Joint Annual Meeting, Day 1

I'm liveblogging the Joint Annual Meeting of the HRD directorate programs, and although the internez is spotty, I will update as we can.

We began the morning with a keynote by Dr. Wanda Ward, Assistant Director for the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at NSF. The first half of her talk was largely about the different programs in HRD (Human Resources Division) and elsewhere that speak to (a new acronym to me:) BP, or "broadening participation." A few items of note:

[Follow along at the JAM twitterfeed here. So far it looks like I'm the only one twittering... can it be so?]

• She used state maps to indicate the preponderance of funded programs in states like Alabama, New York, and Virginia, and to encourage us to connect with other "BP" programs in our own areas. I wonder what such a map of Indiana would look like?
• A choice quote: "Through our scientific genius we have made our world a neighborhood. Through our moral genius we must make our world a brotherhood."
• Another choice quote: "Diversity matters, not as an afterthought, but as a forthought, a midthought, as a thought all along the way."

10:30 am
I'm now in a joint session of GSE (Gender in Science and Engineering) and ADVANCE, and I'm finally getting to see who Jolene Jesse is. :-) Pat Campbell, friend of Sciencewomen and Scientiae and blogger at fairerscience.org, is going to give an interactive workshop on talking with the press, "Why don't they hear what I say?"

A few updates from NSF:

• There is a new proposal and award policies and procedures guide PAPPG, available online.
• GSE/ADVANCE got no stimulus package award money. :-( So don't ask! Actually stimulus funding needs to be processed before any regular funding, which may affect when you can actually start some programs.
• There is a new requirement to develop and include mentoring plans for post-docs on NSF projects, and the nice new thing is that it now is part of a 1 page supplementary document, and not part of your 15 page proposal award.
• I^3, or "I cubed" - Innovation through Institutional Integration - is in its second round of awards, and are embedded in CREST, HBCU-UP, GSE, LSAMP, RDE, TCUP, ITEST, MSP, Noyce programs. Proposals are due Aug 25 2009, read the solicitations carefully!

Now Pat is up, setting us up to talk about talking with the media about gender research. And citing this PhD comic!

A story: Pat was on some show (I will find the link later...) with Cristina Hoff-Summers (yikes!), who accused her of not caring about boys education because she doesn't have sons.

Here are some tips
Susan Staffin Metz: Don't empathize with reporters, stick to your message!