Top Tier: Postdoctoral Committee

Meeting Minutes

Monday, September 14, 2020

Present: Barbara St Pierre Schneider, Emily Lin, Hong Sun, Joel Snyder, Qing Wu, Valarie Burke, Dave Schwartz, Jessica Word, Kim Dawes, Zihui Ma, Nevena Cvijetic, Alex B, David Cappelli, Kim Dawes, Laura Kruskall,
Excused: Jennifer Rennels,
Absent: Alexander Barzilov, Kenneth Varner, Rafael Oganesyan

1. Welcome (Valarie)

1. Introductions

1. “Why did you select this committee”

2. Review Committee Charge (Barbara) 

1. Prioritize charges

3. Postdoctoral Handbook update (Valarie) 

1. National Postdoc Week - next week

1. Share the new Postdoc Handbook:

1. UNLV Today

2. Grad Faculty email

3. Emails to current Postdocs and current Postdoc Advisors

4. Postdoctoral Reviews are now on the Human Resources website: (Valarie)

1. As stated in the Handbook:

1. Once a Postdoctoral Scholar is hired at UNLV, the postdoc and their supervisor will complete the Goal Setting Form within 2 weeks of the start date. This Annual Postdoctoral Goal Setting Form will be used to assess the areas identified during the Annual Postdoctoral Evaluation.  Annual Postdoctoral Evaluation Form needs to be completed and submitted by April 1.

1. Can upload CV with Google forms

2. Moving Evals to Folio?

1. Cons: Time consuming, doesn’t follow PD after they leave UNLV

2. Pro: Great experience for PD who want to go into academia; training opportunity; CV required; download/take with you what you load into Folio; has different categories - to use it as a database

3. Can we have postdocs just opt in to use?

5. Next Meeting: Monday, Oct 19th @ 2pm.

6. Committee discussion/Ideas:

1. Postdocs looking for their own funding (Joel)

2. How to write a postdoc fellowship

3. Showing how postdocs can be funded (Joel)

4. Challenges 

1. Paying postdocs well - to be competitive and recruit them to UNLV

2. President/campus postdoc incentive

1. Awarded a grant, UNLV offers an allocated amount toward salary too