One of the outcomes of the 2011 Long Range Planning Retreat was a mandate to increase ASPET’s activities in mentoring and career development. While ASPET has a long history of engaging in career development activities at the annual meeting through the activities of the Women in Pharmacology Committee (WIP), the Diversity Committee and the Graduate Recruitment and Education Committee (GRE), there was no single focus for our career development activities, and often there was duplication of effort among the three committees. Recognizing that there was no unique focus in many of their activities (the WIP Walk excepted!), the Women in Pharmacology Committee voted to disband in the fall of 2011. In an effort to increase the efficiency of our volunteer and staff efforts, as well as maximize the utility to our members, Council voted at its April meeting to reorganize its key committees. There will now be two committees that will address the areas previously covered by the WIP, GRE, and Diversity Committees.
The Committee on Mentoring and Career Development, co-chaired by Marcus Delatte and Susan Ingram, will focus on providing mentoring and career development sessions to ASPET members, especially our younger scientists. Initially, the committee will:
- Organize the Graduate Student/Postdoc Colloquium on career development topics at the annual meeting;
- Establish and maintain a mentoring program for ASPET’s young scientists;
- Plan and participate in the Diversity Mentoring breakfast at the EB meeting;
- Oversee judging for the minority graduate student posters at EB for the Dolores Shockley Award;
- Nominate women and minorities for major ASPET and FASEB awards;
- Organize the WIP Networking walk; and
- Plan other career development and mentoring activities at the annual meeting as appropriate.
The Graduate Recruitment and Education Committee will focus on another critically important aspect of our discipline, facilitating the recruitment, training and education of students choosing careers in pharmacology. Under the co-chairmanship of Joey Barnett and Kelly Karpa, the Graduate Recruitment Committee will:
- Organize and execute the Teaching Institute at the annual meeting;
- Oversee and coordinate the activities of the SURF Program, including the review of SURF applications;
- Review the SURF and non-MARC Minority Travel Awards to EB;
- Develop means to facilitate recruitment of graduate students into
pharmacology, including ensuring that adequate and up-to-date
information about the discipline is available;
- Maintain an active program that targets the recruitment of
minorities and women into pharmacology, including participation in the
SACNAS and ABRCMS meetings;
- Oversee the subcommittee responsible for the National Directors of
Graduate Studies in Pharmacology meetings and maintain a communication
mechanism for this group of educators; and
- Act as a conduit to provide information to ASPET members and others about issues related to education.
As has always been the case with ASPET committees, these committees will also look for and carry out other opportunities to further the recruitment, education, career development, and mentoring aspect of their missions. The recruitment, care and nurturing of our young scientists should be a primary function of all more established scientists, and with the help of these committees, ASPET hopes to be able to facilitate such a culture. If you would like to be part of either of these important endeavors, please contact Christie Carrico at ccarrico@aspet.org.
One additional committee reorganization deserves mention. The Committee on Public Affairs has long been a key committee, working with Jim Bernstein, to identify and provide public comments on policy and funding issues that are important to ASPET members. However, public policy has become an increasingly important part of ASPET’s activities and the challenges to which we must respond have become more complex. Therefore, Council decided in April that it was time to give the Committee on Public Affairs a higher profile. The committee has been renamed the Science Policy Committee (SPC), similar to its counterpart in FASEB. Each year, the Past President of ASPET will go onto the committee to serve a three-year term. The ASPET Representative to the FASEB Board will also serve on the SPC during his/her four year term on the FASEB Board. The remainder of the committee will consist, as it does now, of interested members who have demonstrated a commitment to participating in ASPET’s public affairs activities. As of July 1, 2012, Dr. Lynn Wecker, current Past-President is chairing the SPC, and Dr. Brian Cox participates as ASPET’s representative to the FASEB Board.
Committee Membership
Mentoring and Career Development
Chairs: Marcus S. Delatte and Susan L. Ingram
Helmut Gottlieb
Ann T. Hanna-Mitchell
Harriet Kamendi
Eileen J. Kennedy
Myron L. Toews
Ashley N. Guillory, Student Representative
Remy L. Brim, Postdoctoral Representative
Lynn Wecker, Advisor
Christie Carrico, Staff liaison
Graduate Recruitment and Education
Chairs: Joey V. Barnett and Kelly Karpa
Adedayo Adedoyin
Eric L. Barker
Lynn M. Crespo
Steven J. Crosby
Martha I. Davila-Garcia
Beth A. Habecker
William F. Jackson
Michael J. Seminerio, Student Representative
Catherine M. Davis, Postdoctoral Representative
Brian M. Cox, Council Liaison
Christine K. Carrico, Staff Liaison
Science Policy Committee
Chair: Lynn Wecker
Brian Cox
Steve Dworkin
Edward French
Ronald Hines
Heather Kimmel
Gerald Schaefer
Jim Bernstein, Staff liaison