March 2021

SURPAS Council Meeting Agenda

Wednesday, March 31st, 2021 11:30am-1:00pm 

Location: Zoom

 

Quorum:  

  • Acknowledgment statement, inc group norms/mutual respect (2’) 
  • Welcome, Zoom etiquette (2’) 
  • Introductions and approval of minutes (5’) 
  • Elections (10’)
    • Council Membership (13 yesses)
      • Vimala Bharadwaj
    • Social Media and Web Manager Director (15 yesses)
      • Vimala Bharadwaj
  • Updates (15’)
      • IDEAL DEI Survey Committee update

No update as of now but they are asking for feedback. We encourage everybody to fill this out! 

      • DEG Committee update 

Chinyere is on that committee. No update yet since they will be starting to analyze the results very soon. 

      • Updated COVID-19 travel policy
        • If traveling >150 miles from campus can come back after 5 days and a negative COVID test or after 10 days without a test

Postdocs are eligible now. You can schedule an appointment but it can be challenging at the moment. Vaccine spotter website is a great ressource at the moment. You can also book through Stanford healthcare. Myturn.gov has more availability. 

  • Announcements: (15’)
    • COVID Flex Hours | Cardinal at Work 
      • up to 80 hours of paid time to be used for care of yourself or a family member
        • COVID-19 related quarantine
        • COVID-19 related school/day-care closures
        • COVID-19 vaccination
      • may use up to 24/ 80 hours to address self-care and personal wellness related to the impacts of COVID-19
      • Effective 3/1-8/31/2021
        •  If  telecommuting from SF, LA, Oakland, or San Mateo Counties and took time off in Jan or Feb 2021, can apply for these pay for these hours
      • Discuss this in advance (when possible) with your PI

Email about COVID flex hours. These hours are up to 80h paid related to COVID including care, personal wellness. This can also be retroactive. 

How is mentoring working at Stanford at the moment? Outside survey to fill and this data will be publicly available. Non-profit has no affiliation with universities and this data won’t necessarily build initiatives through these. It is mainly to help out trainees on what to advocate for. With the survey, you provide your status, your affiliation and department but don’t have to. Reaching out to NPA would also be a good thing. 

    • Stanford Postdoc Symposium Committee- looking for a Chair!

Last format was virtual with some workshops, alumni networking events, etc. Some interest from people in the chat. Nathan was in charge last year and is a great resource to reach out to if you are interested. 

These programs are permanent. If they run out, they will replenish them. 

  • Listening Session for AAPI Community (20’)

Get ideas of how we can support the AAPI community. SURPAS would like to offer this space to discussion and advance our collective understanding and see what SURPAS can do for you. 

Zheng shares his personal experience. He likes Stanford but the hate crimes against the asian population during the pandemic has been really challenging. He is speaking for himself only. A couple of months ago, he suggested we should highlight postdocs, especially asian postdocs, to the general public. He has been shooting small videos of 1 min to promote postdocs and their science.  Doing this through the communication committee would be the best place to start but we need more people to help out since Zheng can’t do this alone. Nathan suggests organizing a meeting to see interest from other people.

Richard (medical student AAPI co-chair): He would love to hear more from the postdoc community and help out in any ways they can.  The SoM town hall meeting brought to light many stories but there are no tangible actions being taken at the moment. 

  • Upcoming Events (3’)
    • “Better Ally Ep3” event from Someone Like Me program, April 8th @noon
    • Diversity Perspectives Seminar 4/13 9:30am – 12:00pm and 4/14 11:00am – 1:20pm. Keynote speaker- Dr. Raychelle Burks: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfGQlJGHdy6HfzJatCCFHRpJomZ8-YFQQByW-d_u9vugnoSfQ/viewform

    • April Council Meeting, Thursday, April 22nd, @11:30am