Eric Betterton, University of Arizona

Chris Bretherton, University of Washington (Chairman)

Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, University of Minnesota

James Hansen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Everette Joseph, Howard University

Arlene Laing, University of South Florida

John Merrill, The University of Rhode Island

Stephen Monismith, Stanford University

Michael Morgan, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kenneth Pickering, University of Maryland

Mohan Ramamurthy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Patricia Reiff, Rice University

Eugene Takle, Iowa State University

Sepideh Yalda, Millersville University of Pennsylvania

Ron Smith, Yale University

Mary Barth, Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division

Ginger Caldwell, Scientific Computing Division

Bernard Grant, Financial Operations Specialist, UCAR & Lower-Atmosphere Facilities Oversight Section
Cliff Jacobs, Head, UCAR & Lower-Atmosphere Facilities Oversight Section
Peter Milne, Prog. Coordinator, Lower Atmospheric Facility Oversight Section

Others present for all or part of the meeting were:

Richard Anthes, President, UCAR
Eron Brennan, Multi-Media Systems Administrator, UCAR
Al Cooper, Director, Advanced Study Program, NCAR
Steve Dickson, Assoc. Director of Operations, NCAR
Janet Evans, Budget & Planning Office, NCAR
Jack Fellows, Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Director of UOP
Art Few, Rice University
Susan Friberg, Administrator, UCAR
Robert Gall, Acting Associate Director, NCAR
Bob Henson, UCAR Communications
Tim Hundsdorfer, Budget & Planning Office, NCAR
Sharon Hurley, Budget & Planning Office, NCAR
Tim Killeen, Director, NCAR
Cindy Schmidt, Director, Office of Development and Government Affairs, UCAR
Catherine Shea, Executive Administrator to the Director, NCAR
Kathryn Strand, Manager of Budget & Administration, UOP
Susan Warner, Executive Assistant, UCAR

WEDNESDAY, 9 OCTOBER

1. Welcome and Regular Business Items

Chairman Chris Bretherton welcomed the new URC members—James Hansen, Arlene Laing, Sepideh Yalda—along with the continuing members and guests. He announced his resignation from the committee and the appointment of Eric Betterton as the new chair, effective at the conclusion of this meeting. Bretherton then noted a few agenda changes.

2. Orientation for New Committee Members

UCAR President Rick Anthes gave a brief overview on the URC's responsibilities and then pointed out the URC website as a resource for further information. He emphasized the importance of the committee's role in educating their universities on UCAR, NCAR and UOP's programs and activities.

3. Members' and Affiliates Intra-university Communication

Anthes opened the discussion first by pointing out that many universities have several departments interested in the community's issues and activities, secondly by asking how to ensure that the Members' Representatives and Academic Affiliates are communicating with all interested faculty, and finally by suggesting a survey which would result in a list of relevant departments as contact points.

How to provide information that would reach all relevant university departments was discussed and suggested methods were: sending visitors to universities; setting up conference calls between UCAR management and university faculty; providing a "canned" presentation on NCAR and UCAR activities; sending out the UCAR url to an expanded list; and providing a short, timely summary of the Members' meeting for dissemination by Members' Representatives. It was suggested that Member Representatives construct an e-mail list that would include all interested faculty at their university. Another option proposed was developing different avenues of communication for different universities; e.g., visits be scheduled only for "remedial" universities.

The need for two-way interaction was particularly stressed. For example, DLESE would welcome more feedback from university faculty. Also, UCAR would like to update mailing lists for ASP materials and the new Curriculum Guide.

It was noted that especially in the area of education and outreach a broader audience needed to be targeted. It was agreed, as a starting point, that a letter from the URC will be sent to the Members and Affiliates, reminding them of their responsibility to update their universities on current UCAR activities, and also providing them links to the Members' meeting follow-up site. Bretherton volunteered to draft this letter. Lastly, discussion continued on the difficulties of creating and maintaining a more comprehensive e-mail list and on deciding what information should be included and with what frequency.

4. Non-NSF NCAR and Non-core UOP Proposal Subcommittee Report

Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee, reported that 11 proposals out of the 50 submitted were reviewed. She and the other two members, John Merrill and Mohan Ramamurthy, overall were very pleased with the responsiveness of the forms to the review criteria. She pointed out that beginning with this review cycle a cosponsorship "leveraging ratio" (LR)—$(NSF)/$(requested)—for each proposal was included and thus augmented the screening method. If the LR is above 30%, explicit justification is required from the PIs. Other issues discussed were the cosponsorship of NCAR computing services and the inclusion of NCAR in the competition for NASA Young Investigator Awards.

The URC appointed the following Subcommittee members for the next proposal review period:

John Merrill, Chairman
Everette Joseph
Steve Monismith

5. Members' Meeting Discussion

The committee discussed the Members' forum on partnerships between the public, private and academic sectors and concluded, because of the importance of this topic to the community, that UCAR should continue having fora on this subject. After Anthes reported that he is serving as sub-Chair on the National Research Council (NRC) and that the council is conducting a study on these partnerships, he was requested to give a report on NRC's activity at the next Members' meeting. Discussion followed on structuring university curriculum to fit in with the needs of the public and private sectors, and suggested were creating curriculum guidelines developed by AMS or NWS and developing graduate certificate programs. It was concluded to continue this discussion at the Spring URC meeting at which time the Heads & Chairs meeting summary would be available for comment.

Chairman Bretherton asked the committee for their input on possible agenda items for next year's Members' meeting. Topics suggested were university involvement in new NCAR initiatives and university participation in education and outreach activities. Bretherton noted that a forum topic was not identified and suggested a continuation of this discussion in the Spring.

6. Follow-up on Spring 2002 Meetings with NCAR and UOP Divisions and Programs

Discussion continued on the URC Liaison Program. Bretherton pointed out that in an effort to standardize the mechanisms in interacting with divisions, he rewrote the liaison's responsibilities. Takle added that these divisional interactions provide the liaisons with an excellent opportunity to pass along current information and opportunities to Members' Representatives. It was also suggested that the liaison activity might benefit from becoming more institutionalized through inclusion in division list-serves, etc.

Two new liaisons were appointed and the current divisional assignment is as follows:

7. Update on the NCAR Strategic Planning Implementation and NCAR-wide Initiatives

NCAR Director Tim Killeen reviewed the status of NCAR's strategic initiatives and briefly described them. Currently 14 initiatives, with three-year budgets, are being evaluated. In addition two new programs, the Sabbatical Exchange Program and Faculty Fellowships, were introduced and were pointed out as excellent programs for fostering interactions with and participation by universities. Discussion followed on how to involve the universities in the development of the these initiatives, which so far only NCAR scientists have molded. The universities could help identify gaps and perhaps advise UCAR on the process by which iniativies are selected.

8. Agenda for Spring Meeting of the URC

The committee agreed to discuss further the NCAR initiative planning process at their Spring meeting. Also, the defining of the NCAR/UOP resource person's role on the committee was suggested as an agenda item. The Spring 2003 URC meeting will be held at Stanford University on April 15-16.

The committee adjourned at 6:45pm.

~ End of Notes ~

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