88th Penn Biomedical Postdoctoral Council Minutes, September 10, 2007

Eighty-eighth Meeting September 10, 2007 5:00 PM (Stellar-Chance 104) 1. Welcome / Attendance: BPC: Stacy Gelhaus, Miku Pawlak, Arindam Basu, Ying, Laurence Wood, Yuko Kimura, Meda Higa, Laurence Jacquot, Claudia Damhuis BPP: Yvonne Paterson, Kryste Ferguson Absent: Janice Young, Fiona McGillicuddy, Dave Chimento, Dave Hokey, Hedi Schelleman 2. Update from Biomedical Postdoctoral Programs: Dr. Yvonne Paterson, Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Research Training, Director, BPP a. IRACDA—Funded for 5 postdocs/year. Yvonne and Mary Anne have been interviewing for the position of Recruitment and Diversity Coordinator. Out of all the applications, they are down to the top two. This person will replace Ivonne Vidal Pizzaro and coordinate the IRACDA program. He/She will attend montly BPC meetings and also be able to work closely with our new diversity subcommittee chair, Meda Higa. Postdoctoral applicants to the program are also being interviewed. Approximately three out of the five open slots for this year will come from inside Penn. Many of those interested in the program want to join next year. Postdocs in this training program will enter the program this fall and choose the institution they will work with and mentor there so they can audit the course taught by the mentor in the Spring of 2008. b. Training Grant Visits—It is possible for graduate students looking to take a place on a training grant to come and visit several labs at Penn and this visit is paid for by the BPP. This is most likely not a well-known fact to the potential postdocs and this information should be placed on the BPC and BPP websites. 3. Major BPC and BPP projects: Kryste Ferguson and Subcommittees a. Penn Editor’s Club: Dave wrote an announcement that Kryste sent out to the postdoc body and was overwhelmed by the number who responded, wanting to join PEC. The most recent (major) task they have taken on is the abstracts for the annual symposium meeting. PEC is currently editing these for the abstract booklet. b. Diversity—Meda Higa has joined the council and taken over diversity. Thank you Meda! Hopefully she will be able to work closely with the new recruitment and diversity coordinator. Several ideas were going around the table as to how we can recruit postdocs to Penn. The BPP currently has booths at SACNAS and ABACOM. Possibly we will go to FASEB as well and every year the NY

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Academy of Sciences has a meeting, which has been attended in the past. Yvonne also suggested forming a relationship with the EE Just (?) Society, which is comprised of minority graduate students and is fairly active. Recruitment—The next BPP/BPC orientation is Tuesday, September 18th from 2:30 to 4:30. We should really try to recruit for the council at this function. Seminar Series/Social Acitivities—Debbie Gilead may come and talk—possible to incorporate this into speaker reception type deal in November. Miku and Arindam are working on this and Laurence is willing to take on the job of lining up seminar/receptions throughout the rest of the year. Yuko said that Millipore is willing to give $900 for this next function. One possible speaker reception for next semester is Victoria McGovern who has commited to talk about grant applications for Burroughs Wellcome. Laurence also suggested Dr. Gunter who talks about what top journals look for in the paper that are submitted. Another idea that Stacy heard about from the NPA is the Café Scientifique which is very popular in Colorado http://cafescicolorado.org/. Sports—No updates Foreign National Committee—The last meeting took place on the 23rd of August. Arindam said it went well, lots of good discussion. Typically 6-8 postdocs in attendance. Main orientation is this month so there will not be a separate FNC orientation. Some of them were interested in joining the committee so we should try to send out reminders to them the day before/day of the meeting. Insurance: The quotes have come in from Garnett-Powers. They are 12.2% higher than last year, but really only 9.2% because 3% of this is for occupational health, which we need since we are not technically employees of the University. The one problem that is being looked into is—what will happen to those who opt out of the insurance and remain on their spouses insurance. How will occupational health identify them? The PPO has been added as an option this year. For postdoc only it is ~$100/mo more than the HMO. Another question that arises is—do we let PI decide if they will pay the extra or do we state that no PI is allowed. It seems that the consensus from the council is that the PI should have the option since this is how family care is dealt with. We will bring this up at the advisory committee meeting on Tuesday. Family care is another issue that needs to be reopened now that the semester has started—Penn policy states that the PI is not allowed to pay for this out of an RO1, but his is a Penn policy not an NIH policy. We need to work to try and change this policy. Open enrollment for the insurance will be the week of November 12-16th with two sessions a day and Mon through Wed for postdocs and Thurs/Fri for BA’s. All postdocs are encouraged to attend to hear about the new options/changes. Garnett-Powers is still looking into getting lower co-pays for non-formulary drugs. Monell Center: Laurence Jacquot and Claudia Damhuis from the Monell Center have joined us as representatives. National Postdoc Assoc. 2010 Proposal—Penn, CHOP, TJ, Drexel, and Temple worked together to submit the proposal, which was due August 24, 2007. We have had a positive response from the NPA; they were very impressed with our proposal. Unfortunately, no one submitted for 2009 and they wanted to know if we’d be willing to host then. After discussing with the committee we decided against this for several reasons: 1. We are hosting the regional postdoc meeting in 2008, 2. It was a great struggle to secure the space for 2010 and Garnett-Powers is

contributing a substantial sum of money that year, we didn’t want to have to revisit all of this. 3. Traditionally the NPA switches coasts and we felt it was better for them not to have two meetings back to back on the East Coast. Brenda and Alyson are still recommending us to the advisory board to host in 2010. j. Symposium—PEC is going through the abstracts, Mary will put the booklet together and we will start recruiting for help that day. k. Upcoming Fall Events—Orientation on Tuesday, September 18th. Please come to the reception to help with recruitment at 4:15 PM. October 3rd is the biomedical career fair presented by Career Services. In November, Judith Swan will return to continue her scientific writing workshops, and a second orientation will be scheduled for December. Mary Mitchell’s Etiquette Workshop was a huge success and she stayed on campus for Friday and Monday individual meetings with postdocs for further help with interviews. 5. Next meeting: October 1, 2007, 5pm Stellar Chance Room 104