Minutes of the October 2014 DLS Executive Committee Meeting
(from Anne Kelly, outgoing DLS Secretary-Treasurer)
Executive Boardroom 1, JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort, Tucson, AZ
Oct. 21, 2014
Attending: Toni Taylor (Chair), John Fourkas (Chair-Elect), Roseanne Sension (Vice-Chair), Anne Myers Kelley (Secretary-Treasurer), Randy Bartels, Rick Averitt, Kristan Corwin, Amy VanEngen Spivey (Newsletter Editor)
The meeting was called to order by Toni Taylor at 9:03 am.
The minutes from the 2014 CLEO EC meeting were approved.
Anne Kelley gave a financial report. The overall DLS balance has remained fairly constant over the past several years and stands at $446,918 at the end of August. The projected income from CLEO 2014 is currently about $12K compared with a pre-conference estimate of $16K and actual income from 2013 of $17K. The projected DLS share of the cancellation penalty for moving CLEO 2015 from Baltimore to San Jose currently stands at about $15K, which will approximately cancel any income from CLEO 2015. The Schawlow fund stood at $216,199 at the end of August. This is still slightly below what is needed to pay both the $10,000 prize and the associated expenses (travel, lodging) for the awardee, so DLS is paying the expenses from our general fund. The next Newsletter should contain another request for donations to the Schawlow fund.
Anne reported on the Student Travel Grant and Child Care Grant programs. Only two Student Travel Grant applications were received for FiO/LS and both were awarded, although one had received a grant for the previous CLEO. No Child Care Grant applications were received. After some discussion, the EC voted to limit future Student Travel Grants to one per student per career. The EC also voted to allocate $10,000 to the Student Travel Grant program for 2015 (CLEO plus FiO/LS) and $1,000 total to the Child Care Grant program.
Steve Cundiff, a member of the Nominating Committee, reported on the upcoming DLS election. A full slate of candidates has been assembled for everything except the Secretary-Treasurer position. Steve has contacted some people who said they’d run next year, and suggested rotating nominating committee members to retain some institutional memory.
Dave Reitze, chair of the DLS Dissertation Award committee, reported on the award. This year’s committee consisted of Dave, Kristan Corwin, and Randy Bartels. Eight complete applications were received, spanning a broad range of topics. The four finalists gave presentations on Monday and the committee selected Ido Kaminer as the winner. Dave will announce this at tonight’s banquet. The committee feels there is sufficient interest that the competition should be held every year. The rules need to be clarified to require that the dissertation must have been defended prior to the application deadline, not prior to the meeting. The application procedure should also be modified to require that the dissertation itself (either a copy or a web link) be provided to the committee, with an understanding of confidentiality. The three current members of the committee are willing to stay on for next year, and suggest that a fourth person be added. The EC voted to hold the competition again next year and to allocate $4,000 from DLS funds (four travel grants at $750 each and one award at $1,000). There was discussion of fundraising for an endowment that would support the award; about $75K would be needed. Darlene Logan in the APS development office is willing to help but we need to do the work to find donors.
Hal Metcalf reported on the Symposium on Undergraduate Research. There were 51 participants, a record. Students stayed and had Sunday dinner at the Doubletree Hotel in town, per Jennifer Garcia’s recommendation (U of Arizona contact). Monday a bus arranged through the U of A took most of the students to the conference site where they attended the plenary/awards session, had lunch with a number of awardees, and then had well attended poster and oral sessions. Monday evening, U of A optical sciences provided transportation to campus for dinner and lab tours, and transportation back to Doubletree. No industrial support from local companies was received this year, and because of the expense of the site, the cost of the symposium was considerably higher than usual. The OSA meetings staff (Alex Marquez, Laura Spencer, Leah Oleszewski, April Zak) were very helpful. Next year in San Jose the costs should be back to normal. Hal will run next year’s meeting, but we need someone, or perhaps two people, to take over future Symposia and should overlap with Hal this coming year. The EC voted to allocate $9,000 for next year’s Symposium.
Steve Cundiff, the DLS representative to the CLEO Long Range Planning Committee, gave a report. The committee has met several times both by teleconference and in person. Kent Choquette (IEEE) is the chair, other members include Craig Arnold (OSA), an industry rep, an exhibitor rep, and others who rarely participate. Surveys show attendee satisfaction from the technical meeting dropped severely in 2012 and 2013, but this is primarily among infrequent or first-time attendees who may be largely students. Several changes have already been made including a call for symposium proposals from the scientific community; this resulted in 17 submissions, of which 8 were accepted for the 2015 program. Other proposed changes include targeting which exhibits are advertised to specific sessions, reviewing policies and procedures to enhance empowerment of chairs, and setting up a permanent long-range planning committee for CLEO:S&I.
John Fourkas gave an update on the March meeting. DLS again has one invited session on Monday morning.
The committee discussed Rainer Grobe’s report on the Distinguished Traveling Lecturer program. Currently the DTL committee is accepting all proposals it deems worthy. While the EC agreed that this is an excellent program and one that should be continued, it was felt that to control costs and insure that only the most worthy proposals are funded, the number awarded each year should be limited. The EC voted to limit the number of awards to four per year (spread over May and Nov applications) to start in calendar year 2015. There was also concern about the lack of turnover among DTLs. After some discussion, the EC agreed that the longest-standing DTLs should be asked to rotate off, and newly selected DTLs should have a term of five years. It was also agreed that the receiving institution, not the DTL, should submit a report summarizing the visit, including what was done to acknowledge/promote DLS. DTLs should be given a graphic to show, modified as they wish. Finally, an EC member not in the chair line (as the chair must approve all DTL visits) should be on the DTL committee. Rick Averitt agreed to serve in this capacity. John Fourkas will discuss these changes with Rainer.
OSA Deputy Executive Director Chad Stark and Senior Director of Conference & Meeting Services Britt Jackman joined for a discussion of the CLEO and FiO/Laser Science meetings. OSA is thinking seriously about whether its annual meeting is properly serving its membership and how it could do better. Decisions will be made at OSA’s winter leadership meeting in February. OSA wants input from us; Anne will gather and send to Chad. The proposed CLEO schedule for 2015 moves plenary sessions to the afternoon to increase participation, but also shortens them; also adds a happy hour during the exhibit on Wednesday in the hope of increasing traffic. There is no change in the number of technical program slots. Future CLEO dates: 10-15 May 2015, San Jose; 5-10 June 2016, San Jose. Chad agreed to maintain the undergraduate symposium registration fee of $140 for FiO next year, but other registration fees will go up 3%. EC members asked about putting student travel grant information and advertising dissertation award on CLEO and FiO web page, and putting both on advertising e-mails. Chad was agreeable to this. We can also print a flyer and have it put into the attendee bags. We just need to get copies made and mailed to the appropriate place soon enough before the meeting.
Toni Taylor discussed the APS Leadership Convocation, Feb. 20-21, 2015 in College Park, MD, with congressional visits the day before. APS will fund travel for up to three DLS EC members. Roseanne Sension agreed to go.
Amy Spivey is stepping down as Newsletter editor in order to serve on the APS northwest section EC. She and Henry Kapteyn both suggested several possible replacements. EC members were identified to ask these people in an agreed-upon order.
Jason Jones, co-chair of the New Laser Scientists Conference (other co-chair is Dan Gauthier), gave a report. The meeting runs from Thursday mid-day through Friday of this week. Attendance is expected at 17, mostly Asst. Profs. An ex-DARPA program officer will give a talk on funding. This year, all participants were asked to submit a mock one-page NSF proposal summary which will be critiqued and ranked by peers. DLS allocated $5K for this meeting, and the expected costs are just under this. Jason will be chair for the next meeting in 2016 in Rochester and is willing to seek corporate funding as well as grants from NSF, for example. Anne will ask Mike Stephens about the feasibility of running an NSF grant through APS.
There was brief discussion of program chairs for Laser Science in 2015. Galina Khitrova has agreed to stay on for a second year. Randy Bartels is willing to serve as the second chair. The EC approved Randy Bartels’ nomination.
Kristan Corwin agreed to serve as the point person in implementing the drive to increase membership that was agreed to at our last meeting. Members of APS who are not DLS members will be offered free membership in DLS for the remainder of their current membership year.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:05 pm.