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UNIVERSITY CORPORATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC
RESEARCH
Board of Trustees Meeting
11-12 October 1999
Boulder, Colorado
The duly-convened meeting of the UCAR Board
of Trustees was held in the Walter Orr Roberts Board Room,
Fleischmann Building, Boulder, Colorado. Present for all or portions
of the meeting were:
L. Fisk, University of Michigan (Chairman)
R. Anthes, President, University Corporation for
Atmospheric Research
O. Brown, University of Miami
L. Donner, Princeton University
D. Houghton, University of Wisconsin
L. Hutton, MacArthur Foundation
C. Leovy, University of Washington
P. Malanotte-Rizzolli, MIT
J. Paegle, University of Utah
D. Skaggs, Aspen Institute
J. Snow, University of Oklahoma
D. Thomson, Pennsylvania State University
M. Tolbert, University of Colorado
G. Vali, University of Wyoming
Counsel and Corporate Officers:
G. Austin, Holland & Hart
L. Carney, Holland & Hart
W. Dabberdt, Associate Director, NCAR
J. Fellows, Assistant Secretary & Vice President
for Corporate Affairs and Director of UOP
S. Friberg, Assistant Secretary, UCAR
K. Schmoll, Vice President, Finance & Administration,
UCAR
R. Serafin, Director, NCAR
National Science Foundation:
R. Corell, Assistant Director, Directorate for
Geosciences
J. Huning, Facilities Coordinator, UCAR &
Lower Atmospheric Facilities Oversight Section, ATM
C. Jacobs, Head, UCAR & Lower Atmospheric
Facilities Oversight Sec., ATM
J. Moyers, Acting Division Director, ATM
J. Prendeville, Program Coordinator, UCAR &
Lower Atmospheric Facilities Oversight Section, ATM
UCAR, NCAR, UOP:
M. Austin, Program Manager, Visiting Scientist
Programs, UOP
M. Blackmon, Director, Climate & Global
Dynamics Division, NCAR
R. Brasher-Alleva, Director, Budget &
Planning, NCAR
E. Brennan, Multimedia Systems Administrator,
NCAR
D. Carlson, Director, Atmospheric Technology
Division, NCAR
R. Chinman, Director, Information Infrastructure
Techn. & Applications, UOP
E. Comedy, Assoc. Vice President, Human
Resources & Employee Rel., UCAR
A. Cooper, Director, Advanced Study Program,
NCAR
L. Curtis, Office of Development &
Government Affairs, UCAR
S. Dickson, Director, Special Projects
& Internal Audit Systems, UCAR
J. Dye, Acting Director, Mesoscale &
Microscale Meteorology Division, NCAR
B. Hobson, Corporate Affairs, UCAR
D. Fulker, Program Director, Unidata Program
Center, UOP
A. Kellie, Director, Scientific Computing
Division, NCAR
D. Kellogg, Executive Assistant, Directors'
Office, NCAR
K. Kelly, Chief Librarian, Information
Support Services, NCAR
B. Kuo, Director, COSMIC, UOP
M. Marlino, Director, Prog. for Advancement
of Geosciences Education, UOP
M. Miller, Director, Budget & Finance,
UCAR
S. Montgomery-Hodge, Executive Assistant,
UCAR President's Office
C. Rasmussen, Editor, UCAR Communications
K. Sawyer, Director, Joint Office for Science
Support, UOP
C. Schmidt, Director, Office of Development
& Government Affairs, UCAR
T. Spangler, Director, COMET, UOP
B. Valent, Executive Assistant, Finance
& Administration, UCAR
R. Ware, Director, GPS Science and Technology
Program, UOP
L. Warner, Manager, UCAR Communications
S. Warner, Executive Assistant, Corporate
Affairs
D. Wilson, Director of Treasury Operations,
Finance & Administration, UCAR
Other:
A. Burke, Lewis-Burke Associates
M. Burnham, Lewis-Burke Associates
R. McPherson, Executive Director, American Meteorological
Society
R. Greenfield, Director, Public Policy Program,
American Meteorolog. Society
1. WELCOME AND AGENDA REVIEW
The Board convened in Regular Session.
Chairman of the Board L. Fisk called the meeting to order at 9:15am.
After he welcomed Trustees and guests, it was moved, seconded,
and passed to adopt the agenda as presented.
2. SECRETARY'S REPORT
In Secretary R. Smith's absence, J. Fellows,
Vice President for Corporate Affairs, asked for approval of the
minutes from the July Board of Trustee's meeting. It was regularly
moved, seconded, and passed to adopt the minutes as submitted.
3. TREASURER'S REPORT
Treasurer L. Hutton presented the Consolidated
Statement of Funding and Expenditures for eleven months, ending
on August 31, 1999. She noted that we have received the majority
of FY99 funding from NSF, and that the General Fund continues to
increase, benefiting from a very positive investment climate. The
balance in the investment portfolio is being changed per recommendations
by the Board in July. Further diversification is being done by investing
more in the global and international arena. Hutton also reported
that UCAR has an increased number of higher risk projects this year,
and as a result the prespending and overspending are being watched
very closely.
It was regularly moved, seconded, and passed
to receive the report of the Treasurer.
4. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT
Chairman Fisk updated the board on the following
issues:
- Legislative activities: Fisk said that,
in his opinion, this community has positively influenced Congressional
action this budget cycle, especially related to NSF and NASA allocations—and
that we should "keep it up."
- Code Assessment Panel: UCAR/NCAR responded
to this report, and is now writing a strategic plan for large-scale
simulation in response to one of the report's recommendations..
- NRC Ranking Study: This may be pursued
in the Spring of 2000. UCAR may have a role in the preliminary
information gathering and implementation decisions prior to the
survey development.
- COSMIC: Fisk reported that, due to the nature
of possible financial risk involved, the Board urged UCAR to proceed
cautiously with this project, and wishes to hear status updates
at each Board meeting.
- AMS/UCAR Congressional Fellowship: At
the request of the AAAS, UCAR made the concession to drop UCAR
from the Fellowship title and call it the AMS Congressional Fellowship.
UCAR will continue, however, to be involved in the activity, and
will be a co-sponsor along with the AMS.
- 40th Anniversary Celebration
and Forum: Next year will be UCAR/NCAR's 40th anniversary,
NSF's 50th, and HAO's 60th anniversary.
The Forum discussions at the Members' Meeting will kickoff event
of a year-long celebration.
- Advocacy Activities: The focus in the upcoming
months will be on educating the presidential candidates. The AMS
and UCAR will jointly prepare a "awareness document" for candidates'
use, and to help them understand weather and climate issues. A
somewhat longer document will be prepared for the next Administration's
transition team.
5. NSF REPORT
J. Moyers, Acting Director of ATM/NSF,
reported on the following items:
- Selection of Margaret Leinen (U of Rhode
Island) as the new Geosciences Assistant Director. She will begin
her new position in January 2000.
- Search process for ATM Director: The
search committee will pare down the applicant list in early November
and, a selection will likely be made before the end of this year.
The selection will be done in consultation with R. Colwell and
Leinen.
- The NSF FY2000 budget: NSF's FY2000
budget of $3,910M is an increase of 6.5% over FY99, with Research
and Related receiving a 7.1% increase ($200M) and MRE 5.5%. Moyers
pointed out that $240M of Research and Related's budget are earmarked
funds, and that the MRE account received an additional $10M for
HIAPER and $36M for terrascale computing.
C. Jacobs, Head of UCAR and Lower Atmospheric
Facilities Oversight Section/ATM, gave a brief overview of the recent
NCAR Code Assessment panel review and report. He said that the reviewing
panel convened to evaluate the effectiveness of NCAR's codes to
addres climate and mesoscale weather problems, and to ensure performance
and scalability on a variety of computational platforms. The panel
recommended, among other things, that NCAR develop a vision for
computational science leadership in support of it's science mission,
addressing issues of hardware plans, and software development and
practices. The panel asked that NCAR strengthen its computational
science technologies by re-examining the mix of computational scientists
and applied mathematicians.
R. Serafin, Director of NCAR, outlining
NCAR's response to the panel report, said that NCAR will continue
to provide the necessary leadership and service in high performance
computing and simulation for the university community, and will
lead in addressing the challenging problems in atmospheric and related
sciences.
O. Brown (U of Miami) said that the panel
is talking about shifting paradigms—that we need to take the lead
in this changing climate. Some Board members, however, cautioned
that in the quest for code development and speed that they not lose
sight of the science being done.
6. UCAR PRESIDENT'S REPORT
UCAR President Anthes, after noting that
his complete report is on the web, reported on the following UCAR
activities and issues:
- NCAR Director Search: The search committee,
chaired by J. Klemp (MMM/NCAR), hopes to announce a new director
by February/March 2000. The position, with a soft closing date
of 1 October, has been widely advertised and the committee has
been pro-active in seeking applications.
- Plans for the 40th Anniversary:
The 40th anniversary events for the upcoming year were outlined,
beginning with the UCAR Forum at the Members' meeting the following
day and ending with the Member Representatives' banquet
in October 2000.
- Finance and Administration activities: Y2K planning
is on schedule and continency plans are being developed; Mesa
Lab refurbishment is progressing; the construction of Boulder
Research and Administration Network (BRAN) is progressing; UCAR's
FY2000 Indirect Rate Proposal was approved by NSF in record time,
and early next year F&A staff are slated to move to a different
site because of scientific divisions' need
for space at Foothills lab.
- SOARS update: This highly successful program,
in its fourth year, had 24 students this past summer participating
in the ten-week summer internship component of SOARS. A video
featuring SOARS proteges and mentors will be ready for broadcast
and classroom use early in 2000.
7. NCAR DIRECTOR'S REPORT
NCAR Director R. Serafin reported on the current
NCAR projects and activities, including the following:
- HIAPER: This advanced airborne research
platform was appropriated $10M in FY2000 from NSF's MRE
fund. The award schedule was outlined with the final RFP to be
issued in March 2000 and the award recommendation to NSF
by the following August. A website was developed to
allow the scientific community to monitor the progress of this
acquisition and can be found at http://www.atd.ucar.edu/dir_off/hiaper/index.html.
- Supercomputing Update: A history of
supercomputing was given, culminating in the most
recent acquisition in August, an IBM RS/6000 SP ("blackforest").
This acquisition is the first step in the move toward
clustered computing and the "blackforest" will be available
for production computing by early October.
- NCAR FY2000 Program Plan: The preliminary
plan was prepared at the FY99 level and focused on
changes within the broad framework, including among others fundamental
research, advanced observing facilities, and human dimensions
and social impacts. The final plan will be due Spring
2000.
- ACD Director Search Process: G. Brasseur, will
step down as ACD Director the first of January 2000 to take the
position of Director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology
in Hamburg. A search committee, chairred by S. Solomon (NOAA),
has been selected and the position will be advertised in a
number of pertinent publications.
Following Serafin's report, Fisk asked that
the following Resolution of Appreciation for be moved, seconded,
and passed by acclamation.
Resolution of Appreciation for Robert J.
Serafin
WHEREAS, Bob Serafin has announced his decision
to step down as Director of NCAR on February 1, 2000; and
WHEREAS, this will mark Bob's 26th year
at NCAR and 10 years as NCAR's Director; and
WHEREAS, during his tenure, he has tirelessly
advocated and promoted NCAR's interests and accomplishments, expanding
the program in atmospheric and related sciences and supporting the
development, acquisition and deployment of state-of-the-art facilities
in service to NCAR and the broader university and research related
community;
WHEREAS, his keen mind, his leadership skills,
and his superb grasp of the scientific and administrative complexities
of this organization, and indeed of the whole of the geosciences'
discipline, have clearly advanced our communities' resources and
capabilities;
NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED, that
the members of the Board of Trustees, along with the UCAR staff
who have worked so closely with Bob, express to him their deeply
felt thanks for his leadership these past ten years as Director
of NCAR and wish him all the best in the years ahead.
God Speed, Bob!
8. UOP DIRECTOR'S REPORT
UOP Director J. Fellows gave a brief update
on each of the following programs:
- COMET - 10th anniversary
and web-based training program
- PAGE - Geosciences Digital Library and
Virtual Exploratorium activities
- VSP - postdoc opportunities for the
coming year.
- JOSS - Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX),
Mesoscale Alpine Project (MAP), CODIAC data management
system, Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE)
- Unidata - Huge growth in Internet Data
distribution
- Suominet - has been funded!
- IITA - helping UCAR adapt to new information
technologies
9. UCAR MEMBERS' MEETING FORUM DISCUSSION
Anthes reviewed the schedule for the Forum,
the co-chairs of the four groups, and the white papers based on
the BASC report. Fisk encouraged the Board members to participate
in the discussion groups. The outcomes from these groups will be
used to help focus and structure the survey being distributed to
universities next year.
The Board convened in Executive Session from 4:30pm to 5:30pm. (The
minutes are kept in the corporate offices.)
Tuesday, 12 October
10. FEDERAL RELATIONS UPDATE
A. Burke, Lewis-Burke Associates, updated the
Board on the status of FY2000 federal budget appropriations for
science funding agencies. Getting the $10M to start the HIAPER aircraft
is a very positive "card" for the atmospheric sciences, Burke said,
noting that there seems to be Congressional support for basic research.
Fellows related that G. Asrar, Associate Administrator of Earth
Sciences at NASA, was convinced that the Earth Sciences money for
NASA was restored because of the community support and communication
with Congress which UCAR spearheaded through "action alerts" and
other efforts on behalf of the science.
Burke reviewed the areas of upcoming legislation
that she and her staff will be racking:
- Database protection issue
- NWS competition with the private sector
- Federal acquisition regulations - this
ensures compliance not only with OSHA laws,
but also environmental and other regulations the Clinton administration
is proposing.
- A-110 regulations "Public Access to
Federally Funded Research Data": the scope of these
regulations have been reduced. Over 12,000 letters were received
from the community commenting on the impact of
these regulations.
11. STUDENT RECRUITMENT SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
D. Thomson read the Committee's charge:
For the purpose of potentially recommending
modified, discipline-wide recruitment methods for graduate study
programs, the committee is asked to begin a study including examination
of the following issues:
- Traditional study paths of selected
academic, government service and industrial professionals;
- Factors motivating students to various
professional study programs and career tracks;
- Whether or not presently changing
employment opportunities should motivated significant
changes in academic programs and recruitment for them;
- Whether or not an organized effort
should be made to attract students from "non- traditional"
fields and institutions to the atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
The Board discussed what kind of studies
and statistics are presently available and if there is some way
to combine a survey with a present study. The Board agreed to approach
AMS about including a questionnaire with the next AMS curriculum
guide survey being distributed in January or February 2000. The
subcommittee will continue working on defining the scope of the
survey on student recruitment.
12. SOARS VIDEO
SOARS Director T. Windham introduced and
showed the new SOARS video which is targeted to middle- and high-school
age students. The Board gave Windham additional suggestions and
material to be included in the video.
13. UNSTRUCTURED DISCUSSION
Chairman Fisk introduced the following
Resolution for Dr. John Firor, giving him the new title of NCAR
Senior Scientist and Director Emeritus. The Board moved, seconded,
and passed this resolution by acclamation.
Resolution of Appreciation for John W. Firor
WHEREAS, John Firor has served UCAR and
NCAR with distinction and grace for 38 years. During those years,
he has served as Director of the High Altitude Observatory, Director
of NCAR, Executive Director of NCAR, and later as the Director of
NCAR's well-respected Advanced Study Program. John is an internationally
regarded expert on public policy issues related to the atmospheric
sciences—particularly climate change and sustainable development.
WHEREAS, John's clear mind, keen perceptions,
and warm sense of humor
have guided the organization well, and provided
a role model for countless scientists and administrators. Specifically,
his steady influence and wise counsel over the years have helped
to weave societal concerns into the fabric of NCAR science.
NOW, THEREFORE the Trustees of the University
Corporation for Atmospheric Research with great pleasure on the
12th day of October 1999 recognize John's
accomplishments and confer on him the title of Senior
Scientist and NCAR Director Emeritus. We offer
our sincere gratitude for his work over the years, and expect continued
association for many more. John has distinguished himself, and thus,
this organization through his association with it.
Thank you, John!
Former Chairman of the Board, J. Snow, stated that
this is his last Board meeting. For the past 26 years, he has been
a committee member, a Members' Representative, or a Board member.
Chairman Fisk thanked Snow for his years of service and expressed
the Board's gratitude for his many contributions.
14. ADJOURN
The Meeting adjourned at 10:45am.
~ End of Draft Minutes ~
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Minutes approved by:
Ronald
B. Smith
Secretary
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Minutes prepared by:
Susan J. Friberg
Assistant Secretary
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