University of California Council of Postdoctoral Scholars Meeting
November 4, 2006, UC San Diego

ATTENDEES:
UCSD PSA: Michelle Juarez, Amanda, Yvonne, Sam
UC Berkeley: John Soderholm, Zoran Djurisic, Marianne Poxleitner
UCLA: Graham Davies
UC Davis: Gustavo Barisone
UCOP: Mark Westlye
UCSD OPS: Art ?last name?, Jennifer Oh, Merritt Bradford
Salk: Xiangmin Xu
Stanford: Lucia Mokres
ScienceRing: Audrey ?last name?
Scripps: Adam Mullick, Justin ?last name? (briefly – intro himself as new pres)
Garnett-Powers: Steve Johnson

Abbreviations: PDA = postdoctoral association; PDO = postdoctoral office

After the introductions, Art described the Office of Research Affairs office at UCSD. There are nontraditional opportunities around that the UCSD OPS is trying to publicize, for example, with the BIOCOM symposium in October (Jennifer will talk about) and through discovery core fellowships.

Mark Westlye, from the UC Office of the President (academic advancement dept in academic affairs), discussed a few developments he was involved in the past – UC set up a telephone communication system 4-5 years ago to talk about issues arising regarding postdoc affairs. This resulted in APM-390. Since then, they’ve been working very hard on postdoc benefits. Represents an effort from a group of ~150 people – a big project.

He also mentioned there are currently efforts to standardize pay to national standards (NIH, NSF, etc).

Steve Johnson, from Garnett Powers and Assoc., reported that their relationship with UC system and postdocs is entering into its 3rd year now. There are new rates though, so make sure all department heads and HR know about these new numbers. A big change for international postdocs is that they no longer have to buy extra insurance, except for dependents.

He also reminded that after 6 monthsw, short term disability is gone. But, some people had to sign up for long-term disability when first joined university. There was no open enrollment for that later. However, now you can do it at open enrollment too. This may be important for people who put in the wrong amounts on the calculations form online and opted out because of the misleading large number. It can be added now for $6.66 per month.

UCSF was the last UC campus to join, and now all 10 campuses are taking advantage of these benefits. UCI has some problems with their campus medical group not accepting Healthnet, and so they’re going with PacificNet instead.

If we hear anything else that postdocs need, Garret Powers & Assoc. is happy to listen to suggestions.

Imputed income and consequences discussed. Imputed income means that a postdoc who is a fellow or paid-direct and has all or part of their benefits paid for them will have to pay taxes on those benefits. Benefits are taxable income because for nonemployees, they are considered fringe. For foreign postdocs, UC withholds it. If have questions, go to payroll.

Somebody asked about Legal services status. In the past, other people have requested it, so Garnett and Powers researched it. They could provide a voluntary plan where you get reduced rates for services, but it was not very popular. It would not cover anything against employers, only stuff outside of work like divorce, car issues, etc. Will not cover immigration issues, ever, either. If people are still interested in legal services, then a survey of interest must be performed.

Rollout atyourservice in March. There are still some problems though because need a SS#, and not everyone has one. Still have some kinks to work out.

Raymond Clark, who has been involved with the CPS and NPA, went to a National Academy of Sciences field meeting to discuss how to get scientists involved in communicating with government. The government thinks there is a shortage of qualified job seekers in science and technology. Raymond suggested to them that policy for foreign scientists be changed. He also had other suggestions (see his presentation).

Hill Days and AAAS internships were also discussed.

Jennifer Oh, director of the UCSD Postdoc Office (she also introduced Merritt) is trying to develop a curriculum for postdoc training – provide exposure to lots of things. She talked about the BIOCOM symposium, which was a huge success, well-attended, with a lot of good discussion and information. It was done in coordination with Scripps, Burnham, Salk, etc.

The UCSD PDO will offer lab management training in the spring. Limited space. See flyer. There is also an idea of starting a biotech company internship program for postdocs.

AUDREY:
From ScienceRing.

Started the website 3 months ago, near peak of unionization issues.

Can personalize your own page to narrow information down to what you’re looking for.

Everything right now is out of pocket of the founders. Audrey has a webmaster friend to do the web stuff for free.

Others on the council were supportive of the site, but gave suggestions, etc.

LUNCH

JOHN
Vice president of PSA at UC Berkeley

Discussed call/need for faculty advisor (person’s job is to give advice from a faculty perspective). John provided a name (see handout) as a suggestion. Sam (UCSD) asked that the call be open instead of based on council suggestions. Council discussed how this might be possible. Go from Top-Down was suggested so that the faculty will pay attention to the call more readily. Mark says if you go to an administrator, you cross jurisdiction because of shared governance, so starts getting complicated. Other way to do it is through ad hoc invitations. Then don’t have to go through channels. Discussed option of having a rep on each campus, and then whoever was available at next CPS meeting, go.

John will provide a sample letter to ask faculty for involvement. Decided to have all nominations solidified by January 15.

Outreach – John volunteered at last CPS to try to get other UC campuses who are not represented on the council to participate. He is continuing working on it.

Marianne Poxleitner, President of PSA at UC Berkeley, discussed the upcoming NPA meeting. She needs people to help with the whole event (over 3 days). She believes that some sort of aid could be provided to those that help the whole time (not sure what kind of aid or how much aid – maybe a hotel room or something). They’re planning to have PDA, PDO, and JOINT sessions. JOINT session meant to try to bring together both sides and look at common goals.

She also talked about interest in having UC intercampus newsletters, to increase communication between UC campuses, postdocs, offices, etc. Maybe use website (Graham was volunteered) through an RSS feed as newsletter and post things there.
In addition, she mentioned the recent postdoctoral scholar retreat, at which there was poor attendance by postdocs. This was a missed opportunity to communicate with the UC administration about needs.

CAMPUS REPORTS
To summarize, the main topics were fundraising, communication on each campus (how to communicate via email, newsgroups, etc). The biggest problem on all campuses seems to be postdoc interest, i.e. poor turnout at many events. Scripps is an exception as they usually good participation and good attendance.

NEXT MTG
Try for 6 mo from today, possibly AFTER the NPA meeting at UCLA or UC Davis.