| Accomplishments in 2004
- Many staff scientists in General Sciences (GS) are actively involved in education and public outreach. The GS Workplace Committee will recognize their contributions by posting their activities on our Web page.
- A professor and undergraduate student from Southern University (a historically black university) worked on detector development with GS scientists at the 88-Inch Cyclotron during the summer of 2004. A female student worked with a Nuclear Science Division scientist on software for IceCube; she won third place for her poster on IceCube at the 2004 Lousiana Alliance for Minority Participation (LAMP) conference.
- An African American professor from Harvard University joined Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD) Staff for two months in the summer of 2004. He contributed his expertise to the Linear Collider project.
- A pilot plan in strategic recruiting was implemented in the Physics Division to fill the Chamberlain Fellowship position. A similar plan was presented to both AFRD and the Nuclear Science Division (NSD). In addition, the plan was adopted as a recommendation by the Best Practices Diversity Council.
- The GS Workplace Committee presented a list of performance
expectations for supervisors to the GS division
directors . It was found that many of
these expectations were already covered in each division’s
current performance review. AFRD decided to distribute “Supervisor
Expectations” to
program heads and supervisors as a resource document.
- The GS Workplace Committee sponsored a postdoc career planning workshop on “Careers for Physicists in Biotechnology: One Woman’s Experience,” on Friday, July 30th.
- New rules for NSD postdoc reappointments to promote their career development were proposed and later accepted. In a study to evaluate mentoring for postdocs and newly recruited Nuclear Science Division employees, it was found that a mentoring program—as we had perceived it to benefit underrepresented groups—was not clearly necessary at this time. The situation may change when more underrepresented postdocs and scientists are hired.
- We held a supervisor brown-bag lunch meeting to discuss roles and responsibilities for supervisors. We would like to see the brown-bag lunch meeting occur once every few months to support continual leadership and supervisory growth.
- A General Sciences all-hands diversity awareness meeting was held on May 10, 2004.
- We are developing a Web page for the General Sciences Workplace Committee to promote diversity awareness. This is considered a more effective format than newsletters.
- The AFRD Director, who has mentored three minority scholarship awardees, is a member of the American Physical Society Committee on Minorities.
- A female scientist from NSD is the Chair-elect of the APS Forum on Education, and is very active on the national scene.
Action Items for 2005
Education and Public Outreach (EPO)
- Make use of the GS Workplace Committee Web page to encourage staff scientists in General Sciences to get involved with public outreach.
- Continue to participate in conferences and workshops
directed towards networking with college faculty and high-school
teachers, especially those working in minority-serving
institutions.
Scientific and Technical Staff Pipeline
- Continue to support the research partnership program,
whose goal is to influence women and minority undergraduates
to pursue scientific research careers. Endeavor to involve
more projects with minority-serving institutions.
- Collaborate with the Workforce Diversity Office and the Best Practices Diversity Council to facilitate these efforts.
Strategic Recruiting
- Revise hiring procedures, as appropriate, to ensure that positions are advertised and open to as many underrepresented candidates as possible.
- Develop policies and procedures for improved strategic recruiting, using "Living Lists" of qualified individuals who are potential candidates for future open positions in General Sciences. Develop lists through throughout GS and with people at other institutions, and implement personnel policies to ensure that these lists are consulted whenever postdoc and staff positions are to be filled.
Workforce Development
- Organize brown-bag lunch meetings on topics that are interesting and beneficial to our workforce, such as leadership and supervisory growth, career planning, diversity, and immigration issues. Our goal is to hold these meetings quarterly.
- Consult Human Resources on how to conduct a survey on the “Workplace Climate” of the GS workforce.
Communication/Awareness
- Hold a General Sciences all-hands diversity awareness meeting with an emphasis on diversity issues in strategic recruiting.
- Maintain a Web site for the General Sciences Workplace Committee to communicate with employees.
- Organize a session at the American Physical Society meeting, in April, for entry-level minority scientists.
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