP: Yvonne Paterson, Kryste Ferguson Absent: Mark Lee, Janice Young, Africa Wallace, Fiona McGillicuddy, Hedi Schelleman 2. Update from Biomedical Postdoctoral Programs: Dr. Yvonne Paterson, Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Research Training, Director, BPP a. IRACDA—Good chance the grant will be funded, probably not for 24 postdocs, but the “pink slip” looked promising. b. Advisory Board Meeting—Tuesday, May 15th, 8 AM 3. Major BPC and BPP projects: Kryste Ferguson and Subcommittees a. Penn Editor’s Club: Dave Chimento will be taking over as head of the PEC b. Diversity—Probably need to find someone new to head the Diversity Committee. Should ask Ivonne Vidal Pizzaro if she has any suggestions c. Budget—Still have $1700 to spend before the end of the fiscal year. d. Seminar Series—Negotiation Seminar was a success, postdocs want more. The next step would be to have another seminar that would just be more involved/detailed. Quite expensive though, the cost of the last seminar was $3500. K Series seminar is coming up next week, May 15th, and May 16th, 2007, this should also be well attended based on the enrollment response. Other suggestions include the writing workshops on plagiarism and having editors from journals speak (June 12th), inviting Victoria McGovern from Burroughs Wellcome to speak, and having an Individual Development Plan (IDP) Workshop. e. Social Activities—Next happy hour is July 12th. We are also trying to determine how we can incorporate seminars, scientific movies, or talks into the happy hour and make it more of a reception afterwards. This way we should get more people genuinely interested in the BPC and those who are legitimately postdocs! f. Sports—no update g. Foreign National Committee—positive comments, but postdocs coming in feel like they get the information too late and have already made critical decisions that they will have to wait until next year to change. May initiate Postdoc Calling Campaign—place phone calls or email new postdocs within the first week to explain the packet they receive when starting and where to get help, answer any questions. Miku said he would have someone willing to do this. Unfortunately, we are still unable to contact them about housing before they get to campus. Another suggestion is to have two mini-orientations a month, about 20-30

minutes. It was also suggested that OIP is stepping up to help with housing, drivers license, bank accounts as well. We should contact them to see what is going on. h. Insurance: Discussion over the new insurance, meeting was held on May 9th, 2007. Most of the complaints are that postdocs want a choice. They want a PPO or if possible, another company to choose from and those at the meeting who want the PPO are wiling to pay out of pocket for the difference each month if their PI will not. Dave and Stacy are going to meet with the SAS, engineering, and any other postdocs at a representative meeting to see what the outcome of their meetings were and then we will take a compilation of the concerns/needs to Garnett-Powers to ask them to bid for next years insurance. i. National Postdoc Assoc. Meeting—Those attending were Stacy Gelhaus, Mary Anne Timmins, and Yvonne Paterson. Ideas that came from this meeting included the IDP, surveying postdocs on what they really think the word mentoring means, inviting Victoria McGovern to speak, and raising money through having a Vendor Show. Stacy will contact Ron Nepomuceno from Scripps to see how they set this up. Also, possibly hosting the NPA Meeting in 2010, but some people on the council seemed hesitant, mostly because we may all not be here then. j. Graduate Parents at Penn—Tony Lambino came to discuss the the concerns of this group—how childcare is expensive and also the waitlist is extremely long to get into Penn Daycare. This group is working to lobby for money from the school, much like Princeton who will give $5000/child, up to two children for graduate students to help pay for childcare. Also, there is the possibility of having another childcare facility built on the other end of campus since the present one is not very large. Another point brought up is that there is no pediatrician at the Student Health Services; therefore, it is very expensive for grad students to take their children elsewhere. This group is working with the Trustees Council of Penn Women to find out if any funding sources are available for pediatric care and childcare help. They have a survey that we could adapt to postdocs and send out to poll the population on what their feelings are about childcare at Penn. Also, it would be good to find a postdoc with a family who could join meetings with Tony and Christa to work with them and report back to the BPC/BPP. 5. Next meeting: June 4, 2007, 5pm Stellar Chance Room 104