Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1999 10:41:52 -0500 (EST)
Subject: CSWA Newsletter of 8/11/99
To: AASMAIL: ;
AAS Committee on the Status of Women
weekly issues of 8/11/99, ed. by Priscilla Benson
*** send email and addresses to aaswomen
wellesley.edu ***
This week's issues:
1. More on surveys of conference speakers
2. A Request for Help
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1. More on surveys of conference speakers
From: IN%"showardnsf.gov" "Sethanne Howard"
Re: the survey on gender breakouts on SOCs and invited
speakers.
About 7 years ago a similar survey was done. The results
were listed in the aaswomen e-mail (see 4/30/92). It would
be nice to see what differences there are between then and
now.
Sethanne Howard
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From: sellgrenastronomy.ohio-state.edu "Kris Sellgren"
I've been on a few scientific organizing committees.
Sometimes the meeting chair has everything worked out
already and just wants a rubber stamp on the program.
Sometimes the committee actually has several e-mail rounds
of discussion on the possible speakers.
For the last SOC I worked on (The Central Parsecs), the
meeting chairs came up with a list of possible topics to
cover, drawn at least in part from a survey of readers of
the relevant e-mail newsletter (GCNews), and then polled the
SOC for suggestions for speakers. That made it easy to
suggest junior (student/postdoc) speakers and women speakers
simply by pointing out that their latest published work on a
particular topic was current and interesting. Other members
of the SOC suggested the usual pundits in the field, so we
ended up with a nice mix of junior and senior speakers.
Pundits -- people who have done important early work in the
field, especially if they continue to do interesting work in
the field -- will always be invited speakers. At some
conferences, all the SOC become invited speakers; at others,
none of the SOC do. That's something that the meeting
chair(s) decides on, I think. I always suggest my students
and former students as invited speakers when I can, as part
of being a good faculty mentor. Sometimes this gets vetoed
by the meeting chair(s) on the grounds that only senior
people should give invited talks. The final invited list,
overall, tends to default largely to some mix of pundits,
the SOC, and SOC students, unless there is someone on the
SOC who is proactive in suggesting junior/female/minority
speakers.
If the meeting organizers already have a speaker schedule in
mind, but their first choice for an invited speaker isn't
available, then this is an opportunity for a pro-active SOC
member to introduce some diversity.
An analogous situation to the SOC for a conference is one's
astronomy department colloquium committee. I find that,
left untended, the colloquium schedule in our dept. will
largely reflect the scientific interests of this year's
colloquium chair. Also, our colloquium schedule will have a
far smaller fraction of women speakers than is represented
in the field unless I or someone else actively intervenes.
There tends to be a good mix of junior and senior people
quite naturally, from financial constraints: senior people
with high travel costs and nearby junior people with low
travel costs will both be invited.
I have found that there is little or no attention paid to
who gives good talks, both on SOCs and on astronomy dept
colloquium committees. Partly this is because anyone, senior
or junior, can give a great talk at one conference and put
everyone to sleep at the next one. Partly this is because
pundits will be asked to speak whatever their reputation for
interesting or incomprehensible talks. Partly this
is because the SOC or colloquium chair only knows the
published work of lesser-known speakers (particularly junior
people) and takes a risk that a person who writes a great
paper can also give a good talk.
So, even if you aren't asked to be on SOCs for conferences,
you can still be pro-active in your department, by
suggesting interesting women and minority speakers for your
local colloquium series. The APS has programs to fund
travel costs for women and minority speakers -- invite two,
get the second one free! Check out
http://www.aps.org/educ/women-intro.html
http://www.aps.org/educ/minority-intro.html
This program will fund astronomy colloquia, not just physics
colloquia.
Kris Sellgren
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From: IN%"eterleviinaoep.mx" "Elena Terlevich"
In all the meettings I served as member of the SOC, we paid
attention to gender and country of work-place (specially for
IAU meetings where a good balance between countries is
required by the IAU) but that as secondary requirements.
First ones were: good hot science and good entertaining
speaker. In some cases, the invitations to speakers have
been not as individuals but as a group: would you or any
member of your team who is also a good communicator would
like to ...
The conferences in which I have been and I am involved,
always had a good balance of gender among the SOC members,
the invited speakers, and the participants as well.
Elena Terlevich
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From: IN%"aewipac.caltech.edu"
In response to the question of how speakers are chosen by
the scientific organizing committees, I have seen these
modes of operation:
1) the main organizer already has a list in mind, which
is proposed to the rest of the organizers. They can
veto or add speakers based on any criteria they want.
2) the main organizer asks for suggestions to be put
to the science organizers as a whole.
3) the main organizers decide the whole slate of speakers
without consulting the "science organizers"
The usual criteria include
* ability to give a good, understandable talk
* timely results of importance
* standing as a pundit who can give a good overview
* institutional balance, for example, suggesting speakers
from the host institution or not choosing more than 2
speakers from a single institution
* recent substantive work in the field
Non-verbalized criteria are often:
* the postdocs, former postdocs, or senior grad students of
the organizers (this is extremely common)
* astronomers whose careers are being boosted by one of the
organizers
* male/female balance
* reciprocity for a previous invitation
* new initiatives in the field
* international balance
Often, science organizers will hear someone give an
excellent short talk at a general meeting, and remember that
person when the time comes to select someone for a longer,
invited talk.
Ann Wehrle
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2. A Request for Help
From: IN%"brysoncfht.hawaii.edu" "Liz Bryson"
My name is Anna Egorova and I am a member of the
Astronomical Assosiation - Sofia, Bulgaria. Our research
topics are: comets, planetology and extrasolar planetology,
galaxy evolution, astrophotography.
I have one not very usual question to ask you. Some of our
members have some interesting works, for example, in
extrasolar planetology, and would like very much to
participate at the meeting in Houston, USA (The Lunar and
Planetary Scince Conference) or in Spain (Disks,
Planetasimals and Planets). Our club is unfortunately very
small and we don't have much sponsors. Could you please
provide me with some information about foundations, funds or
sponsors, who would like to help us participate at such
meetings.
Thank you very mch in advance, Anna Egorova
Egorova;Anna
tel;fax:+3592 700478
tel;work:+3592 9733545, +3592 9733555
url:htpp://www.datecs.bg
email;internet:annadatecs.bg
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End of CSWA Newsletter of 8/11/99