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Formation Task Force Plenary Meeting #9

US/Central
ZOOM

ZOOM

https://simonsfoundation.zoom.us/j/93509859069?pwd=SHFOU1ZhNlgrQnF5UjR4VVoxZFVidz09
Ian Fisk (Flatiron Institute), Joel Butler (Fermilab)

     May 2, 2024.

 

     Tasks Force Plenary Editorial Meeting.

 

     "This text is being provided in a rough draft format.

 

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in

 

order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a

 

totally verbatim record of the proceedings."

 

     >> I don't know if you noticed, Joel, I did the change that

you suggested.  Which was to move the strategies direction

section into something at the end which said, implementation

strategies I think.  And it needs to be essentially rewritten.  I

moved it to section 6, I think.

     >> I did not notice that because I printed this out around

noon or something.  So you must have done it after that.

     >> It changes the numbering and not anything else.  I copied

it down and just changed the name and hit recompile.

     >> I had some ideas for adding a few things to that section

to make it look a little less like one bullet.

     >> No, I think that's a good idea.  If we do implementation

strategies we can put all kinds of things in there.  The

foundation task forces and the meetings.

     >> The town halls and website.

     >> It can become a pretty valuable section.

     We'll talk about the strategy of the meeting in, when people

are connected.

     >> They're starting to appear.

     >> Good.

     >> I see Maria, Steve, Adam.

     >> Ian, I don't know if you saw a message from Giordon about

the invite.  I got the invite.

     >> Oh, did he not get the invite.

     >> I did but he wrote that he didn't.

     >> Okay.  That's really strange because the invite was sent

using the same mailing list that everything else goes onto.

     Okay.

     Is he not on the -- he gets the normal emails, doesn't he?

     >> I just sent him the link just in case.

     >> Thanks, I'm fairly confident that I did not manually

screw that up because I used the -- I put the listserv into the

Google calendar invite when I sent the invite the first time.

And I did send, the reminder email sent out on Friday, there were

two.  There was a reminder email and the invite that has the

link.  And the link also is on, I checked, it's the link, I put

the correct I think on the Indico as well.  So I hope that, I --

a lot of, I got a lot of, I should have send a calendar invite

 

 

 

 

 

before, I got a lot of confirmations of people they were

attending.

     >> This dropped off my calendar for a few weeks and now it's

back.  Whatever you did to change it, thank you.

     >> No problem.  I just, I specifically sent out an invite.

That shouldn't have -- that should appear in everyone's calendar,

I hope.

     >> And Giordon is here.

     >> I didn't get that invite.  Charles sent me the link.

     >> Did you get the meeting reminder that came before it?

     There was one sent on Friday?

     >> The other issue is, for whatever reason, sometimes my

Flatiron email is sent to spam for people.  I don't know if that

applies to the calendar invites as well.  I had that problem in

the past.

     >> Yeah, I don't know.  For some reason, I remember seeing

it in my calendar but it disappeared.  I don't know.  I think

maybe the settings got -- I don't know.

     >> You're connected.  So we're good.

     It is 3:05.  I was expecting a few more people based on the

acceptances.  Liz, I was expecting certainly.

     There's Liz.

     And I guess Ruth accepted and Mike Kirby accepted.  Let's

give people another minute or so.

     >> I don't hear Ian, does anybody else have that problem?

     >> We can hear Ian.

     >> I can.

     >> Can you hear us, Liz?

     >> Liz, can you hear us?

     >> You can always check the captions can hear you so assume

that Ian is able to speak.

     >> Now, I figured out my problem, thank you.

     >> No problem.

     All right.

     Let's get started.  The purpose of today's meeting is to go

through the text that we have and fix it and track to arrive at a

fairly final set of text that by this time next week, we think we

can share at least with the executive board and potentially with

other.

     It will serve as the basis for the presentation that we are

expected to make at Fino, I think the following Tuesday or

Wednesday.

     So the document sections are largely independent from each

other.  And so we can go through them in any order that we want.

The one thing that I wanted to bring up, there was a

suggestion -- and because I has impact on the other sections, I

would like to bring it up and resolve it first.

     There was a suggestion by one of the committee members that

we might want to either eliminate or significantly refine or

rewrite the DEI section because it was potentially controversial

 

 

 

 

 

in some places.  And faculty members would be prevented from

working on DEI activities.

     Let me finish and then Maria we'll go to you.

     And we needed to make a decision about what we want to do if

anything, because there's lot os of other references earlier in

the document.  So Maria, please go ahead.

     >> You're muted.

     >> I want to apologize here.  This dropped off of my radar

entirely.  I wasn't keeping up with events.  I don't know what is

in the DEI section right now because I know what was in the

Google doc.  I don't know what is in it right now.  I think I

probably need a little bit of time to think about it.  And if

there were concerns, maybe we can -- you can forward them to me

or ship them to me or someone in this meeting can write them,

that would be great.  Sorry, again, I've been out of the loop.

     I can also look at it quickly?

     >> Well, I have another idea.  Why don't we start with that

section.  If we start with that section, we will sort of keep

notes on what needs to be changed and then we can go onto the

other section.

     I just as a -- and in the interest of time management, there

are officially five sections of the document.  One of them which

was, has been called a couple of different things including task

forces and strategic direction.  I have moved to a section called

implementation strategies with the idea being that will be a

section that has several things going in.

     It needs a fair bit of rewriting because it, I think it

would be a more powerful section with that title at the end of

the document where we summarize the various pieces.  But I think

that one needs to be redone.  It's probably not ready for

discussion today.

     The other four sections could be discussed and that will

keep us at the 2-hour mark if we use a half hour for each.  I

propose we start with the DEI section and give it a half hour and

then go through the other sections.

     Does that seem okay with people?

     >> Can you do it in a different order?  I need ten minutes

to catch up, sorry.

     >> In that case, let's go through the governance section

first.  That is one that we discussed the most and we will

probably continue to discuss it and perhaps it means we will wrap

up quickly.  I'm going to share my screen.  People can see my

screen?

     >> Yes, we can.

     >> Excellent.

     All right.  Here is the section.  Joel, when -- did this,

how did they do this part?  Did they read it allowed or

independently?

     >> It depended on the section.  It can be read independently

if you think it's just wordsmithing.  If you think it needs

 

 

 

 

 

discussion, it helps to read it.  Read the parts that need

discussion.  This is probably one that we have to sign off on

each thing and there's a lot of things in there.

     >> Right.  Let's start, like, the committee will consist of

15 members selected by the executive committee.  Appointed for 3

year terms renewable once, the call will extend to -- membership.

P.

     The executive committee will -- regular panel numbers for

the full EEC.  After the first year, the CPSC will form a joint

election committee of no more than six people and to select

nominations and choose the new panel numbers.  If a member finds

they cannot carry out their responsibilities, the chair panel

will propose a replacement from the most recent years.  The new

member will serve out the remainder of the vacated term and can

continue if the partial term is less than a year will not account

for a full year term.

     There was discussion in the document if we wanted to allow

the chair to go off list.  In case they were trying to achieve a

balance in the committee.  I don't have particularly strong

opinions on that.

     >> So it's really hard to describe what to do.

     When the cases where I know that's been successful, there's

been a clear desire to have, you know, a few areas represented

and then it was possible to say, okay, if we miss one, we'll go

off list and add a member to the committee or something like

that.  Here, I really don't exactly know how to write down what

it is that we --

     >> A balance we're trying to achieve.

     >> Yes.

     >> I sort of agree.  Unless people strongly disagree, I

propose that we leave it this way and let the -- if there's

nobody on, like, I suppose if there was nobody, the list has been

emptied, I don't know what will happen.  But.

     >> So there is, you know, there's a little bit of an

inconsistency here which I don't know that we have to correct.

But down below it talks about the kinds of, in order to achieve

representation, what kind of members?  What should be the

criteria for members?  There may be a statement about the DEI and

other things in there that tells you what, roughly, what balance

you're supposed to have.  If there isn't, we can put one there.

     >> Okay.

     >> I can, tell you where that is.  Guidance for selection of

CPSE remembers.  That is 2.3.

     So I suggest anything we do, we do in there.

     >> Okay.

     >> And --

     >> I think that's a good idea.  We leave this as it goes

from the list.  That sounds good.

     >> Then I do have a question, though.  If we're still in

2.1.

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Sure.

     >> Just because of the way it's written.  So is it clear

that in the first year although we're going to do some things to

get the stater right, we're nominating, selecting 15 people.  All

15 people in the first year?

     >> I think that is, that was at least my understanding.  Is

it not clear.

     >> I think it was our understanding and I want to make sure

everybody thinks that is clear enough.

     >> We describe later how we're going to do, they have a

lottery for how the terms are divided out.

     >> And you know, this implies that when you call for

nominations, you call for nominations for people who can serve

for three years.  Some of them won't get to do that but that's

the list of people that the committee will be dealing with.  They

will not, you know, when the selection is done, it will be

assumed that anyone that is nominated could in principle serve,

has agreed to serve three years and those 15 that you pick have,

it's implicit, have done that, too, right?

     >> Yep.

     >> You don't actually have to call them up and ask.

     >> Right.

     >> Okay.

     >> Giordon, your hand is up.

     >> Yes, I actually want to ask because this part is a little

confusing to me.  So right now, the way this is raised to me at

least in the case that we pick 15 people at the start.  But I had

two different questions here.  One, how do we actually stagger

the terms of everybody?  Because it seems worse if we have all 15

people need to be elected all at the same time.  But then we

don't have anything about, sort of, when you say going off the

list in terms of nominations, I think instead of doing that, the

list should be formed from -- I'm not going to say this right,

the ex-official members.  People who have previously served on

the committee and/or anybody who is currently on the CPSC

formation task force could be considered to substitute in until

an election can happen.

     >> So first of all, the method we're doing to stagger is

described in detail below.

     >> Section 2.2.

     >> Right.

     >> And then second, you know, if we want to be broad and

representative, the idea is having a general call gets a lot of

attention.  And we certainly didn't want to restrict or prefer

the CPSC members when we form -- I mean the FTF members.  When we

form the FTF members we said it wouldn't preclude them from being

on this.  Is that right, Ian, I think that's what we said?

     >> I think so.

     >> We didn't guarantee and didn't preclude.

     >> I think we said, did not get you off, get you out of

 

 

 

 

 

having to serve on the committee.  But Giordon, Giordon, you have

a follow up and then we'll go to Verena.

     >> Yeah.  So just thinking about it, okay, I see what you

mean by the term being staggered.  I understand what you mean by

lottery.  I was in the next section.

     How does the term limit come into place when you need to

replace somebody and you're going to pick from someone who

already served two terms for example.  Do you ignore term limits

in the exceptional cases or are you strict about it?  Meaning,

once they served, you know, two years on the committee or they've

served twice or something that they can never serve on the

committee again?

     >> Also, two, well, two issues.  One, the idea of choosing

from the list of people who have been nominated but not selected

to serve, meant they were eligible.  So they wouldn't not have

already served their two terms.  I think that speaks in favor of

using the list of potential nominees rather than a broader list.

     The term limits are in place.  In some sense if you replace

someone that only served for a year, that doesn't count against

the term limit.  At some point do we say consecutive term, Joel?

     >> This is really interesting and I'm glad you raised that.

     The CPAD thing says you can't serve two consecutive terms.

First of all they violated that in their first two periods.  But

that's what it said.  They think it says two terms total but

that's not what it says.

     And at least not in the bylaws.  We can write it either way.

     I think you have to think through whether you want --  do

you think this thing will be attractive enough that there will

always be people who want to serve?  Essentially fresh people

coming in?  Or do you think that won't be the case?

     It would be awkward to have a situation where you wound up

after a few years, just getting the same people over and over

again.  Of course, that's a choice that gets made, right?  It

doesn't have to be that way?

     >> My personal feeling is that saying that it's three terms

renewable once, and you're ineligible after a three-year period

of activity, at least gives you the flexibility of selecting

people without having the requirement of doing it in case it's

not as popular as we might think.  I'm open to suggestions.

Verena?

     >> Yes, I had a slightly different question I wanted to ask.

For this section, if that's okay.

     >> Yeah.

     >> So I was wondering, maybe this is obvious, but I was

wondering if we wanted to mention it would be good to follow,

quote unquote best practices for the selection of the committee

members.  For example, the search committee should reflect a

diversity of views.  That we have like a description of what the

position entails.  You already mentioned like open call for

nominations but also allow self-nominations.

 

 

 

 

 

     Then we have some idea of the qualifications before

selecting candidates, those sorts of things.

     I don't know.  That the committee can maybe try to make sure

for example if they talked to candidates they ask, they talk --

they ask similar questions.  Those sorts of things.

     We don't have to go into all these details but just say

something about that.  About encouraging good practices for

the -- does that make sense what I'm asking?  Something about

this?

     >> It makes sense.  In some sense we're giving instructions

to the executive committee which I hope is unnecessary.  But we

can certainly, we can put it down as long as it's not, like -- I

worry -- yeah.

     >> I'm not saying necessarily put all these instructions.

Those were just some suggestions.  People can do whatever they

want.  I'm just saying it might be nice, you say no more than six

people from the committee and the executive committee.  Right.

Maybe we can say it would be nice if it was a diverse committee

if possible and maybe they could try to follow some practice.

Sometimes these things can be contentious, right.  How exactly

people are picked and so on.  So it would be nice to have a good

process.  We can encourage a good process, does that make sense?

I don't know.

     >> I'm wondering why we decided we needed to specify the

number of people to be on the selection committee.

     >> The only reason we did that and I think this may be left

out, is that the EC is supposed to, well, the EC is supposed to

approve this, right.

     >> Right.

     >> The EC is of order ten.  So if half of the people come

from the EC that's already three.  I will tell you, I looked at

CPAD and it looks like the DPF vice chair in the year of an

election actually becomes very important.

     And we could -- but that is completely, that's whoever you

get, right.

     >> Right.

     >> I mean that can't by definition be balanced if you like.

Except that you can say the person is elected by all DFF, but

that would be true and it's not exactly the same constituency.

So I think it's a fair question.  If we don't put down any

number, it may wind up being a big number and then you may wind

up having a lot of problems.

     >> Right.  I guess to address Verena's concern, would people

find it acceptable to say, a representative committee of no more

than six and add a sentence that says something like the

committee will publish the requirements of the job and follow

best practices in the selection or something along that line.

     >> That sounds great.  Yes.  So we're recording, so we will

add that and have the transcript.

     >> Or someone can type it in if they want.  Charles?

 

 

 

 

 

     >> I guess it's really hard to say beforehand how popular

this position will be.  And so I kind of wonder if we say two

terms and you're out might be too restrictive.  Especially if we

have some very keen early career people who put in their service

time at the beginning and then they can no longer contribute for

the rest of their career?  I think either two consecutive terms

or specify a cooling off period might be more beneficial.  Maybe

we can get incite from CPAP as to how difficult it was to find

people but I don't know what the parallels are between the two

communities.

     >> I think we can, I think, saying that term for no more

than two consecutive terms and then indicate there is a break.

Solves the problem of, like you were describing, someone that did

two terms when they were young and they have to go work for CPAD

instead after that.

     >> Just one comment.  Okay.  Just because you're not on the

panel doesn't mean you can't work on all the projects that are

being done.  Just thought I would mention that.

     >> Yep.

     Steve, your hand was up?

     >> It was.  Well, first of all, I support the language of

two consecutive terms.  I think that's simple and a person would

go off for at least one year.  We don't have to be too specific

about it.  I found the six people --

     >> One term I would say.

     >> I wouldn't.  But you know, you have, you're allowed to

have your idea.  You know, you could go off a year -- which I

said.

     >> One year, that's fine, too.  That's what two consecutive

terms means.

     >> I would say, as long as you're not the third consecutive

term, you can be off for one year, two years, et cetera.  Anyhow,

I found six people from the CPSC and EC a little confusing when I

first read it.  I thought it meant 6 people from the panel and

the whole EC.  So if you're going to keep close to this, you

might put in six total people or something.

     >> Sure.

     Okay.

     >> Maybe other people didn't read it that way.

     >> No, I think you can read it either way and so we should

fix it.  Let's fix it.

     >> Yep.

     >> Okay.

     Anything else?

     >> I think somewhere we lost the idea, maybe not.  Scroll

back up just a little.  It says that endorsement by the full EC,

that's what needed to be in there.  That's a sentence that seems

to apply to the first year.

     >> Oh, um --

     >> So it may need to be repeated after the next sentence or

 

 

 

 

 

maybe you think it's obvious and it doesn't have to be.

     >> No, I think we are missing the section -- solicit

nomination and choose new panel members.  To me that implies this

committee of six is choosing the members.  I think we need to say

full endorsement by the EC in that section.

     >> Okay.  Right at the end of the first paragraph in this

section it should say that.

     >> Yep.  Otherwise I think it reads the committee of six is

making the choice.

     >> Got it.

     >> Excellent.

     Okay.  I think this section is probably -- the section --

this section is relatively easy.  The chair of the CPSC will be

selected from the eligible panel members and confirmed by the EC

for a 3-year term (reading) serve for 3-year terms to choose five

of the members to serve for one year, two for two years and four

for three.  After the first year, a third of the members will be

elected each year to replace the members whose terms have

expired.  Renewal for a second term, the full three years.  A

member may only serve for one term, I think that's fine.

     The CPSC chairperson in consultation with the (reading)

substitute for the chairperson --

     I think in all of these places we're better off replacing

that with "they".  It's the plural pronoun and it's simpler.

     >> I did it because the grammar was bothering me.

     >> The New York Times uses they, we can use they.

     >> That's okay.  That's fine.  I have no commitment to that.

     >> Okay.

     >> Just a quick question though.  We are always electing the

chairperson no matter what, right?

     >> I believe.

     >> No.

     >> I guess the reason I ask is sometimes, at least I'm

thinking about it in terms of how ATLAS does this but maybe this

is not common.  We usually only elect deputy people and then they

get promoted to the chairperson.  In my mind there are two ways

of doing it.  One is you only elect the -- person who replaces

the current chairperson.  And other way is the committee can

decide who wants to be the deputy chairperson.  You only elect

members of the committee.  The committees themselves will decide

who is the chairperson rather than everybody who is providing

nominations so to speak.

     >> So, that's an interesting question.  We don't actually

specify how this chair will be selected, do we?

     >> No.  We do, actually.  Maybe it's not apparent but I

thought it was.

     Effectively after the first year, it says that the

chairperson and the EC will have this six-person panel and they

will make the selections.  They conduct, they will be a small

election commission and call for nominations.  They will, I think

 

 

 

 

 

as a first instance if it's necessary to pick a chairperson that

year they will pick a chairperson.  And then with the chairperson

and say two other members of the panel itself and three members

from the EC but maybe it won't be divided up that way, I don't

know.

     They will then select the rest of the members which will be

for that year.

     If there's a chairperson to select?

     >> Right.

     >> In the first year around, there's no panel to draw from.

There is no chairperson.  So they will, this commission will be

all EC members I guess and select the chairperson and 14 members.

     >> Right.  I guess my -- so for instance, at year whatever,

six, it's time to elect the chairperson.  Are you limited then to

only the incoming people to be nominated as chair?  Or people, or

only those people plus the ones being renewed for a full second

term?  What happens if you don't have the access to the full

committee I suppose or you do?

     >> I think anyone who is on the committee and whose term

will not expire in the next three years is eligible along with

anyone who is new.  That is what I think.

     >> That would eliminate you to a third of the committee and

or --

     >> No.  I mean, there will be people who were elected the

previous year who are eligible.  There are people who are elected

two years before that, they're eligible.

     There are people who were elected three years ago who aren't

going to be, that are going to go off the committee because it's

their second term, they are not eligible.

     But there are people who are eligible for new term and who

presumably put their name in or allowed their name to be put in.

I think they're eligible, too.  A lot of people are eligible.

     This is very complicated, I agree?

     >> So I guess what I would like to propose is that we at

least add a sentence that says, that members will not -- members

will be -- we need a nomination process including a

self-nomination process for the chair of some sort.  Just a

sentence, I think.

     >> Okay.

     >> Or maybe, I don't know.  Like will be selected from

eligible panel members, what if the person doesn't want to be

chair?

     >> Usually you say we'd like you to be chair and the person

says no, I don't want to do it.  You move to the next person.  I

don't know.  I understand anybody in DPF understands the think

that Giordon says that can be used and workable.  Which is you

always elect a vice chair and the first time you have to do a

chair and a vice chair and the vice chair eventually, you know,

secedes the chair but that has a problem, too.  Because then it

turns out you have to be very careful about nominating the vice

 

 

 

 

 

chair because the vice chair if you want him to be the chair

because the term is three years, that person is making a 6-year

commitment in some sense.

     >> That's the issue.  At ATLAS and DPF, they rotate because

otherwise you're committing someone to six years.

     >> And most people are committed to the experiment, right,

they're lifers.  They're not leaving.  This is not that case.  So

I think it's okay the way it is.

     I mine the fact that somebody was a vice chair may make it,

make any committee that is selecting the next chair take note,

right?

     >> Right.

     >> I think the next section of this part, Steve, go ahead.

     Steve?  You're muted?

     >> Sorry I was muted.  This doesn't explicitly state the

deputy serves for three years and the possibility is to say the

deputy serves as the pleasure of the chair.  And if the deputy

wants to step down or the chair gets tired of the deputy, the

chairperson picks a new deputy in consultation with the EC.

     >> Yep.

     >> That was good.  Ian?  I'm just taking notes here.  I'll

have the recording and the transcript.

     >> Yes, but I think we can fix that.

     Okay.  This is a section there were a lot of comments and I

think it's probably still not quite done.  Let's go through it

and see if we can fix it.

     Guidance for selection of CPSC members.  Software and

computing have large multidisciplinary set (reading) experiences,

there is a typo there.  And theoretical physicist cysts --

challenging for a panel of only 15 members to reach out to all of

these committees.  (reading).

     Desirable to have a representative from many areas of the

program.  With a commonality and concerns should allow support

for constituencies across the committee.  With the help and

advice of the panel membership should ensure (reading)

viewpoints, I think that should be plural, broad viewpoints.

     While there are broad viewpoints -- commonalities across

scientific activities, (reading) portability of skills.  When

choosing committee members it's important to have a balanced

representation across the following areas.

     Sources of support, I changed it to duration of position.

Laboratory staff have different potential needs than research

staff or faculty.  Stage of career including early career, the

needs of the person, like the viewpoint of someone in their early

career is different from a tenured faculty member.

     Technical skills and expertise.  This was specifically the

idea, especially in software computing there are some technical

skills that are highly sought after outside of our community.

And people have a very different view about their job prospects

if they have an easy way out.

 

 

 

 

 

     While no targets are provided, foster (reading)?

     >> Giordon, go ahead.

     >> I think you mentioned an interesting point here that I'm

wondering if we should make a -- when selecting committee

members.  Something about making sure everybody on the committee

has a disclaimer about, disclaimer.  That's the sort of thing

like in politics when you elect somebody, you need to know their

associations to understand where they're current -- are.

     You mentioned this briefly here with phasing like --

sorry -- right here.  And are able to afford representing too

vigorously their own professional interests.  I think it's fine

to ask people to try to be unbiased if possible.  I think it also

helps to be more accountable and just make each person's

affiliations more public.  If that makes sense?

     >> Um, I'm wondering, I'm wondering how that would be, how

one -- what you're asking for is a conflict of interest form

essentially.

     >> Yeah.  I think a conflict of interest was what I was

thinking of.  I think it's okay -- not that it's a conflict but I

think when you publicize the committee members, you'll have their

name, the institutional affiliation.  But perhaps their

affiliations with the different categories we have.  Are they in

national lab.  Are they tech industry or are they -- those broad

categories so people can understand the committee makeup from a

list of pictures and names, basically.

     >> Hum.

     So Giordon, if we put in here, it says the committee is

composed of people who have broad viewpoints, connect to more

than one constituency.  If we can put that on something like and

are transparent about affiliations that could impact their

performance on this panel.  Or something like that.  Would that

at least in general sort of address your problem?

     >> Yes.  I think so.  Just to make sure that it's

transparent.  I don't know, I'm just maybe slightly worried about

things, this is just coming from a -- that I was seeing the other

day.  But when we talk about things like GPU or these future

hardware technologies, I get worried that somebody sees some

financial interest and tries to push us towards a particular

technology because they have a financial interest in seeing that

come out and they want to see more demand.  So I think just

having that transparency might ease my paranoia a little bit.

     >> Okay.  Transparency about affiliations.  In terms of

keeping track of things, the CPSC is encouraged to keep

statistics on the panel minute and nominations and seek feedback

from the community (reading) the idea is they will keep stats on

where people are coming from and make that public.  Steve.

     >> Following up on Giordon, I was thinking maybe

representing too vigorously could be changed to representing too

narrowly.

     >> That's a good, that's a --

 

 

 

 

 

     >> I like that.

     >> And the conflict of interest, well I know I have to fill

out a conflict of interest form every year for the University.  I

suppose it wouldn't necessarily cover this in the same way.  But

in general, I wonder if lab people also have to do that.

     >> I certainly have to do it.  But I don't know about the

lab people.

     >> I just wanted to say that recently DPF has started asking

the EC members, for example to file a conflict of interest form.

I don't know if this will go down to, you know, DPF founded

organizations such as CPSC.

     >> I think if we put in the text it says transparent

about -- thing along those lines, that opens us the possibility

that the committee can organize a conflict of interest policy and

form.

     >> I like it.  I think it is, it covers the concern Giordon

raised.

     >> The next thing is to ensure that CPSC represent the

entire interest of the software computing community, it is

necessary to involve broad participation (reading) averaged over

time there is a balance in the following science and technical

areas.  Representational fractions of experimental and

computational developers, representatives from each of the major

experiments in roughly equal numbers and including representation

from small experiments.  Representatives of all major theoretical

computational activities.

     I'm not sure the last one is necessary.  I think there are

fractions of experimenting and theoretical computational

developers but I don't mind it either.  There was before, if you

remember, we spelled out the activities that seemed like more

detail than we need in this document.  But I'm happen for it to

say.  We said averaged over time it needs to be balanced rather

than specifying at every instant of time it needs to be balanced

which seems unachievable.  Steve?

     >> You won't be surprised this is one of my areas of

concern.  If you look at this panel, I think there were only

three theorists appointed out of all the appointed members.  I

may be wrong if I'm not recognizing some theorists please let me

know.  And frankly, you know, in a big experiment, there's lots

of activities, computing is part of it.  In a project like mine,

computing is essential.  It's basically all of it.

     And the types of computing in the theory community are quite

broad as Peter Boyle and Ruth have pointed out.  We can't always

represent the different types-over theoretical computing, the

algorithms are different, the software bases are different.

     I may be just as myopic about my experiment as I feel that

people are about theory computation and not recognizing the

broadness in experiment.  But I'm really concerned that theory

will be terribly under represented in the current vague language.

     >> Representative fractions.

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Well, I would have suggested being kind of saying it

should be, there is five people appointed each year.  I would

have said three experimentalists and two theorists.  But you

know, people have, are going to have their own points of view.  I

just displayed my concern.  I will also say, I cochaired the

theory -- the computational frontier and this is like the big

thing I've been trying to get done over 7, 8 years.

     >> So part of the problem Steve, and this is important for

me at least, is that I think many of the members here should not

be even affiliated with either experiment or theory.  They should

be various kinds of developers or various kinds of engineers.

They may be working with some groups for a long haul or possibly

moving from group to group.  But if you want to have the kind of

discussion about software, for example, that we hope to have or

AI that we hope to have, there are going to be people that simply

aren't part of any of these categories.

     And I think that we have to accept that.  I don't know that

they'll be five experimenters or three experimenters from, say,

the collider community on this thing.

     So you know, it's just hard for me to figure out whether

your concerns are valid and I also think that people will have to

represent constituencies that they're not part of but they are

close to and they may have to do a little homework or get some

advice.

     Which is another way of expanding your knowledge base,

right.  You can have somebody that you talk to do help you, to

help guide your participation, if you were on this panel.

Anyway, that's enough to say?

     >> And Steve, one of the things I wanted to say, when I

wrote the earlier piece of this particular section, it was with

the idea that, like there was more commonality between for

instance people that work on HPC that can account for, there is a

therapy people and job opportunities and career development

challenges that would be more similar to people doing the other

kinds of HPC work than necessarily the distinction between theory

and experiment.  And so there are, there are people whose

software and computing skills are in code optimization for C++

that puts them in a specific niche.  They might have more

commonality between other people doing optimization of theory

codes than experiment codes rather than the particular science

activity.

     So I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.  But in some sense I

think that the scientific activities, actually have, are less

indicative of the help that people need maybe than the technical

ones in this particular case.

     But ...  If that makes sense?

     >> I heard you.  I guess it's kind of a question of what

kind of activities.  We're not going to be writing code within

the committee.  So I think what you should be pointing out, what

are the needs in general for support and things like that.

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Right.  So looking through the rest of the document, the

sections that are there are about communication in the field.

About career development.  About DEI.  And those for instance,

like career development, there are, like, I think there's lot

more commonality between people at the early stage of their

careers whether they're experiment or theory in a software

position at the University than they are the distinctions between

those.

     Maybe, I may be being shortsighted about the whole thing but

it seems like many of the things that are mentioned later are

applicable to groups of people rather than their scientific

activities?

     >> So this is sort of stated in the first sentence of the

first paragraph which we should probably think about, right.

That's what you say there.  Somebody said that there.  Right.

     >> Yes, something like that.

     >> Many more commonalities for communication than there are

sub field specific needs.  That's sort of what is meant there,

right.

     >> Yep.

     That's what's meant there.  It may not be described

correctly but that's what the idea was.  Was that the -- if you

look through the document, we're not talking a lot about the

technical challenges facing these groups because we can't.  There

is no money.  There is no -- but we are talking about training

and things like career development and raising the profile of

people who work in the computing area.  And those at least, like,

I'm happy to change representative fractions of experiments and

theory to equal fractions of experiment and theory.  If we think

the rough numbers of people are the same.  That is what my -- I

didn't know how the balance of people went.  When I said a

representative fraction, I was excepting if it's 60 percent of

the people in software and computing work and therapy and

40 percent in theory, that should be the balance.  If it's 50/50,

that should be the balance?

     >> Can I please speak.  I've had my hand up for a while.

     >> It rolled off of some of our screens, I apologize.

     >> I wanted to contribute to this.  Because if I think of

the way I do, like the people I talk to about my computing work

is the following.  I have two advisors from ATLAS, two from CMS.

Two different theories they discuss my computer problems with.

     Two sets of people from neutrino and two people from

simulation.  And then there are the other cosmic experiments that

I discuss my computing problems with in depth.  None of these

people are in EC.  But I know they know what I'm doing.  And I

know that they are aware of my problems and challenges.

     For example, if I wasn't in this meeting, I know a

combination of -- sorry for calling on you and I'm not trying to

put you on the spot, a combination of Charles and Liz should be

able to represent accurately what I need.  If they weren't, they

 

 

 

 

 

would reach out to me and ask what the problems are.

     I don't see this as we need a person per experiment or we

need a person from -- I like the language from here in the sense

of let's not forgot about neutrinos or accelerators entirely.

Yes, I'm -- the way the computing work happens is not, that we're

unaware of each other's problems?

     >> I think it's perfectly reasonable to say representatives

of the major experiment programs and covering and then skipping

roughly equal numbers.  I guess I'm hoping that -- I hope whoever

makes the selection does the balance and doesn't always choose

ATLAS people.  But I don't know that we can be that explicit

about it.

     >> If I heard you, just eliminating for each representatives

would be an improvement.

     >> Right.  Representatives of the major experiment programs.

All experimental peers --

     >> You need in roughly equal numbers?

     >> I don't think so.

     Tulika go ahead?

     >> I don't think it's needed.  Frankly, we always try to

have similar numbers of CMS and ATLAS.  But in this context, it

doesn't matter so much if it's CMS or ATLAS.  The challenges and

the issues are similar.  Of course, that doesn't mean we

shouldn't strive for that but I don't think we have to be exact

in terms of equal numbers.

     >> Yeah.  I think we can get rid of that.

     I do think there is a value in having a balance of lab and

university employee people.  There is a very different

professional experience in those two places.  Especially with the

concept of the -- how those people are funded is like, it's less

different than it used to be but it's still different?

     >> Just a minor question here.  When we talk about these

source of [inaudible] where do you, positions like research

software and engineers fall under?

     >> I guess I had put that, Giordon one level up in the

things I thought were important to keep as balance, like the

things that were sort of critically important to the balance of

the committee.  Like duration and stability of position was, that

was where I thought we needed to have a represent of people with

lab staff and faculty and university research staff, et cetera.

That is where I put that category.

     And that balance was there -- the sections above; those four

bullets are the ones that I thought if the committee was working

to, if they were choosing attributes to make sure the committee

was balanced, those were the ones where the -- it was most

important to balance the committee because that is where there

are scientifically common but potentially experience, different

experiences.

     And the second section was is much more about -- I think we,

one thing we potentially can move lab and university up to the

 

 

 

 

 

top section if we wanted to.  But the second section is much more

about trying to balance across the field's activities rather than

the community experience.

     Steve?

     >> Do I still have my hand up?

     >> No.  It's more of a question to you, which was, if we

said averaged over time, it should be equal fractions of

experiments and theoretical computation developers, would that

make you feel better?

     >> That would make me feel pretty good.

     >> Okay.  Then we'll do that.  Balanced over time.  Okay.

     Much of this should be noncontroversial.  To accomplish the

full scope of work, the CPSC may want to appoint advisors and

affiliates that help communicate with a broader community.  I

think that probably should say they may choose international

members.  I think we should add that.

     Interactions between the CPSC and DPF?

     >> Can I make a comment.  This is a place where you can fix

things, right.  If you don't get nominees from certain places you

can try to chase people down.  Will fill in for a year or

something in a missing place.  I just wanted to make sure it's a

short section but you can -- it does something for you.

     >> Yes.  I think there is a value in this section.  Also, I

think given the experience of forming this committee and the

committee that formed this committee, we focus naturally in the

U.S. but most of these programs are international.  So it would

be nice to have international observers as well.

     The DPF sponsorship?

     >> Can I ask a question?  Can we quantify that a little bit

more?  What would it be useful for?  I'm trying to understand

what exactly we're trying to get from international members?

     I mean the experiments are already international, you

naturally have that international perspective already to some

degree.  But what do we need beyond that?

     >> Well, there's a lot of software that probably requires

international collaboration to support.  There are things like

accelerators that are not well accounted for necessarily here and

probably need some -- I don't know.  Ian, I'm going to --

     >> I will go in a second.  But I think what would be useful

if we look at the things the committee is doing in terms of

career development and training and communication.  Having

connections to the international community for communications

certainly has value.  But in areas of career development.  One of

the experiences that we had especially in the experiment program

is that not all places are able to support software developers in

the same way or to retain them or -- and many of the challenges

in terms of elevating the value of the positions are not just a

U.S. challenge but international one.  And having observer

feedback would have a value.  I think that having essentially

liaison connections outside might -- would have a value.

 

 

 

 

 

     >> I don't disagree with that.  I think that really, that

point that you just raised.  I think that's a very good one.  I

think that's -- a good -- it's good to make that explicitly.

That's, yes, thanks for -- thanks for saying that.

     >> No problem.  Tulika.

     >> I was going to add on I think I like the career

development.  I was thinking for example, how do other countries

deal with HPCs and other facilities.  There are things we could

learn from our international colleagues who are fully plugged

into their system.  They work with us but maybe we don't follow

that so closely.

     >> The point of HPC, the U.S. has had a very specific view

on building leadership machines and how they're used by the

theory and the experimental community and that is not necessarily

applied to the European colleagues and having those lines of

communications to see the benefits and draw backs of each

strategy would also have a value as well.

     Charles?  Yes.  I was going to say the same thing.  Just to

follow up that I think there's a lot of cross fertilization that

can be had with colleagues and universities in other countries.

Think things we can learn from them.  And the opposite, they

might want to say we would really like to study how the CPSC is

studying from an internal viewpoint so we can improve things in

our own communities.

     >> The next -- most of this is I think logistics.  The CPSC

will include facilitation and formation of subsequent operations

of the panel and (reading) newsletters.  Special messages and

providing gentle management for the oversight and activities.

That's a euphemism if I ever heard one.

     The duties working together (reading) chairperson among the

field of eligible members and panel appointing any prize

committees and monitoring the process to determine the awardees

according to the rules.  Ensuring that the communities informed

of CPSC communities and (reading) monthly newsletter and making

timely announcements of other information through the mailing

list.

     Ensuring that all activities are conducted according to the

code of conduct.  Through the chairperson keep the EC informed of

the activities and provide an annual report.  Making brief

updates twice a year of the monthly meetings and more frequently

if necessary.

     Informing the chairperson of any major issues including

operational issues or code of conduct problems.  The former

relationship between CPSC and the executive committee will be

specified in the bylaws.  This is going to take time to receive

final approval for the APS for modifications to the bylaws.  The

CPSC will begin to operate as soon as the DFF EC approves the

bylaws changes and submits them to the APS (reading) appendix B

to help facilitate with the discussion.

     Comments on this section?  Giordon?

 

 

 

 

 

     >> I missed this on the original read through.

     Third bullet point on the second block here, informing the

DPF slash EC chairperson of major issues and code of conduct

problems.  I thought the whole point of the code of conduct is

that the contact person who is assigned to handle code of conduct

issues is not part of the committee?

     They should be -- it should be sort of anonymous and should

be able to report code of conduct violations about the committee

without the contact person being part of the committee itself?

     >> Yes.  We should remove that.  It's liability and it

doesn't help.

     >> Okay.  This is Joel again.  So nobody said anything --

[laughing] about reporting -- how do I want to say this -- for

the host committee not to know even whether there are instances

and what their general character is, I think is a little bit

sketchy.

     >> Joel, let's you and I not have this conversation on the

recording because I chaired the first advisory committee, the

executive committee.  The chair line killed all or reports.  So I

think this should not be in this document.  The chair line and

the EC should not be involved in the ethics anyways.  They -- of

the task force.

     >> I can already tell you we should probably just delete it

now.

     >> Yep.

     >> Because I think that we probably have mutual

misunderstanding about that committee.  So let's just delete it.

     >> Well --

     >> Including organizational issues.

     >> We should not propagate these organizational issues to

this committee that has nothing to do with it.  It's a problem

that hadn't been solved by the EC and it's going to poison this

task force.  So just remove that, please.

     >> Remove what?  Including organizational issues.

     >> Informing the DCP of any -- I would remove the whole

thing.

     >> Let me just explain to you.  I'm not going to argue about

this but let me explain to you what the implication of this are.

The implications are that the APS could and has found out

something and said to the DFF, you are responsible for this

because you're posting it.  We're not responsible in the sense of

controlling it.  But we're supposed to know something about it

and represent it and we may have never heard about it.

     If, for example, the kind of organizational change that CPAD

had is undertaking now, were not communicate today the committee,

it would not be known the bylaws have to be changed.

     APS has an ethics reporting scheme that I think we will have

to use.  So I'm willing to leave the ethics part out because APS

has set that up.  If this is a problem, it has to be reported by

somebody to the APS.  But I think organizational changes would

 

 

 

 

 

have to be reflected in the bylaws.  How can the EC, it would be

not so good if the EC were not informed and it was discovered

there were major changes.

     Somebody else may want to speak up on this as another person

on EC.  But it just seems that we can't really take that out?

     >> Tulika is next, I think.

     >> I guess my question really is that I think this committee

could potentially be asked to talk about in large terms, you

know, have you had incidents?  Have incidents been reported?  And

therefore, needs to have a mechanism whereby they can give some

information.  I mean even for example labs are asked, right?

What has happened?  So I don't think specific incidence should be

brought up.  However, the fact that incidents have been

occurring, needs to be brought to the attention I think.

     >> Sorry, there are two bullets up there in which we report

to the DPF and we as in this computing board, and in writing once

a year and twice a year at the, more frequently.

     What does, what are you guys concerned of that is not

covered by we'll report to the DPF?

     >> Charles, you put your hand down.  Did you have a comment?

     >> This may be a diversion but it kind of relates to this.

Unless I'm mistaken we don't have language in this document that

has to say under what conditions can a member of the panel be

removed?

     You know, if there is some ethical violation or something

like that, how do we remove a person?

     >> We don't.  The APS does it.  We don't have the legal

thing.  The executive committee set up and the ethics advisory

committee of which I was the first chair.  I was threatened by

somebody that made a complaint.  There was no resource by

anybody.  APS has the structure and legal team and the money to

protected their members.  This panel and the executive committee

don't have the infrastructure to deal with code of conduct.

     I know it's good to think, oh, we have the power to improve

the behavior of the community.  It makes us feel good but it

isn't.  It's not how this works in practice.

     >> Okay.  So I'm trying to get my hand up but I guess nobody

else has their hand up.  Look.  That wasn't what was intended.

What was intended is to know the level of problems.

     The EC does not want to get involved in that.  Right now you

put it in a database for APS and they will do things and they do

harsher things than many of us would do on occasion.  But it's

what Maria said, it's up to them.  This is part of, this is

hosted by APS.  They'll do it.  Individuals can file their own

complaints.  And it would, however, have been nice, this is

reflecting in some sense experience with Snowmass when a lot more

was apparently going on than the EC knew about.  We knew about

some big things but there were a lot of things that we didn't

know about.

     And we didn't even understand the magnitude of the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

That was the worst thing about it.

     We were just at a lost.  If people asked, we said things

were going fine.  They weren't going fine so much.  I think that

was a little bit what Tulika is saying, just be good to have some

general information about how things are going.  But if it's

controversial, I don't think we should --

     >> I guess the question I have is, there are three bullets

here.  One is proposing a written report that seems

uncontroversial.  One is proposing a twice a year oral report.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to have the final bullet say, the

chair will inform the DPF and executive chairperson of major

issues as they come up.  The problem that people have is if

something has come up and the next oral report is not for 6

months and then it goes to some level above the EC and they know

nothing about it, they might question why that was.

     If there are things to be mentioned in those previous two

section, we simply say they will be mentioned or is that a

problem, Maria?

     >> The problem I have with this is the following:  You're

already making the statement that the CPSC keep informed about

the activities.  Right.

     You can add this will include those two bullets.  You're

going to have to write the document, suppose you're the chair of

this thing Ian, do we need to write in the statutes that you have

permission to send an email to whoever the chair is now of the

DPF?

     >> Maybe we do.  Not that I need permission but there is an

expectation that I will communicate with the hosting board if

there are things they need to know.  That's the issue.

     >> Can you write communicate in the chairperson as needed?

     >> Yes.  Informing the DPS executive chairperson as needed.

I think that's sufficient.

     >> Okay.  We were trying to prompt two issues that sometimes

get overlooked but I guess it's okay.  I mean you can also put it

elsewhere I suppose.  No, okay, that's fine.  As needed.

     >> As needed.

     >> But you know, that, there have been situations where

there have been divergent views about what is needed.  Some

committees want to become totally autonomous which we would like

for this I think.  But it's connected to APS and they hold EPF

accountable for some things.

     Like --

     >> In some sense, I think it should be the requirement of

the DPF Executive Committee to help define what is needed and it

doesn't need to be written in this document.

     >> Okay.  Then we better say that then.

     >> Right.

     >> How do you propose to say that.

     >> I don't know.  I'm hesitant to write down the individual

ones because we'll miss some that are important.  Because you

 

 

 

 

 

can't be a comprehensive list here, probably.

     >> Right.  So the minimal thing that -- I mean, I'm happy to

see the code of conduct go away.  But some aspects of the

organization show up in the bylaws.  For example, if you really

wanted to develop an organ-o-gram.  That I would say is something

that should get discussed.

     If you have task forces of all kinds, that sounds to me like

an annual report or an update?

     >> I would claim the organ-o-gram is twice annually.  I'm

talking about the things that are embarrassing.  It was

embarrassing if they didn't talk about them and it's time

critical.  The organo-gram is less critical if they change the

bylaws every four months maybe nobody gets bent out of shape.

     >> The best that I can say is that not all experiences in

this regard have been pleasant.  So let's just leave it as it is

and move on.

     >> Okay.  We're leaving it as needed.

     >> As needed.

     >> Would you say add needed by the DPF EC.  That at least

shows it's their duty to define what as needed means.  I think we

can agree to that, right?

     >> Well.  That gives them a pretty wide scope.

     >> Okay.  Never mind.

     >> Well, no, I like the idea.  But what does Ian think?

     >> We're trying to formalize something that should be common

sense.  I'm worried by formalizing it, we make it, it's going to

be counterproductive.  That's the point I'm trying to make here.

     >> Let's move on.  Put as needed and let's move on.

     >> The formal, yes, we covered this section.  All right.

Maria, I have given you an hour and 15 minutes.  Are we ready to

do the DEI section with the understanding that we will probably

only get through it by the 5 o'clock end of this meeting in which

case we will have to do the other two sections at some time in

the future?

     >> We.  We may have to circle back anyways.  The DEI

section, you rewrote it, is that what happened.

     >> I didn't rewrite it necessarily.  There was a set of

rough notes and there was things that have been, we discussed

this section from the transcript and I composed it from those

notes.

     >> So you wrote it.  Not rewrote it, wrote it.

     >> Yes.

     >> What part of it is controversial?

     >> Actually, I scrubbed out a couple of the things that were

controversial.  One was, like, at some point in our -- so like,

let's see, all of these things -- the overall goals are

uncontroversial.  As are for instance, many of these things, I

think 5.3 is not controversial but I think it's a bit

prescriptive.  In the sense if the goal is to increase the size

of the workforce and the participation in the workforce, that

 

 

 

 

 

should be the goal which is somewhat different from a remote work

goal.  Remote work is in some sense an implementation.  But the

goal should be increased in diversity and participation in the

workforce.  I would propose to -- that we might want to rework

this.

     >> That was me rewritten from what I meant.  Not the goal.

     >> I think we should -- I think this --

     >> Happy to rewrite that, yes.

     >> There was another, I think we need to be a little

careful.  Again, with the work to eliminate residency

requirements that exclude non-U.S. residents in training and

development.  We might want to sort of change the order of that

in some sense to talk about, again, to increase the participation

of the workforce and the -- to increase participation that we

want to include allow ourselves to include -- work to eliminate

residency requirements.  Work to eliminate residency requirements

may hit resistance.  An overall goal of increasing the number of

people that participate and get trained is not controversial.

     >> I wrote my notes in a way of opportunity.  You wrote it

as goal and options.  And I don't like doing actions in this way.

Meaning, these are all opportunities that we're not leveraging.

     >> Okay.

     >> So maybe that's a way to make it a little less, I don't

know, jarring.

     >> Okay.  I think that's fine.

     >> I'm happy if we sort of rework this or -- I didn't

eliminate your notes.  I made them comments so they didn't appear

in the PDF.  I didn't erase anything.

     >> You said something about faculty members were not allowed

to participate in this at the beginning of our meeting.  I was

very confused by that statement.

     >> I did not, well, yes, I did say that but it was an email

that was sent to me by one of the members that suggested that

there was the possibility that as a faculty member in a red state

they would be forbidden from participating in DEI activities.

     >> Let me say this, this text has a lot of boilerplate.  Oh,

this is our goal.

     Put in it as the goal has no effect.  Doesn't make the work

better or more useful.

     We can reframe everything as an opportunity and then it

becomes uncontroversial.

     And they say I have a joint appointment with the Vatican, so

the least [inaudible] organization on earth.  You know, saying

the goal, the goal is inclusiveness, meh, you don't have to say

it.  Saying the goal is inclusiveness does not make an

organization more inclusive?

     >> Okay.

     >> So those are things we can do if we wanted to.  Instead

of phrasing it as DEI.  We can say, there are two disabled

people, like, seriously disabled people on this task force.

 

 

 

 

 

Seems to me that computing is more accessible than the rest of

physics.  Those are opportunities, we just need to say them.

     >> I was just going to say this is a general comment.  I

think we should figure out how we phrase some of these words.

I'm telling you because we got a lot of push back and real

concerns on using certain trigger words.  And unfortunately, DEI

or diversity has become one of those as is identity and other

things.  On the other hand, other terms like broadened

participation and workforce development don't.

     So I have very strong views myself about this, I have to

say.  On the other hand, I'm just doing my duty and letting you

know this has come up?

     >> Right.  At least one this section was being written, what

I was trying to -- I'm happy if it's either way.  When we talk

about workforce development and making effective use of the

entire community, I don't know, that -- we can certainly write

that down, it's entirely noncontroversial and it also seems

pretty watered down.

     I will say to Maria, the reason why this committee is the

way it is, is not by accident.  It's not because computing

happens to have people from -- places.  Because when the

committee was selected, someone spent a lot of time making sure

we had a reasonable balance across all of the kinds of attributes

that we thought.  It's not an --

     >> Again.  I'm not here because I'm female or because I'm

disabled.  I'm here because I have an experience that you don't

have.  That is not controversial.  And you can phrase it in a way

that is non-inclusion.  You cannot use the trigger words and say,

okay, you can do computing at a rural college with no money.

That is great, that is red state, I go to South Dakota, everybody

loves physics.  South Dakota votes -- is our senator.

     >> I agree.  These words that you just used, they work very

well.  Different perspectives works very well.  And so

socioeconomic mixed status and diversity in that works very well.

     >> Okay.

     >> Rural.  Rural.  We can make our language more inclusive

as well.  That's another way to say it.

     >> So are we hearing this needs a, this section needs a kind

of rewrite?  If we are, who will do it?  And when?

     >> I'm offering to scrub it and have it two weeks after the

fact.

     >> Sure.  I'm happy to help.  As I said I'm very conflicted

myself from this.  Because I really want to push certain things

there.  But I also have learned that it's no point getting

certain people upset and then you got to get them on your side to

help.  You know.

     >> All right.  So action is Maria is going to scrub the

document.  And Tulika is going to approve the document.

     >> And just for time --

     >> I'm not sure of that, but yes, I'll help.

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Just for timeline information, Tulika, when is the next

EC meeting?  The week after next.

     >> The next EC meeting, we were going to have it during

DPFino, which is on the 15th I think we were thinking of.  The

15th of May during DPF.

     >> So that's, well the beginning of that week is the week

after next, right?  Next week is -- and then a week off and DPF

'24, right.

     >> Next week is CPAD and then DPF.

     DPF is the 13th to the 17th of May?

     >> Okay.  If DPF is going to see this, this has to be done

in the next -- and have some reasonable time to look at it

because people will be busy.  Just saying this has to be done in

the next couple of days.

     That's true for the whole document, not just for this

section.  Right.  We have to have -- it will be a draft.  And

there will be a lot of proposed changes.  But it's good to have,

to eliminate the flash points and other things.

     Is that reasonable to ask you guys to do?

     >> I'm not objecting.

     >> Okay.

     We're taking that as a, we're taking that at least as you'll

try hard to do it and we thank you.

     >> In the interest of time, maybe we should try to do career

development because it's probably easier.  And then we may have

to push communication to another time.

     >> Could be a Google type, a Google-doc type of exercise or

something.

     >> So let's just do early career development because I think

it's easier.  The idea is to help improve the career prospects of

researchers (reading) the overall objective is to improve the

recognition of the S and C contributions.  Improve the

recognition they are critical to the success of the physics

program.  (reading) career trajectories and opportunities for

professional growth.

     So the objectives are to increase the visibility and

prestige of the software and computing contributions.  Campaign

to increase the number of stable positions (reading) help

advertise job opportunities in computer science and industry.

Provide career resources for jobs in HEP.  Different career

stages and highlight examples of success stories:  Recruitment

and training and retention and improvement of opportunities.

     Provide arguments and materials for institutes to make the

case for hires like funding models for scientists.  Improve the

training and education available for emerging scientists in

software and computing skills.

     Facilitate the community discussions to develop pathways for

individuals who have transitioned to industry or other fields to

return to academic or a research position in HE P and.

     Having a range of career options is a good tool to recruit

 

 

 

 

 

people in software and computing.  The first of these is not

controversial, establish recognition and rewards.  It's a

powerful tool across career stages.  Provide visibility to the

recipients and the recommendation is a tiered-award system.  At

the various stages.  Determine awards to cover both technical

achievements and contributions with a broader impact to society.

     The specific criteria should be able and made available on

advertisements and a website.  Provide financial incentives while

ensuring that recognition is the primary goal.

     Follow up in five years to assess the reward impacts on the

recipient's career.  Giordon?

     >> Just quickly.  That last bullet point in the section you

just looked at, they had an implement assessment every five

years.  Can we not specify every X years and maybe base it on in

terms of, like chairperson terms.  Meaning every other

chairperson or something like that.

     >> Yep.

     >> Every other chair.

     Any other comments on this section?

     Okay.  Promote career development discussions.  (reading)

support career growth and help reach full potential.  Guidelines

and best practices.  Enables knowledge transfer.  Improving the

efficiency and cost effectiveness of programs and initiatives.

     Career growth.  Highlighting new opportunities.  And boost

moral and help in the overall engagement and retention.

     The recommendations are to organize workshops and forums of

sharing best practices with a focus on computing and software

skills.  Guidelines and resources for training programs in

software and computing and emphasizing the importance of these in

research.  Establishing joint positions and cross disciplinary

tracks (reading) establish mechanisms to encourage networking

including establishing an alumni network, career fairs, panels,

et cetera.  Comments on this section?

     It seems, I think it's a little optimistic in many ways.

But I think it's good to have a goal.  But this is a systemic

community change which we, the 15 people on this committee may or

may not be able to do.  It's good they have a goal.

     It's nothing by comparison to the optimism of section 4.3.

     So address structural challenges and development of career

pathways involves addressing structural challenges.  (reading) to

take into proper consideration technical considerations and

expertise and encourage the collaboration with other disciplines

in industries to provide career opportunities beyond particle

physics.  Engage with the funding agencies and research

institutions to highlight the critical role.  And lead to stable

career paths in this area.

     Advocate for changes in hiring (reading) collaborate with

the scientific disciplines and industries 20 to broaden the

career opportunities for those with expertise in the software and

computing in physics.

 

 

 

 

 

     And training and education.  Given the growing needs for

particle physics experiments and rapidly evolving landscape)

reading) I think in general we probably can shorten all of the

software and competing to S and C.  These should address the

needs of different groups of people.  People are prior experience

and sharing of knowledge with different groups and programs can

maximize the impact and enable resources to be on important goals

(reading) centralized repository of training and materials.

     Promote and support diversity in training programs aiming to

increase participation from underrepresented groups in the field.

Establish connections with minority serving institutions and

other under represented groups.

     Work with academic institutions to incorporate software and

computing skills into physics curricula, emphasizing the

importance of modern scientific research.

     Giordon, you raised your hand?

     >> As you were reading this I got a little confused about

the separation between the section 5 we were just talking about

and I also added in things like supporting diversity and training

programs here.  Isn't that supposed to be more in section five

than here?  I don't know how we're supposed to split that

overlap.

     >> That is one of the reasons I wanted to discuss section

five before the other sections because there are references back

to things that belong in section five.

     In this particular area, yes.  I think in this particular

area, if we're going to refocus Section 5 as expanding the

workforce and making efficient use of the entire community, that

this, you're right, this section can move into there and that

would be fine.

     In which case this becomes more of a technical aspect of

creating a central repository and working with curriculum

changes.

     On that, I'm fine with.

     Tulika?

     >> Yes, I appreciate the point just made.  I was realizing

as you read this out, that we have to make it consistent with

section five.  And maybe it's better to keep all of it in one

place.

     >> I think that would be -- yes, where we think -- focusing

section five, I think the idea, our direction of refocusing

section five makes sense and making sure these -- the sections

that belong there get moved there.  I think that makes sense.

     >> If you look like in the previous subsection here about

addressing structural challenges, you can even imagine when you

think about, like, if you want to promote early career, you also,

no.  Like what you're saying here is to take into account making

sure there is funding available for early career.  But you can

make the same about saying that the funding agencies are not

challenged but they have a responsibility to make sure that the

 

 

 

 

 

awards they give out are equitable.  Not necessarily just early

career but also DEI related.  That is a little muddled for me

right now.

     >> I think, for instance, that we've been, at least when

this section was written, the section about addressing structural

challenge, it was written with the idea that there was a systemic

problem in the field that contributions in software and computing

are not sufficiently valued as part of the scientific domain.

     So the idea was to try to address those.  Independent of any

other inequities.  The inequity that says it's easier to get a

faculty job if you've done analysis rather than if you've done

reconstruction at the end of the day.

     But I think for instance, so in the awards, we've been

pretty, they are technical, intended to be across people's

careers and also intended to be -- to -- careers and technical

achievements but also achievements in other areas but not

technical, they should be defined.

     But most of this has not, we've not put things in this

section with the possible exception of this one that should

belong in section five.

     >> Why don't we say something like, maybe at the beginning

of this document or at the beginning of even section 4, the

recommendations mentioned here should also follow the guidelines

put forth in section five, for example.

     Instead of having to repeat yourself on some level, what you

can do, if we're talking about, say, 4.1, the second bullet,

promote and support divergency and training programs.  Maybe you

could just said, you can rephrase that more like, you put the

actual DEI part of that into section five.  But just rephrase a

little bit instead.  Not getting rid of it but move the DEI

portion to section five to -- then say something like, promote

and support training programs that are equitable to the entire

community on some level.  Or something slightly more, just say

the recommendation here is that we provide training programs that

are accessible to every member of the community.

     And then you can be more explicit about saying, well, how do

we make sure that we're getting every member of the community.

In section five we say we know people from under represented

groups in the field or under served institutions with less money

have additional report from CPSC to attend programs.  That would

be in section five.  But this section, four, should just talk

about the need for a training program in the first place.  If

that makes sense?

     >> Yes.  I will make those changes.

     Fostering pathways and establishing fellowships or

sabbaticals.  Highlight success stories -- who have

significantly -- after returning from industry to serve as models

for reentry programs.  Advertising jobs in the communities.

     Then the last section is not, it was a set of instructions

basically.  Monitoring progress in the area of career development

 

 

 

 

 

is critical for the success of the overall effort it helps to

increase the effectiveness of the program.  (reading)

implementation of the career development action plan and outlined

goals.  Provide annual reports on the statuses and initiatives

and success stories.

     Survey the field and provide outcomes on the website.

     This is potentially a little more prescriptive than we've

been elsewhere in the document but it does emphasize this is an

important section to us.

     Tulika?

     >> Not specific to this.  But it reminded me of something.

This is HEP.  So several places we use HEP.  Now, in certain

parts of our community, that is associated with the DEOHEP

program.  So at least for the P5 report, I'm reliving that.  We

use particle physics throughout.  So I just wanted to raise that.

I don't know if it needs to be addressed or not.

     >> I think it's -- we're not entirely consistent.  We use

HEP and particle physics.  I think it would make sense to use

particle physics as the umbrella name of the group.  We will do a

global search and replace.

     And particle physics we think includes the other frontiers

in a reasonable way?

     >> No.  I don't think so.

     >> Okay.

     >> I think that's part of the distinction.  I mean, when you

said that, it doesn't include nuclear I would say.  Because the

funding is separate.  It doesn't include all of astrophysics.

     >> Right.  It includes -- basically, I'm saying this is from

the P5.  The P5 consistently talks about particle physics.  It

addresses the cosmic frontier but not particle physics.

     >> Someone have a better --

     >> I think we should go through it and whenever it looks

like particle physics will do the deed, convey the meaning,

that's fine.  In some cases its needs to be HEP because of

connection to some specific source.  We will use that, is that

okay?

     In other words, we'll try to get rid of it.

     >> You know, it is more confusing because in Europe, I was

just having this conversation this morning, astro, particle,

astronomy, all of that is lumped together and it's explicitly not

HEP.

     >> Right.  So as I said, let's just, when we read it through

again and edit it, let's try to use particle physics wherever we

think that is clear enough.  If there is a reason to use HEP or

another qualifier or a list, we'll have to just put it in.

     Because it is so confusing.

     >> I think everything -- don't you at the end of the day.

It's like, go photon is a particle, we're looking at the whole

thing.

     >> Giordon?

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Can we not just rely on what DPF uses.  My assumption

here for this, this is technically under DPF.  Can we just say,

when we said, HEP or put a disclaimer at the beginning, HEP or

DPF community member refers to anybody that, A, is affiliated

with DPF falls into this document.  And leave the clarification

of who belongs in that DPF -- rather than up to this committee.

     >> Okay.  You know there is overlapping membership in APS

all the way through.  And DPF does not include in principle

anything that is included in the division of astrophysics.

     In principle, I think.

     Now in practice that is not the way we look at it.

     I think that's a correct statement.  Tulika, can help me

out?

     >> Yes.  I think that's a correct statement.  It is, it can

be rather confusing, yes, the way this all works out.

     >> All right.  I think the point is made that we will just

try our best.

     >> We may, and a sentence earlier in the document explaining

what our intentions were would probably go a long way.

     >> Yes.

     >> Yes.

     >> So yes, and I -- with monitoring and reporting the only

proposed change I would make to 4.6 is add recommendations

because that makes its consistent with the other things we've

done.  It's a recommendation.  Rather than a specific, what -- it

has to be done this way.

     So I propose to add a recommendations section there.

     Okay.  So to recap:

     We didn't go through the introduction but I think that's

people read it, it's a lot of this comes from other documents so

I think it's okay.

     We went through the governance section and have some

corrections to make but in general we're not too far from having

that be reasonable, done.

     We did not cover communications and partnerships.  Probably

don't have time to do that in 8 minutes.

     >> Can I, I just wrote that this past weekend.

     >> Shall we go through it quickly then.

     >> I just wonder if any of it is controversial?  All I did

was add what you said, an introductory paragraph about the kind

of -- that kind of tried to match the objectives.  If people

think I didn't quite do that, then --

     >> Let's take five minutes and go through it.  So the idea

of communications and partnerships was the objectives were to

encourage and facilitate strategic partnerships (reading) improve

internal communication.  (reading) Make CPSC a valuable resource

for the community and funding -- working groups and consensus

building.  Strengthen interactions with industry.

     Advocate for support and development of public data and

software repositories to make HEP research more accessible.

 

 

 

 

 

     The primary recommendation is the CPSC should organize an

annual workshop to focus on community building, technology and

skill transfer, career and networking and showcasing the panel's

activities.  The workshop is open to all its stakeholders ...  We

should probably move it physically into the implementation and

strategy section.  The section in bold when we reiterate that

section and otherwise it's okay.

     Verena, go ahead?

     >> Hi, I made a note on the chat earlier.  I was wondering

if it would be good to add a point about supporting outreach.

Kind of like awareness among the broader public of the -- aspect

of science.  I don't know if that's what's specifically -- what

about that.  But clearly that would be generally something that

would be good to support.

     >> I think proposed to address that by adding an objective

to communications and partnerships.  That was more outward

focused.

     About outreach and community engagement.

     >> Okay.  Okay.

     >> I think it's a good idea.  We'll just add it as an

objective.

     So there was some specific comments in this section about

whether board of a feather meeting -- I said organize forums on

relevant topics.  Convene expert panels.  Technology advancement.

(reading) promote strategic link as a trail (reading) handling

large datasets.

     Spelling error.  Create a directory of potential partners

across city and academia fields.  Use the CPSC meeting to have

potential partners.  Most meetings as needed.  On going projects

and discuss emerging technologies and develop a proposed template

and support mechanisms for HEP partners.

     This we talk about engagement in the various, in the HEP

community.  So Snowmass, HSF.

     Yeah?

     >> I'm just seeing this here.  This is maybe a bit detailed.

It says HEP and other volunteer efforts or something.  IRIS HEP

is a funded institute.  Isn't it?  It's an NSF funded.

     >> You're right.  I didn't -- I kind of meant and others who

are volunteer efforts.

     >> I see.

     >> So I guess I didn't phrase that right.  Sorry.

     >> And I wonder if for instance, like with things like IRIS

HEP if you put that, are you -- do you need to put A3D3 which is

the machine learning focused one from NSF.  Thanks to NSF

supported projects and other volunteer efforts might -- then you

don't have to specify it.  In that case, Liz, change it to thanks

to NSF supported activities and volunteer efforts.

     >> Yes.  Without the other.

     >> Without the other, I think that's clear.

     >> That's fine.  Yes.

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Let me just ask the obvious.  If you say projects like

NSF, and other volunteers, DOE does nothing in this respect?

They would not be upset by it not saying --

     >> Offer computing, one, it's called HEP CCE.  But the focus

has never been on building community.  Right.  So this is

enhanced communication within the HEP community.  That's the sub

heading.

     You know, IRIS HEP funded the community white paper effort

in 2018.  It sponsored all the workshops and provided people who

paid for people who were organizers.  It did a lot of things to

promote community.

     And that's why it is mentioned here.  I'm okay with taking

that out but I wouldn't add DOE's CCE project because it

really -- that's not what it was trying to do.  TVs not trying to

build community.  In fact, it's still a closed community if you

ask me?

     >> The reference to DOE is in 3.5, is that right?

     >> 3.5, I might as well, I might have done that.  Yes.

     >> Leverage industry interactions.

     >> Yes.

     >> Whatever that's numbered now.

     >> Yes, yes.  In fact, HEP CCE's focus has been on getting

the HPC centers that DOE is already paying for usable by the

scientific community.  So whereas what they want -- what DOE

wanted to focus on was, you know, these big computing facilities

helping experiments to use them.  NSF was more about community

building.

     >> I understand the distinction.  That's fine.  I think you

can defend it.  They may ask that of one of us.  All right.

Let's go on.

     >> Can I just jump in here I actually wanted to reiterate

what Liz just said about HEP CC really not helping much with the

community.  This came up in a lot of recent discussions and the

question I have is should we perhaps say something such that such

initiatives do a better job of engaging.  This is a lab-driven

enterprise but they should perhaps engage with universities that

bring in grad students and others.

     I think there could be an improvement there and I don't know

if we have a way of emphasizing that?

     >> Verena?

     >> I just want to say that HEP CC has been reviewed and such

recommendations have been made for what it's worth.  [laughing].

     >> I was going to say that sounds familiar.

     >> Jeremy is well aware of this.  Anyways, it doesn't matter

but just to point out.  Sorry.

     >> Thanks, maybe we should just leave it the way it is.

     >> HEP is a project.  I don't think this document is where

we provide feedback on how projects are being run.  But that's

just me.

     >> It is 5 o'clock.  We've been at this for 2 hours.  I

 

 

 

 

 

think we're going to, like, we will lose our.

     >> Captioner.

     >> Yes.  Captioner, yes.

     I guess what I would -- Matt, go ahead, Matthew?

     >> I may have interrupted you just as you're about to

address this.  In the final section, what is it 6 or something,

that where you split things into the implementation strategies

and mentioned that there should be some significant revisions

here.  So to make sure that we actually address those, I don't

want to go over, you know, the text itself.  But can you make

some broad comments on the kind of general directions so that

myself and others can start revising it?

     >> Yes, I think the idea of this section.

     >> Thank you for the revisions that you already did.

     >> Oh.  I think the idea of this section was to expand it a

bit and to have it be some recommendations for how we want to

achieve the goals.  A section here would be about the annual

meeting.  There would be a section about the, I think the

facilitation of a establishment of technical working groups.  Is

there, instead of talking about it from a standpoint of

communicating technical directions, it would be more along the

lines of communication within the field, from the section above.

     If there are specific recommendations for training that we

can summarize from the previous sections.  I think implementation

is a lot where the actions are going.  Whether it's the formation

of the annual meeting, the communications about systemic change

in career development, formation of technical working groups to

improve communications.  All of those.  I'm happy to take a stab

at some of those as an outline.  And we can try to fill it in

together if that makes sense?

     >> Yes.  Thank you very much.

     >> So I, one other thing, I think you should also lean on

things that are relatively new like town halls.  Those are easy

to make and not expensive and they're a way to reach out to a lot

of people and it may be obvious, but I think just putting it in

here is good.

     Obviously, there is going to be a website of some kind,

right?

     >> Yep.

     >> As an implementation.  We have mentioned several surveys.

     >> Yes.  I think the surveys and all those things should be

basically summarized.  And then it will be, I think we should,

you can use the language that it's a recommendation rather than a

set of -- a cookbook.

     Okay.  And given that, I think what would be nice is to work

on the document over the course of the next several days with the

idea of having a checkpoint on, say, Monday.  Which would be

virtual.  And then with the idea that we should have a share able

text by Thursday.

     >> At this point, we're just sharing it with the EC, right?

 

 

 

 

 

     >> Yes.  So far.

     >> Telling them not to publish it.  It's not going to be

seen by CPAC.

     >> No.

     >> With some luck it might be given to them -- say at the

time of DPF '24.

     >> Yes.  And that meeting will be, I think will be mostly

about headings and the concepts that are in the report rather

than necessarily the final thing.

     >> Right.  So you know, I have this status update for HEPAC.

Which I will just say how far we've come and show the table of

contents.  And maybe some highlights which I will send to you

before I do it, obviously.

     And enough time for you to comment on it.  And it's 15

minutes, they will need to, since they haven't thought about this

since December, they will probably need some, back a little,

summary of background and mainly our status in the report.

     And the statement that they'll get it soon.  A little late

but not too late as these things go, I would say we're doing

okay.

     And Ian will pick this up as '24?

     >> I think we should, I guess we will meet as planned in two

weeks.

     Where we might have a -- it may be the final report.

     Make sense?

     >> I think so.

     >> All right.  Very good.

     Okay.  Have a good weekend everyone.  Thanks in advance to

anyone who will be writing.

     >> Okay.

     >> Bye.

     >> Bye.

     >> Bye.

     Thank you.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are minutes attached to this event. Show them.
    • 14:00 15:00
      Introduction and discussion 1h
      Speaker: Ian Fisk (Flatiron Institute)