SRP Board Meeting
Thursday September 10th, 2009
Present: Deanna Barch, Jill Hooley, Tom Oltmanns, Marty Harrow, Michael Young, Suzanne King, Angus MacDonald, Jutta Joormann, Sheri Johnson, Ann Kring, Michael Pogue-Geile, Bill Horan, Eric Granholm, Patty Deldin, Howard Berenbaum, Scott Monroe. Absent: Wendy Heller and Kate Harkness
Secretary report (Deanna Barch): We elected Suzanne King as the new Treasurer. We elected Michael Pogue-Geile as the President Elect for 2010-2011. We elected two new board members — Jutta Joormann and Patty Deldin. Bill Horan was asked to fill the remainder of Suzanne King’s term on the board. Michael Pogue-Geile and Ann Kring are ending their term this year.
Tom Oltmanns has selected Bob Krueger to be program chair for the 2010 SRP meeting.
Treasurer’s Report (Michael Young): This year we received $3000 from Astra-Zeneca, $2000 from the University of Minnesota and $300 from Guilford. As of this moment, we are running a negative balance of 4,688. However, this does not take into account dues from members not at the meeting, nor onsite registrations. In addition, the meeting expenses were projected, not real. Michael noted that they just received a bill for $1000 for the CE accrediting organization for the CE. We have 79 full members registered, 24 associates, 113 students, and 9 non-member registrations. Jill noted that although CE was expensive, we do need to have CEs to get drug company educational grants. We had a discussion about the need to achieve a balanced conference budget in the future, which necessitates either a higher registration fee or lower meeting costs. The feeling was that a slightly higher registration fee and perhaps skipping things like lunch which are not a necessity was the best path.
Financial Investments Report (Marty Harrow): Marty lamented the decline in the stock market. However, he noted that we have actually come out reasonably well, and are back about even with our initial investment, despite the general decline in the stock market. We invest with Fidelity.
Membership Report (Jack Blanchard): Jack was not able to come to the meeting this year. He sent the following email – “I endorse the 16 completed applications as meeting membership criteria for Associate (student) or Full Membership. I do want to note that this year saw serious problems with the SRP membership website. Basically, no applications were processed by the website from Nov 2008 through May 2009. It is impossible to know how many applications were submitted and lost to the website error. Fortunately, this error occurred during a period when applications are usually limited. Based on prior years (summarized in the attached report), we did experience a decline in completed applications for 2009. I have included incomplete applications at the end of my report as these may have been due to website error (but may also just represent
applicants failing to submit material).” The question was raised as to who notified people who have been accepted to membership. Jack notifies them. The question was raised as to what registration new members paid. We will make an announcement at the meeting to say who was elected, but to also note the problem with the website and for people to notify us if they applied and their application was lost. We will then vote on those people via email. We will also send a reminder email.
Local Host Committee Report (Angus MacDonald): Angus noted that things are going well, but a few glitches have arisen. One issue is that you could in theory get cheaper rates from AAA. We did make our minimum number of rooms though. We had a discussion about how to ensure that we had enough lunches. We will make an announcement that they are for individuals attending the panel discussion. Jutta brought up the possibility that we could apply as an organization to be able to give CE credits. Scott noted that this is very important to do given the drug company educational fund issues. Thus, there may be some real benefits to applying as an organization. Jill noted that we have to have the program in place prior to the application process. Jill asked Michael Pogue-Geille whether Pittsburgh would be able to do this on a regular basis.
Program Committee Report (Jutta Joormann): We had 5 symposia submitted, and they were all accepted. We had 24 paper submissions. Of those, 13 were accepted, and most others were made into posters. We had 175 poster submissions, 160 will be presenting. We have a panel discussion on Friday that is primarily geared towards younger faculty and postdocs/grad students. Michael will check with Pittsburgh and report back.
Website Committee: Junghee Lee could not attend the meeting this year. However, she highlighted the need to find at least two new members of the Website Committee, as she has been doing it for three years, and during the last year she was the only member of the Website Committee. Deanna raised the issue of taking the dive and develop a new website with a reputable company that will provide better customer service and a longer time horizon. We raised the idea of looking at other organizations and finding out who did their website. Michael Pogue-Geile will find out about Behavior Genetics. Deanna will check on Psychonomics. Make announcement to get three members – allow associate members to be part of the committee. We will call this the website advisory committee. It was suggested that we do it at the welcome or some other time that gets all members – a more general announcement.
Publication Committee Report (Jason Schiffman): We did not have a final report. However, Jill reported that things were going well, and that they would be interviewing Connie Hammen after her Zubin lecture. They have also been having website issues.
Pharmaceutical grants and CE credit issues: As noted above, this may be tied to CE credits. Thus, we need to determine how many people are taking advantage of this.
Memorial Lectures: There was an extensive discussion as to whether or not to have an annual lecture in honor of Brendan Maher, or to name a lecture for a deceased SRP member in the year that they pass, but not have it ongoing. There was also discussion of the need for gender equity and to think about the full range of individuals who have been important to SRP. Michael suggested that we simply leave it up to the program committee to take the option of naming one of the invited lectures after a member who passed this year. Jill did not like the idea of naming a lecture in honor of a living person, as it suggested that we might think them past their prime. Michael Young pointed out that we already have a lecture to honor a living member (Zubin Award). Thus, the decision was not to have the lecture permanently named after Brendan Maher. Michael PG suggested that the Board make the decision each year as to whether to name a lecture after a member who has passed. Tom Oltmanns noted that the Board should be making the decisions as to who will speak for such a lecture, and not something like a group of friends of the member who has passed away.
Awards discussion from last year (Sheri Johnson and Suzanne King): Last year we also discussed an award for a junior faculty member, but the conversation got complicated. Jill suggested that we think about doing it akin to a Zubin award and keeping the selection process very simple. Sheri raised issues about how do you determine quality as well as quantity. Howard suggested that we could limit it to a small number of individuals who are – for example – only a few years past their Ph.D. Others suggested that we have people nominate several of their own papers. Tom raised issues with this – noting that the individuals at SSCP who won the best dissertation award did not necessarily go on to become big names in the field (of course – Howard Berenbaum and Deanna Barch were sitting next to Tom as he said this – both of whom won the SSCP best dissertation award). Tom encouraged us to make it easier. Sheri would like a hybrid that encourages both quality and quantity. Sheri would like them to nominate an article, write a paragraph about their role in the research and why it is important, and to send a CV. We decided to call it an Early Career award. As we get the correct fields implemented in the web it will be relatively simple to determine who is eligible for this award based on years since Ph.D.
Student committee: Patty raised the suggestion of having a student committee that would oversee student related things. We decided to do a survey monkey survey about how they would like to be involved or what they would like to get out of the committee.
Membership on a student committee to generate ideas about what would be useful to students
More social interactions with other students
More social interactions with other student
Educational or professional development activities (like the grant session)
Information about internships
Information about postdocs
Information about faculty positions
An opportunity for student to present papers?
Other suggestions?
Internships & Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs: We will have Scott and Ellen Herbener and any other internship person sit at a table at the social hour.
Future meetings: dates and locations
2010 Seattle October 7th to October 10th Local Host: Ted Beauchaine
2011 Boston Local Host: Christine Hooker
2012 Ann Arbor Local Host: Patti Deldin
2013 San Francisco Local Host: Ann Kring and Sheri Johnson
2014 Chicago Local Host: Stu Shankman (??)
2015 San Diego Local Host: Bill Kremen
Although Ann Kring and Sheri Johnson volunteered to host in 2013, the plan was to ask Bill Kremen if he minded hosting later rather than sooner.
Smadar Levin Committee: David Miklowitz, Sherryl Goodman, Eric Granholm