Users Executive Committee Quality of Life Subcommittee Meeting November 3, 2005 8:00 AM Racetrack Alton, Finley, Merritt, Diehl (Chair), Kopp (ex-officio member as UEC Chair) Degenhardt (GSA), Welty-Rieger (GSA), Cuenca Almenar (GSA), Aguilar-Arevolo (GSA) The purpose of the meeting is to further develop a plan for the activities of the Quality of Life subcommittee of the UEC for the next year (September, 2005 to September, 2006), concentrating on QoL for female users of Fermilab. Agenda ------ * Train transportation near Fermilab: Discussion of contact with Michael Fortner, West Chicago Mayor - Diehl * Identification of non-gender specific items for QoL survey - All * Identification of items for survey pertaining to QoL for women at FNAL - Diehl/All * Discussion of potential web survey technology - All * AOB - Any Train transportation near Fermilab: Discussion of contact with Michael Fortner, West Chicago Mayor (Diehl) -------------------------------------------------------------- Mayor Michael Fortner of West Chicago is a physics professor at NIU and a Fermilab User on the DZero experiment. Diehl reported Mayor Fortner has some ideas for providing north-south train service along the east side of the lab that includes a possible stop outside the Fermilab gate. We need to follow this up with the 2nd Floor and also identify a Fermilab user or employee who is West Chicago resident to serve on a committee for Mayor Fortner if we are to proceed further. We are considering bringing the Mayor to our committee or to the full UEC so we can get more precise information about what he has in mind. Identification of non-gender specific items for QoL survey - All -------------------------------------------------------------------- A full discussion of this topic was postponed to the next QoL meeting. Identification of items for survey pertaining to QoL for women at FNAL - Diehl ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Diehl presented a compilation of email received in reply to a limited query of Fermilab Users about topics a survey on the QoL for female users at the lab. Emails were received on 5 different topics from 10 different people. The topics are as follows. Desireability and practicality of a seperate female-only dormitory or dormitory corrider that includes a women's bathroom. James Degenhardt and Leah Welty will provide a written suggestion. Children. This is a wide topic and we concentrated our discussion here. A current topic among the young women physicists and graduate students is to understand the effect of having children on one's career. When is the best time? What resources are available at the lab, in Day-Care ...? Day-care for children age 7 or older. Summer camp. Leave of absence, part-time work is available and encouraged? Are male and female students treated equally in the collaborations? Are males in the field oblivious to the problem and females afraid to speak out against it? We learned a survey was taken during last year's Users Meeting. Partial results are available. Full statistics to be available soon. We also learned of a U of CA survey at the website http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/ workfamily.htm that shows that work-family issues tend to have a greater effect on women than men. Support Groups and Mentoring. Personal isolation can be a problem. Recall the seminar by Howard Georgi last spring on women in physics. We learned that not so many of the female graduate students and post-docs are currently attending the present support group: Women's lunch, which occurs once a month at Chez Leon. Email for the mailing list is women_scientists@fnal.gov. The mailing list for all graduate students is fnalgrad@fnal.gov. Awards for women. There exists several awards for women only. One recalls the Marie Goeppert-Meyer Award in the APS. Also, we got email about the Luise Meyer-Schutzmeister Award through the D0 Institutional Board. That is a $1,000 award is presented annually to an outstanding woman graduate student in physics. That is from the Association for Women in Science Educational Foundation Publicity for This Survey. Kendra Snyder offers Fermilab Today for when we want to advertise our survey or other efforts. We agree we want to have a positive accomplishment before we advertise. We are going to collect more information and begin drafting our own survey. Discussion of potential web survey technology - All ------------------------------------------------------------------ We tabled this for the time being. A.O.B. ------ Cuenca Almenar reported that several students have complained about the taxi service hours and delays. We asked him to follow up with more specific information. He has heard concerns about cafeteria waste (food, styrofoam) and lack of recycling in the village. It was noted that the cafeteria is usually responsive to suggestions. We tabled the issue of recycling until next month. He has heard complaints about the conditions dorms. We noted that last years QoL survey indicated that, in general, users were satisfied with the conditions but wondered if perhaps conditions had changed. He noted that Fermilab swimming pool has been closed since approximately Labor Day and that seems like a short season. We agree. We'll try to get a list of local pools and gymnasiums.