From: aasmail [aasmail@aas.org]
Sent: Monday, August 15, 2005 9:15 AM
To: 'aasmembers@aas.org'
Subject: AAS Informational Email 2005-17

AAS Informational Email 2005-17

Kevin B. Marvel, Deputy Executive Officer

Summary

A communication from G. Wayne Van Citters, NSF-AST Director 
regarding the status and future of the ongoing Senior 
Review is provided below. Input from institutions regarding 
hosting town meetings is requested.

Communication

Dear Colleagues, 

As I wrote some weeks ago, I want to keep you all informed
of the progress and plans for the Senior Review. First, I 
want to thank all of you who replied to our call for 
nominations. We have folded all of those suggestions into a 
candidate list and are beginning to approach people to 
serve on the committee. Again, I hope everyone that we 
contact will give very serious consideration to 
participating in this vital undertaking. 

As of this past weekend we have in hand the input from the 
facilities that we asked for back in May. It is clear that
our facilities managers have given this a lot of thought 
and effort, including interaction with their user 
community. We are now studying this material and will be 
meeting with the leadership of each facility to clarify 
details, both of their input and of our plans. 

I pledged in my last message that we would provide ample 
opportunity for community input. To this end Eileen Friel 
(our Executive Officer) and I would like to have a number 
(perhaps four) of "town meetings" across the country over 
the next few months. These will be a chance for us to 
interact face-to-face with you, answering questions and 
listening to your input and concerns first hand. If 
possible I would like these to be full-day events, with a 
plenary session in the morning, followed in the afternoon 
by the opportunity for individuals to meet with us, 
one-on-one. Hopefully, depending on schedules, some 
"local" members of the committee might also attend. 

We would like to receive invitations from institutions 
(or groups of institutions) willing to host such town 
meetings. We think they would be most useful if they were 
"regional" in nature so that each trip for us would reach 
as many of you as possible. By "host" we mean only that 
one would provide a venue and coordinate a time with groups 
in your area. The period that we have in mind is 
essentially from now through the end of the year, though 
it would be useful to have one or two before the first 
meeting of the committee, which might be towards the 
end of October. Please let us know. 

Finally, we are also in the process of establishing, and 
will advertise through the AAS, a web page to which the 
community can post input, opinions, concerns, that they 
would like put in front of the committee. Again we will 
work with the chair to assure that the format and nature of 
the input is as germane and useful as possible. 

Sincerely, 

Wayne 


G. W. Van Citters 
Director, Division of Astronomical Sciences 
National Science Foundation 
Arlington, VA 22230 
703-292-4908 
gvancitt@nsf.gov 
___________________________________________________________

Mailed to US members from aas.org 15 August 2005

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