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Greetings!
Happy Holidays! This is a greatest time of year-one of renewed relationships and friendships with family and friends. And as my friend in science, I would like to invite you over to my house for a holiday dinner so I could share with you my family recipe of wild rice soup. I generally make 30-40 quarts of it during the holiday season; not only do I use it for entertaining, but also give it as gifts to neighbors and friends. Are you interested? Besides, what is a Minnesotan holiday without wild rice soup?
As we come to the end of a another calendar year, we need to reflect on what has been accomplished this year...we're coming off of a challenging year in 2008 with the down turn of the economy, but fortunately, our endowments are bouncing back nicely and so we are hopeful that we will have regained most of our endowment loses by next June when we award our fellowships.
We have two new officers who are making a great impact in each of their areas. Both Ms. Kathleen Bennett, our National Treasurer, and Dr. Kathleen Carlson, our National Membership Secretary, have expanded communication and services to the chapters. This means a faster turn-around of chapter dues to your chapter as well as enhanced communications with your chapter to announce renewals and new chapter memberships. We have already seen a 10% increase in membership during the first quarter of 2009, partly due to this enhanced attention to details. We are hopeful we will continue to see this kind of growth throughout the year. In addition, we are now on Linkedin and Facebook, thanks to Drs. Carol Hodes and Anne Pumfery, respectfully, and have actually had our first interested potential member from Linkedin! So be sure to sign up and be our "friend"!
Three chapters have new websites as sub-domains of the National website (Xi,Tau, and Beta). Two more chapters will add their websites shortly (Rho Tau, and Omicron), even though we've had a challenging summer with our web design group. Our provider has been purchased by a larger company and shortly we will have our websites moved (along with many thousand others) to another company's server with enhanced services (so we're told!). The latest word is that we will move in mid-January after our fellowship application deadline.
Nu Chapter has graciously agreed to host our National Meeting at Penn State University May 19-23, 2010. More information inside for those interested in attending.
And last, but not least, we will have a Grand Chapter Meeting by web conference, Saturday, January 9, 2010 at 2:00 pm CST for voting on our proposed by-law changes, described in the November GWIS News. This will be a historical vote-one that could potentially change our membership requirements. Information about the proposed by-law change has been communicated to each chapter president and liaison independently with instructions to be shared with the chapters members. If for some reason, you have not heard nor are not aware of the proposed by-law change, please contact the Executive Director for additional information.
Have a wonderful holiday season and a great New Year!
United in Friendship through Science,
Dee McManus
National Executive Director
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National GWIS News
Last month, we began a quest to survey our members to identify their scientific
backgrounds. Since we had only 15 members respond to the survey(!), we went back to our membership database to piece together some answers. Below is the compilation of information that we had. All scientific discipline subsets were combined together; i.e. engineering included bio-(2), civil (3), electrical (2), mechanical (3), chemical (3), industrial (1), engineering (11), and material science (7), for a total of 32 members or 6% of the membership with an engineering background.
This is the first time we have looked at the scientific disciplines of our organization. Even with the sub groupings of the various disciplines, we still have 23 major scientific areas where our members are involved. What a great recruiting tool!
(If you are interested in looking at the make up of the groups and the actual numbers, contact the Executive Director.)
Have you ever wondered who makes up our membership? We're a unique organization which not only contains graduate students, but also established professional women scientists (e.g. Emerita, Full, Life, and Honorary Award Members). Combined together, we have 59% of our membership as established professionals, while 41% are Graduate Students. This makes for great networking between the students and professional women in those chapters who have a mix of membership categories.
One issue we have with the graduate student members is that when you transition from graduate school to post graduate positions, we loose track of you. Please keep in touch with us during this time, as your continued membership and mentoring of the next generation of graduate students is incredibly important to us. If members have ideas of how we can connect with our graduate student during their transition from education to employment, please let us know.
National Meeting
Nu Chapter at Penn State University invites us to State College, PA for our National Meeting on May 19-23, 2010. Below is the Life Science Building where the meeting will be held.
 Travel days will be May 19 and May 23, with May 20 for National Council Meeting, May 21 for Grand Chapter Meeting and May 22 for Bridges Science Symposium and banquet.
Hotel reservations can be made at the Atherton, which is located one block from Penn State Campus. To reserve a room; go to Atherton Hotel and Use Group Number GRADU190510 when making reservations. Rooms appear to be very reasonable at $95 per night for a double room. Eight $250 Travel Grants are available to support members' travel to the National Meeting. If you are interested, please contact your chapter leadership and/or send an e-mail to our National Treasurer
addressing your need. As more information becomes available about the meeting, we will post it on the website and in the Bulletin.
New National officers needed for open positions:
CALL
FOR NOMINATIONS
The Nominating
Committee of Graduate Women in Science invites all members to participate in
nominating candidates for elective offices. This may be done individually or
collectively through the chapter in which you hold membership. Do not overlook
nominating yourself. The Nominating Committee is interested in receiving the
names of everyone who is interested in serving in a national office.
The list of
nominees, along with brief biographies, will be printed in the Bulletin
and in the April e-newsletter.
To be included
on the ballot, completed nomination forms must be received no later than 5:00pm on Monday, March 1, 2010.
Nominees are
needed for the following National Offices:
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President-Elect
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Serves
one year and automatically advances to President
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Vice-President
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Serves
one year and advances by election to President-Elect
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Board
of Directors Member
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Serves
a 5-year term and is usually a past Officer of National GWIS
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Corresponding
and Recording Secretary
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Two-year term
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Omega
Chapter Committee Member
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Three-year term with third year as Chair
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Nominating
Committee Member
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Three-year term with third year as Chair
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Nominees must
be in good standing (dues paid) and must subscribe to the objectives of the
Organization.
Please return
Nominations to the Nominating Committee: Chair, Laurel Martin, Michelle Carter, or Melissa Wilson.
Fellowships Reviewers Needed!
Also, additional Fellowship Reviewers are needed as our fellowships applications deadline of Jan 15, 2010, is fast approaching. Contact our Fellowships Coordinator
if you'd like to help.
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National News Headlines
Great year for Scientific Research- This year, the U.S. government awards $18.3 billion on basic research. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus package, allocated $787 billion additional dollars across the federal agencies to create jobs, and to provide the scientific and technological base needed for long-term economical recovery. Agencies were told to spend before September 30, 2010.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) received the largest windfall of $10.4 billion, the National Science Foundation (NSF) received $3 billion, and the Department of Energy (DOE) received $2 billion for basic research. To find out how this money has been spent, check out a new website, Science Works for Us or Science magazine (Nov 27, 2009) for details.
White House OST Policy We have been asked to relay the following opportunity to advise US government policymaking deliberations. The Obama Administration is seeking public input on policies concerning access to publicly funded research results, such as those that appear in academic and scholarly journal articles. Currently, NIH require that research funded by its grants be made available to the public online at no charge within 12 months of publication. The Administration is seeking views as to whether this policy should be extended to other science agencies, and if so, how it should be implemented. Topics will form the basis of a blog posting that will appear at www.whitehouse.gov/open and will be open for comment on the OSTP blog at blog.ostp.gov.
27 more Stem Cell Lines approved
NIH Director Francis Collins approved 27 more human embryonic stem cell lines as eligible for federal funding on Monday, Dec 14, 2009, bringing the total of new lines to 40...almost double the number approved under the previous administration. For more information, see
The Scientist.com
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Chapter News
Beta Chapter Meetings
Beta chapter kicked off the year with a fall welcome party
in September themed, "A Return to the Old Girls' Club." Officer introductions were made and a
brief history of our illustrious chapter was presented including old pictures
of founding members and dedicated members throughout the years. The evening finished with a social hour
with appetizers and beverages at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Geology
Museum.
The Ruth Dickie Annual Seminar competition in October
brought many fantastic participants-interest was so high we had to turn people
away! (From left to right in photo: Alison Carter, (Penny) Lam Pui Ying, and Kallina Dunkle.)The winner was Kallina
Dunkle of the Geoscience department taking home $100 for her talk,
"Hydrostratigraphic and Groundwater Flow Models: Troy Valley Glacial Aquifer,
Southeastern Wisconsin." Our
thanks to the members who participated, and the judges, Dr. Eve Emshwiller of
Botany, Laura Halverson from the Zoological Museum, and Dr. Judith Kimble of
Biochemistry, who volunteered their time to evaluate the talks.
In keeping with our theme for the year-A Return to the Old
Girls' Club-Brooke Norsted, Assistant Director of the UW Geology Museum and
co-director of Expanding Your Horizons presented a talk in November to members
and non-members alike entitled, "From Aprons to Lab Coats-Fifty Years of Women in Science at
UW Madison." Expanding Your
Horizons originated with Beta chapter members many years ago and continues to
enlighten young girls about the opportunities for them in the sciences today.
Alpha Omega Chapter December Meeting
Several chapters have listserves which they send out monthly. Alpha Omega is one of these chapters. Below is just the most recent meeting information. If you'd like to get on Alpha Omega's list serve, please contact Penny Beuning.
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This Tuesday, come and celebrate the end of the semester with GWIS: business meeting and social. Everyone is welcome.
6:30 PM, 413 Mugar, Northeastern University
(www.campusmap.neu.edu)
Refreshments served.
2009-2010 Business Meetings
Dec 15, Jan 11, Feb 1, Mar 1, Apr 5, May 3, June 8
Xi Chapter October Meeting
The October meeting was a special event to raise funds for girls' high school education at the LAMB school in Bangladesh. For this event, we partnered with long time GWIS member Nancy Labile and her husband Steve.
On October 23rd, Dr. Kris Prenger was our guest speaker. Dr. Kris Prenger is a family practice physician with an M.D. from Ohio State and a Masters of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Since 1997, she has practiced clinical obstetrics/gynecology at the Lutheran Aid to Medicine in Bangladesh project(LAMB) in northwest Bangladesh. Her responsibilities also include planning for community leadership and health services for a total population of 550,000 residing in area villages.
Tori Setterholm moderated a discussion with Dr. Prenger centered on women, education and healthcare in the developing country of Bangladesh. In addition to the talk and dinner we also hosted a silent auction which alone raised $700. This amount is enough to fund a high school education for one Bangladeshi girl. The total event raised $8000. Thanks to everyone who helped make this evening a success.
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Member's Corner
Congratulations, Tina! Beta chapter member Tina R. Hill completed her Master's degree in October in the Department of Geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her thesis is a nanoscale study of a gem mineral entitled, "High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy Investigation of Nano-crystals of Pyroxene and Copper in Oregon Sunstones." She will pursue her PhD at Wisconsin, studying thermodynamic size effects of nano-minerals within metamorphic rocks from Norway. Tina is also the Chapter President of Beta Chapter.
We want to hear from you! Please send us the details of your accomplishments, awards, notices e.g.
looking for a job or have a job for someone; promoted; retired; just got
married/name change; had a baby; new post-doc position; new publication; etc.
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Mensa Puzzle
For those of you who enjoy puzzles, here's one for you...contact the Executive Director for the answer. Enjoy!
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Complements of Giant Book of Mensa Critical Thinking Puzzles, by DiSpezio, Michael.
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Funding Opportunities
GrantNet is your one-stop resource to find funds for research
and training in the sciences. This service is completely free.
Call for Applications for GWIS Fellowships
National GWIS announces the Call
for Applications for the GWIS Fellowships. To be eligible, the applicant must be
enrolled as a graduate student, or engaged in post-doctoral or early-stage
junior faculty academic research, and demonstrate financial need for
continuation or completion of their research. Membership in SDE/GWIS is
not required for application for the GWIS Fellowships.
The
major component of the research can be either applied or basic. Exact
Fellowships amounts will be determined by the SDE/GWIS Fellowships Committee
and will range from $1000 to $10,000. All awards will be available for the
academic year and will be announced on or before July 1 of each year. Endowment
funds, mostly generated from bequests, provide the annual income that supports
scientific research done by SDE/GWIS Award winners. For the 2008-2009 funding
cycle we awarded a total of $46,999.
Application form is available on-line at www.gwis.org and also available as a MS Word
document. Also available are Q &A's and links to paying the Fellowships
Application Fee on-line with a credit card. Please direct all questions to the Fellowships Coordinator. |
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