95th Penn Biomedical Postdoctoral Council Minutes, April 07, 2008

Ninety-fifth Meeting April 7, 2008, 5:00 PM (Stellar-Chance 104) BPC: Stacy, Miku, Dave, Laurence, Arindam, Lingli, Meda,Sebastian, BPP: Kryste, Yvonne Absent: Matt Seavy, LaShauna Meyers, Katie Edmondson, Hedi Schelleman, Jennifer Bachorik,

Ginny Cruz, Prema Sundaram, 1. BPP Update from Yvonne: a. Nursing Postocs—approx. 15 or so will join the BPP. b. Penn-Port Program—The Penn-Port Associates who want to teach have been placed at surrounding schools including West Chester and Penn State Abington. Yvonne has also met with administration at Haverford.

2. BPP Update from Kryste: a. March Programming—March programming on Ph.D. careers has been ongoing for the past 5 weeks. The series was well attended with 50-75 postdocs at each seminar and 25 postdocs at each of Lisa Marshall’s four sessions. b. “Art of Networking”—Lisa Marshall will return on April 22nd for two networking sessions, cap is 75 postdocs each. c. Technology Workshops—will begin at the end of May. There will be an introduction to Photoshop on June 12th. Teachers willing to do an intermediate course if there is interest. Powerpoint will take place on May 29th and be begin/interm and there will be two Illustrator workshops—June 1 2th and June 24th, beginner and intermediate, respectively. Only 16 slots per class and all will take place in the computer lab on the second floor of Anat/Chem. d. Upcoming Events--- The next orientation is April 15th in BRB 1412, the K workshop will be in May, and a Negotiations workshop is scheduled for June.

3. BPC Committee Updates: a. PEC—no update from Katie

b. Diversity—Meda and LaShauna tried to coordinate a panel discussion on “Pathway to Ph.D. and beyond” but there was little interest at the current time so they may hold off on this until next year. They are going to hold a social with the EE Just Society. Also SACNAS postdoc poster session will be at the meeting in October, registration is open now and it is a good place to network with industry. c. Seminars—Art Caplan on April 21st will discuss the ethical implications of the HPV vaccine, Alan Wasserstein is doing the professionalism seminar in May. We have a sponsor for May, but not one for this month yet. We may have to get 2 because some people are unable to give $500. We should try contacting different companies—haven’t gotten anything from Fisher in awhile. We already have seminars lined up for September, November, and December. October is still available. It was thought that we may have someone come in to talk about consulting as an alternative career. MIku also suggested and IDP workshop. Something similar may happen at the Regional NPA meeting in June at Penn so we will see how this one goes first. d. Vendor Show—the idea of having a Vendor Show to raise money for the BPC keeps popping up. Laurence and Arindam are spearheading this and they will send out an email to recruit for a fundraising subcommittee. We will also talk with Nick Folger of Biocareers to see if he would be interested in doing a careeroriented vendor show or having some type of combination thing at Penn which we could charge entrance to for outside interest (other Universities). e. FNC—8 people showed up for the past meeting, three from the Vet school. Biggest complaint is still health insurance, because the process to get into the Garnett-Powers system takes longer when you are waiting for a SS#. However, their coverage starts immediately upon starting at Penn and if they need assistance before this process is complete they should contact the BPP office. f.

Website—Sebastian,a new postdoc at the meeting volunteered to help maintain the BPC website. Miku will instruct him on how/where to sign up for training.

g. Symposium—we will begin putting together a manual while we are planning this year’s symposium. Also, Peter Doherty has agreed to be the keynote speaker for the symposium in 2009. The first planning meeting will be in June. h. Budget—there is confusion about how much money we have in our budget. However, it is believed that the $3000 the BPC receives each fiscal year was not given to us this year. Dave, as treasurer, is going to devise a process that we can add to the by-law, regarding how money is to be taken out of the BPC account. Also, we are investigating the possibility of a discretionary fund or a bank account separate from the University. MAT is helping with this—talking to the BAs and setting things straight with our current budget.

i.

Board Development—it was suggested that we also form a subcommittee to review and revise the by-laws, which were written 10 years ago. A new co-chair will also be elected in June. Candidates are supposed to submit their application at the May meeting and we will vote in June. This will also give Miku a month or so to help with the co-chair transition before he leaves. A strategic planning meeting will also be scheduled for June while Miku is still here and the council will be able to outline a strategic plan for the next 5 years as well as develop an annual operating plan including charges and tasks the council should focus on for the upcoming year.