10:00AM Mountain Daylight Time
Members present: Allison Baker, Carol Ruchti, Kelley Barsanti, Holger Vömel, Ryan Sobash, Brad Klotz, Eric Apel, Ben Johnson
Agenda Items
Asking Questions on Behalf of the NSA at the SAM Town Hall
Discussed whether the NSA should submit semi-anonymized questions on behalf of the scientists as a whole during Town Halls. General consensus is that this is a good idea. However, there was not enough lead time ahead of the SAM Town Hall on May 15, 2024 to solicit and submit questions from scientific staff.
NSA Co-Chairs
At the September 2023 meeting, the NSA-EC decided to hold off on selecting new co-chairs until all of the vacant representative positions had been filled. All of the positions have been filled except for the one vacancy in CGD which has been open for over a year since Matt Long went on sabbatical.
The members present decided that it’s time to collect nominations to fill the co-chair positions. A poll will be sent out along with the meeting minutes for this meeting.
Year-End Letter
The ECSA sends out a year end letter to the NCAR Directorate and UCAR President’s Office summarizing accomplishments and highlighting concerns of the constituency. Should the NSA do the same thing? There was some support for this idea.
Lab Engagement
Discussed how the NSA-EC representatives engage with scientists in their respective labs. The CISL representatives host a monthly lunch meeting with scientists in the lab. Discussed whether the NSA should focus on lab-level social events before attempting an NSF NCAR-wide Scientists’ Meeting. Consensus that we should try to plan lab-level events and attempt to get funding from the directorate to do so.
Town Halls
Decided to wait on planning a new town hall until the NSA co-chairs are selected.
June Meeting
The June NSA-EC meeting falls on a holiday, Juneteenth. In lieu of a meeting in June, the consensus was to give the representatives action items to complete before the July meeting.
Action Items
1. Head counts and budgets
The representatives from each lab should get a head count of the scientific staff of their lab and come up with a budget to submit to the directorate for a social event.