Report from the University Relations Committee

The University Relations Committee (URC) met 5Ð6 April at the 
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, continuing its practice of 
convening at a UCAR member institution.  

The Subcommittee on Non-NSF (National Science Foundation) 
Funded Proposals (Dale Haidvogel, Rutgers University; George Young, 
Pennsylvania State University; and Harold Orville, South Dakota 
School of Mines and Technology) met for a second time and reviewed 
approximately 40 proposals submitted by NCAR during the previous 
six months. They considered the fit of the proposals with a set of 
criteria designed to assess the appropriateness of the proposed work for 
NCAR.  The subcommittee determined that with a few exceptions the 
proposals fit well with the guidelines.  In most of those cases where 
questions existed, it was thought that the information from the 
proposing division was deficient.  The set of ten original criteria was 
revised to a final set of five (see box).  The URC believes that the 
remaining criteria will elicit more substantial responses while those 
eliminated did not add useful information.  The subcommittee will 
meet again just prior to the fall URC meeting to review the 
effectiveness of the revised criteria.  Thereafter, it is anticipated that the 
subcommittee will meet annually.

Regular status reports were made by UCAR president Richard Anthes, 
NCAR director Robert Serafin, UCAR Office of Programs (UOP) 
director William Bonner, and Harriet Barker as interim director of the 
Walter Orr Roberts Institute (WORI).  Copies of the written summaries 
are available from Susan Warner at swarner@ncar.ucar.edu.  Topics 
covered included the status of NCAR's Research Applications 
Program; planned augmentations in the community support 
capabilities available through NCAR's Scientific Computing and 
Atmospheric Technology divisions; future activities planned for the 
Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education and 
Training (COMET), Unidata, and the University NAVSTAR 
Consortium; UCAR's participation in GLOBE (Global Learning and 
Observations to Benefit the Environment); and the appointment of 
John McCarthy as UCAR vice president and director of WORI (see story 
on page 1).  David Fulker, Unidata director, summarized Unidata's 
plans for Internet data distribution.  Clifford Jacobs (NSF Atmospheric 
Sciences Division, or ATM) briefed the committee on FY 94 and 95 
budgets and the foundation's involvement in the National 
Information Infrastructure, commonly referred to as the information 
superhighway.

Jacobs also reviewed the ATM-UCAR long-range plan, a draft of which 
had been provided to the committee and distributed broadly in the 
community for comment.  This joint effort, led by Pamela Stephens of 
NSF, aims at updating previous planning documents and exercises.

George Young, committee member from the Pennsylvania State 
University, led a discussion of a possible role for UCAR, working with 
the community, to take advantage of the exploding Mosaic-type 
technologies.  This topic will be the subject for one of three forum 
discussions at the October Members' meeting.

In addition, the URC asked for a complete discussion in October of the 
GLOBE program and urged UCAR to ensure broad university 
participation in that program, as in all UCAR activities.

Timothy Spangler, in his capacity as chairman of the American 
Meteorological Society's Board on Meteorological and Oceanographic 
Education in Universities, described current plans for the joint 
UCAR/AMS biennial meeting of the heads and chairs of atmos-pheric 
and oceanographic sciences departments, to be held in Boulder, 
Colorado, this October.  The theme will be graduate education and 
programs.

The committee agreed to invite a representative from the UOP 
scientific or technical staff to participate in committee meetings, in the 
same way that two resource people from NCAR have participated for 
about two years.  Experience has shown that input from the NCAR 
representatives is very pertinent to the URC.

Toward the close of the meeting the committee debated the pros and 
cons of scheduling meetings at member campuses versus alternating 
with Boulder.  In keeping with the charge of the committee to promote 
exchange, it was proposed that more meetings be held at member 
institutions in the future.  Accordingly, the fall meeting of the URC 
will be at Texas A&M University, 31 October to 1 November; Edward 
Zipser of Texas A&M will host a Halloween party.

Further information is available from Steven Businger, URC chairman 
(businger@soest.
hawaii.edu), any committee member, or Harriet Barker (phone: 303-
497-1657; Internet: harriet@ncar.ucar.edu; Omnet: H.BARKER).