April 2023

Meeting Minutes

June 20, 2023

SURPAS Council Meeting Agenda

Thursday April 27th, 2023 11:30am-1:00pm 

Location: Zoom

Password: 708142

Quorum:  13

  • Welcome, Zoom etiquette (2’)  
  • Acknowledgment statement, inc group norms/mutual respect (3’) 

Acknowledgment: Dingying

  • Approval of minutes (2’) 

Approval of minutes: Tim, Divya

  • Sofie Kleppner, OPA representative (20’) 
    • Postdoc Housing
  • Postdoc Salary
  • Question & Answer

postdoc salary comparisons between Stanford and UC schools

Tim: https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-release/consumerpriceindex_sanfrancisco.htm

https://postdocs.stanford.edu/funding-rates-and-guidelines 

Why choose CPI-U December number?

Sofie: The reason that we use the December one is that the discussion of salary and the recommendations made as early in the year as possible. That’s for budgeting reasons. The salary plan is made early in the spring as part of the budgeting. Because postdocs’ salary discussions include consideration of the CPI-U but do not commit to matching the CPI-U every year. We can’t use a particular CPI-U as the target. If we didn’t have that discussion until August, we wouldn’t be able to implement it in September. The previous December’s CPI-U which is the closest we can get to understanding what the economy is doing at that time. 

Aravind: How is the salary number determined?

Sofie: The issue is not what Stanford is deciding institutionally, it’s more determined by what an individual faculty grant can provide. There’s a national discussion we are all aware about postdocs and particularly postdoc salaries. Stanford has been well above in salary for many years unlike most other institutions, because first of all it recognizes the cost of living, and second of all, Stanford is an extremely well resourced institution. And the faculties are in agreement with salary increases even though their grants don’t go up.

Ishita: I learned that Stanford employees have retirement benefits with matching, but postdocs are not included.

Sofie: The biggest reason is that postdocs at Stanford are not employees, so they don’t receive employee benefits.The issue, as I understood it was partly an IRS issue and partly an issue of equity, that this wouldn’t be considered providing something to a small group of postdocs.I don’t think I can speak to the complexities of it. I looked into it a year ago when graduate students were asking about it. And my colleague spent quite a bit of time. So it might be worth asking him to come speak because he can speak much more clearly about it than I can.

Charmaine: other institutions, like Caltech, give postdocs benefits. So I think there’s a way to apply that.

Sofie: I think they do this because their postdocs are employees. And that’s not for all postdocs, not all postdocs are treated equitably. I would be happy to do more investigation and provide you with a more coherent answer about what Stanford might or might not be able to do. The other place that I would recommend you look is the NPA institutional policy survey, the 2020 one is coming out in the fall, which provides a huge amount of data on what other institutions do and how they do it.

  • Introductions (5’) 

New postdocs: Bobby Lusi, Sonia, Ishita

  • Council Membership re-elections (10’) 
    • Nate Johnson

Voted in: 13

  • Dingying Shan

Voted in: 15 

  • Council Membership elections (5’)
    • Ishita Jain

Voted in: 13

  • Housing and Transportation Committee Updates- Xiaoyu Chen (15’)

Postdocs are eligible for Caltrain, the funding is from the dean

Postdocs are not eligible for VTA smartPass and AC Transit EasyPass

  • The VTA SmartPass allows eligible hospital and university employees to ride for free on VTA buses and light rail
  • AC Transit EasyPass allows all benefits-eligible university and hospital employees who reside in the East Bay to ride for free on all AC Transit lines, including the Dumbarton Express
  • Our ask: Extend VTA SmartPass and AC Transit EasyPass program eligibility to include postdocs

https://transportation.stanford.edu/marguerite/se

  • Upcoming events 
    • Postdoc Palooza & Potluck
      • May 6th 6-10pm
      • Black Community Services Center
  • PRISM Happy Hour
    • Thursday May 11th 4-6pm
    • LKSC Herb Garden
  • May Council meeting
    • Thursday May 25th 11:30am-1pm