Notes from October 4, 2006 UEC Quality of Life Subcommittee ----------------------------------------------------------- Barberis, Casey, Gimmell (GSA), Slaughter (ex-officio), Diehl, Newman-Holmes (Guest), Degenhardt (GSA) Agenda ------ * Brief from Jean Slaughter on her report to URA Visiting Committee on Administrative and Operations Support * Discussion with Cathy Newman-Holmes, Chair of a Fermilab committee on hiring and retention of Fermilab female scientists * AOB Brief from Jean Slaughter on her report to URA Visiting Committee on Administrative and Operations Support ----------------------------------------------------------------- A URA visiting committee on Administrative and Operations Support visited FNAL on Tuesday, Oct. 3rd, 2006. Jean attended and presented a brief on the role of the UEC in these matters. The remainder of the meeting was presentations by Division Heads, etc. Jean reported to us because there is large overlap with issues of the Visiting Committee and the ones we work on in QoL. Jean reported: * Main Functions of UEC a) facilitate communications between the Laboratory and the users b) work towardas better QoL at Fermilab c) help the field of HEP present its case for community and government support * It is a service group and advocacy group (internal and external) * Users are a) US and foreign individuals from universities and laboratories [on] - intermittent visits - long stays b) Fermilab staff c) [a community with] changing needs with the advent of the LHC, astrophysics experiments, etc ... [important to maintain intellectual critical mass] d) Foreign users have special problems [Visas ...] * In general Fermilab does well in accommodating users in admin- istrative matters. There is an effort to include UEC members on various committees, for example, on office space [Diehl] and on the security of personal information [Slaughter]. * Administrative aspects of Fermilab that affect users a) ID cards, health insurance b) Safety training c) Travel office (DOE deposits money directly for many groups [and that may have implications when it comes to travel restrictions] d) Office space e) Computer issues such as remote access, registration of laptops [can't that be done remotely?], computer accounts f) video conferencing and conference rooms [we love ESNET] g) Day Care Center [said to be excellent] h) Housing and rental cars i) Gym, pool, sports leagues We talked about each of the above briefly during the meeting; it's clear that QoL has plenty of issues to work on this year. "[]" above reflect comments of QoL subcommittee during the meeting. Discussion with Cathy Newman-Holmes, Chair of a Fermilab committee on hiring and retention of Fermilab female scientists ------------------------------------------------------------------ Cathy is familiar with the issues faced by women scientists of today. She has served on APS site visit committees. She is chair of a FNAL internal committee charged by the Directorate (paraphrased) with "studing the hiring and retention of women and minorities on the FNAL scientific staff". The committee is writing a report, due in roughly a month, with finding that address areas where the lab can improve hiring and working conditions for women scientists at Fermilab. Their procedure is to attempt to find out what universities and the other national labs actually do and bring this one to that or even to a better standard. Cathy couldn't report on what the committee was going to find but she was able to say that it is studying issues such as family, part-time/flex hours, maternity leave, climate, mentoring, and so forth. She doesn't know if the committee's report will be made public; that's up to the Directorate. Cathy's Discussion: The committee is not aimed at post-docs or engineers, for instance, because the hiring practice for them is different from the rest of the scientific staff. It doesn't specifically include (or exclude) veterens for there is an affirmative action rule in place for them. Its charge does include named fellows, such as Wilson Fellows, Peoples Fellows and so forth. It can be hard to determine the hiring practices and procedures at the national labs. It's generally easier to do so at universities. Cathy said they had discussed having an APS site visit; we hope they recommend that, too. QoL Discussion: It seems the internal committee will be able to address some real problems that QoL has been unable to face in the previous years work. We dodged attempting to solve some problems because we felt they needed to be addressed from above rather than from grass-roots. The style of the committee is a little different from what we did in QoL last year. Whereas we tried to ask everybody, through the various grapevines, mailing lists, and personal conversations, Cathy's committee is working more quietly. This is, perhaps, not unnatural, for we took the approach that we didn't know anything (which was almost true) and the internal committee, because of the more narrow focus, starts with more information. We have a little concern that some problems may not be in the "radar" of a committee which doesn't query widely of the women and minority scientific staff, for 7 of 7 members of that community which we talked to had not ever heard of that committee. We didn't name anything specific that the other committee wasn't aware of. We are certainly concerned that these problems have a more damaging effect on graduate students and on post-docs than on the more senior physicists. And there is perception of some outright gender-based bias among students and post-docs. "The Wednesday lunch" doesn't seem to be serving the mentoring function that it might. We suggested the GSA might apply for extra funding for a quarterly women's, for instance, pizza and beer in the Piano Room. Care must be taken on how recommendations for women and minority scientists apply the rest of the staff. It is noted that the recently elected GSA is composed of one male and 4 females! AOB --- Kurt Riesselmann has been working over the summer to stay in contact with the Dupage County Transit Authority. Please recall we are hoping to have Fermilab be a bus stop on the "Circulator" route in 2007. And long-range plans include the "Star Line" train. Kurt reported the Circulator is starting small, with 3 in-town bus routes to be chosen as the first step. The Wilson Hall Space Committee is meeting 10/10 at 13:00. Wyatt will attend in Diehl's place. There are various items we haven't mentioned that have come up since the previous QoL Meeting (last June). We will try to get them in beginning in our next meeting, to be held in ~ 2 weeks. These include, to are not limited to recycling, resources for bike-commuters, things listed above in notes from Jean's talk. Airport carpooling. More on-site transportation at off hours. There has been some news on medical coverage purchased through the Fermilab Users Office distributed by email to UsersOrg. In short, "effectively immediately, we will no longer have available the CIGNA Health Care Open Access Plus (OAP) medical coverage for purchase by non-Fermilab employees." If you are particularly effected by changes you will soon be contacted directly. For more details contact the User's Office. Brendan will look up the rules for required health and find if different areas of the lab have the same rules. Child care at work We have heard that it has been poorly advertised that the following is going to be tried on a trial basis. We hope the program will continue. (copied from Fermilab Today) Does your child have a day off when you plan to work? If so, you may want to take advantage of The Children's Center's pilot child care program for children ages 5 through 12. The service will be available from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Colombus Day (October 9) and Veteran's Day (November 10). You can register early by calling x3762. The cost is $35.00 per day. Espresso machines in the Village. We had asked for that last year out of some $1000 donation but ended out with Mr. Coffees.