From: <Tony.Wong_at_email.protected>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:31:43 +1000

Hi folks,

I'm inclined to agree with Melanie that an unprepared discussion on PASA
will probably bring up the same issues that it always has. Perhaps we can
go back to the person on the ASA Council who suggested this, and ask the
Council itself to put a proposal before the membership on the future of
PASA. This should be released as a discussion document at least a couple
weeks in advance to solicit appropriate comment.

When is the AGM to take place? Maybe this is in fact where the discussion
needs to happen.

Melanie's comments on the WIA session highlighted the fact that it's unclear
what the objectives of that session would be. Perhaps starting with some
demographic statistics from the Decadal Plan might launch the discussion.
Anyway, I think we need a clear statement of purpose from the proposers. I
suppose this is the case for any special session.

On a different note, is it normal to have the early registration deadline
before the call for abstracts? I would think some people would want to know
the outcome of their abstract submission before registering for the
conference.

Finally, in this age of electronic presentations it would be really nice to
have a book of posters shrunk to A4 size. I don't know if the registration
fee can cover the cost of producing such a book, and the hassle involved in
getting the files before the meeting might put us off. At the very least,
though, we should encourage poster presenters to prepare a certain number of
these as handouts (maybe 50?).

Cheers,
Tony

-- 
==================================================================
Tony Wong, ARC-CSIRO Linkage Postdoctoral Fellow
CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility        +61-2-9372-4399
School of Physics, University of New South Wales   +61-2-9385-5470
E-mail: Tony.Wong_at_csiro.<!--nospam-->au
FAX: +61-2-9372-4310
URL: http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/twong
==================================================================
> From: <melanie_at_hilbert.<!--nospam-->maths.utas.edu.au>
> Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 13:33:11 +1000 (EST)
> To: <asa2006-soc_at_atnf.<!--nospam-->csiro.au>
> Subject: Re: SOC email
> 
> Greetings All,
> 
> Just some quick comments. Before we decide on which session to have I
> think we need to know how many sessions there will be in total. We have
> 3.5 days for the conference, going on the schedule for last year's meeting
> that gave 12 sessions including one on "The Future Face of Astronomy"
> which included some educational stuff but was probably not enough for what
> EPOC is proposing (it was only 20min long). Last year they had the Decadal
> Review discussion at the end which ate up another couple of hours so
> really we are looking at ~13, 1.5 hour sessions.
> 
> If we devote one session to education (which seems to have been agreed
> upon), one to a PASA discussion and one to "Women in Astronomy" then we
> only have 10 sessions left to discuss science (including the Gemini
> session we have been asked to include). If invited talks are 20min, then
> each session is basically one invited talk plus ~5 or so 15/10min talks.
> That means we only have space for ~60 very short science presentations
> whereas last year there were ~80 and even then many people missed out and
> were relegated to a poster. Given they we have been mandated to include a
> session on Gemini this will make it even harder to get a talk in the
> general science sessions then previous years.
> 
> Given the above, I don't think we can do all of these proposed non-science
> sessions.
> 
> I think the PASA discussion is important, but only if something happens as
> a result of it. I have been to many discussions on PASA and I am sure this
> one will be very similar to the rest, but unless the ASA council is
> prepared to do something about the issues rather than defer them then I am
> not sure this will be productive. In addition, if the ASA council did want
> to do something they could include the PASA issue as a discussion item in
> the actual AGM and put options to a vote. Having said that, I would rather
> see this discussion happen at the ASA then elsewhere so if people feel
> strongly about it then fair enough, but it would be nice if we could
> minimise the time spent on it (particularly since most of this will have
> been said before..). I would like to suggest we ask the council to arrange
> for the pertinent information to be distributed to the membership before
> the ASA so that people can make an informed contribution to the
> discussion. This will also give people time to think about issues and how
> they stand on the cost/benefit argument, rather than get all the facts
> during the discussion when there is no time to consider and hence no
> conclusions are reached. If the discussion were scheduled early in the
> program it could then be an item on the AGM agenda to be put to a vote of
> the membership if required.
> 
> With regard to the Women in Astronomy session, if it is over lunch as
> Sarah suggested then it will not eat into the rest of the sessions and
> that is fine, but if this is the case then I don't think it will achieve
> the core objective of increasing the attendance at this session that some
> people seem to desire. It will essentially then revert to a slightly more
> formalised version of the women in astronomy lunches that have happened in
> the past, which is fine but I did not think that was what people were
> after... Also, since Sarah and Anne are going to the IAU session on this
> topic, perhaps next years ASA might be a better place for a formalised
> session on this as they can bring back data from Prague to add to the
> discussion.
> 
> Finally, it was suggested that Mike Dopita give the Harley Wood Lecture
> and I have no problem with that.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Melanie

Received on 2006-04-18 15:31:59