
			CINP Board Meeting Minutes 

			      Jan 17, 2022
                13:00 Atl/12:00 East/11:00 MB&SK/9:00 BC

Attending:
Ritu Kanungo (RK), Gwen Grinyer (GG), Sangyong Jeon (SJ),
Jeff Martin (JM), Chris Ruiz (CR), 
Non-Voting: Garth Huber (GHu), Greg Hackman (GHa)
Absent: Michael Gericke

1. Approval of Agenda
Moved by RK
Second by CR

2. Approval of Minutes of June 9/21
   - including E-votes:
      July 9-11: sponsor CUPC-2021 for $1000   
      Aug 16: approve CSQCD-IX conference request for $3300
      Nov 15: approve 2020-21 audited financial statements

Moved by JM
Seconded by RK

3. Finance Report (Greg)
   a) status of NSERC account and projection to March 31, 2022
   b) update on member invoices paid to date
   
GHa:
Healthy surplus : $89.7k. This is because travel was canceled due to COVID.
Expenses still coming:
Website management fees from this year and the last year.
Junior Scientist award for Boland.
WNPCC student prizes.

GHu: 
Unused conference/workshop supports: Not clear whether they will ever be used.

RK:
Is the $2k for WNPCC this year's or the last years?
GHu: The upcoming one. To be discussed today.

GHa: Private account
Projection: $21k. 
The 2021 fee from Guelph yet to be received ($3k).
We should receive it by March 31st.

Motion to approve: CR
Seconded by: GG, JM

4. Executive Director Report (Garth)
   a) WNPPC student prizes (FY21 expense)
   GHu: Proposal
      - since the meeting is virtual yet again, propose we do the same as last
        year, which was 4x$500 prizes, under the following conditions:
        1) The CINP student prizes must be awarded only to students supervised
           by CINP members.
        2) A maximum of four student prizes can be awarded, at the discretion
           of the committee (of which CINP Board Member Gwen Grinyer is a
           member), depending on the number of eligible students and the
           quality of their presentations.
  
  GG reports on WNPPC 2022: 
  60 students applied this year.
  Many from CINP students and spervisors (about 20).
  All students and postdocs are accepted for talks. About 60.
  Last year's number was similar. About 50.
  Large participation due to the online format. 
  It will be easy to award 4 prizes.

Motion to approve: SJ
Seconded by RK

   b) Proposed budget for FY22 and projection through FY24

GHu: 
22 projection: Carryover - $89.7k, NSERC - $75k, repayment back from LRPC - $4k
Total available about $169k.
Expected expenditures: Travels, Conference sponsorships, Junior Scientist
awards, Undergrad Research Scholarship (6 times $5k).

To spend the surplus: Proposing to have 2 grad fellowships instead of 1.
Last year, we had 14 applications. 8 were really high quality.
2 fellowships are easily justifiable.
We will still have about $30k carryover.

Travel is still uncertain. If that is still the case, 3 grad fellowships may be
possible in future years.

Private account projection:
Almost balanced budget but not quite. At the end of 2024, expect to have only
about $12k left.
We need 1 or 2 more institutional members (Calgary or York, for instance) to
fully balance the budget.
Otherwise, we may be in the red in few years if fees are not raised.

RK: If Calgary does not join, what time beyond 2024 are we seeing the red flag?
GHu: 3-4 years after 2024. If Calgary joins, very close to balacing the budget 
for a very long time (~15 years). Not an urgent issue. Calgary is
interested. Just need them to come onboard.

RK: Offering 2 grad fellowships took into account all normal expenses including
travel?
GHu: Yes.

Motion to approve: SJ
Seconded by RK

   c) Undergraduate Research Scholarships URS (FY22 expense)
      - propose 6x$5k=$30k scholarships, same as last year
      - to this add possibly another $5.6k for travel supplements
      - propose an application deadline of Monday, Feb 28
      - need a motion to approve
      - need 1 member for selection committee

GHu: If we have more surplus and a large number of applications, we can always
increase the number with board's approval.

Motion to approve: CR
Seconded by GG

CR volunteers to serve as the selection committee member

   d) Graduate Fellowship GF (FY22 expense)
     - last year we had a single $12k fellowship, to be supplemented by the
       home institution to a value of not less than $32k
     - given the strong response (14 applications, of which 8 could have easily
       qualified for the fellowship), and also given our strong budgetary
       position, propose two fellowships at $12k each (each to be supplemented
       to $32k total)
     - propose a deadline of Monday, March 28
     - need a motion to approve
     - need 1 member for selection committee

Motion to approve: RK
Seconded by CR

     - question for discussion:
       - given the strong uptake, and that only 2 fellowships are available,
         should there be a limit of only one application per supervisor?  This
         was recommended by last year's selection committee.

       - also note that the 2021 recipient, Jessica Churchill, is allowed to
         re-apply up to one more time.  Renewal of the fellowship, however, is
         not automatic.

Motion to approve 2 fellowships: RK
Seconded by CR
GG will serve in the selection committee again this year.

Discussion on limiting the number of applicants per supervisor:
 
CR: Support limiting the number of applicants
GHu: URS explicitly limits the number of applicants per supervisor.
SJ, RK, GHa: Limit the awardee to one per supervisor, not applicants
GHu: How do we handle co-supervised students?
GG: Difficult to assess when multiple letters from the same supervisor all
saying they are excellent.
Committee prefers to have supervisor rank their students.
GHa: Financial need taken into account?
GHu: It does not.

Poll to see which option is preferred. Multiple voting allowed up to 2.
a) Supervisor does the filtering, 1 application per supervisor - CR, RK, JM
b) No limit on the number of applicants, but supervisor provides ranking - JM,
   CR, SJ
c) No limit on the number of applicants, but committee can give only 1 per
   supervisor - SJ, RK
   GG abstains 
d) No restrictions - SJ, GG, RK, JM

Conclusion: We'll keep the current rules and revisit them when necessary.
We should encourage the supervisors to write different letters for different
students emphasizing their differences.

   e) Membership

      New Applications
      194 - Tammy Zidar (Guelph)
      195 - Mark Boland (U.Sask) - Faculty
      196 - Divyang Prajapati (Saint Mary's)
      197 - Love Preet (Regina)
      198 - Mukhwinder Singh (Saint Mary's)
      199 - Stjepan Oresic (Regina)
      200 - Azizah Mahmoud (Regina)
      201 - Nikhil Nikhil (Saint Mary's)
      
      Associate Member Renewals
      080 - Evan Rand (CNL)

      Associate Member Deletions
      082 - Ryan Dunlop (formerly Guelph)
      084 - Alejandra Diaz-Varela (formerly Guelph)
      145 - Yan Li (formerly McGill)
      163 - Jonas Refsgaard (formerly TRIUMF)

Others are associate membership
Motion to approve: SJ
Seconded by RK

   f) Institutional Membership
      - discussion re. Calgary

RK will write to Calgary (Rob Thompson) in February. 
GHu: Calgary now has 4-5 potential faculty members.
JM: Who are the 5 people?
GHu: ISAC, ALPHA.
JM: Ask Makoto to help?
GG: Also talked to Tim but he wanted to consult with the senior members.

RK: Any other institution?
GHu: Saskatchewan. Main person is Tom Steele.
But nothing will happen until the Department decides to refill Rob Pywell's
position, who is retiring soon.
Another possibility is York. 3 faculty members. Try Calgary first, then York.

   g) Other News
      - plan for CINP sessions at CAP Congress

This year's congress: McMaster, June 5-10.
The congress is still planned to be in-person, but depends on the Omicron
situation.
CINP is now committed: CAP office asked that if there is an in-person
component, will GHu guarantee to be there.  He has.
CINP day is June 9th, Thursday.

      - Update from Carleton/Winnipeg/UVic MRS Board

MRS board is meeting in February to coordinate national access to the resources
for all subatomic researchers across the country. 
There is definitely an interest in supporting nuclear physics since they need
to show to NSERC that they are national not just for the signers. They are
discussing to have Alberta and Montreal join board.

      - Update re. NDRIO (now called Digital Research Alliance of Canada)

Transition from Compute Canada to be completed by the end of January.
It's not clear how smooth the transition would be.

5. News from TRIUMF (Chris)

Vaccine mandate is now instituted. Today is the ultimate deadline (Jan 17) to
report their vaccination status.
There has been a couple of staff members that are affected. They will be no
longer at TRIUMF if they do not report their vaccination status.
These are technical positions that is not going to be difficult to fill but
will lose experience.

Currently under work from home directive. Asked to stay home as much as
possible.
People are on-site working on the beam lines, etc
Not clear how long this will last (up to mid-February?)

Nuclear physics EEC coming up. February 7 - 9.

A whole lot of gate reviews are happening. Will be done by the end of January.

GHu: Met with Nigel and Reiner (and IPP) last week. They requested quarterly
joint meetings with CINP, IPP and McDonald Inst.

6. Other Business

7. Approximate date of next meeting

Rough date: First week of May. Need to meet to approve financial statement
before the institutional members meeting.

8. Adjourn

Added on April 6th:
On April 5th, GHu asked the board via email to approve Ritu's travel budget of
$3k to attend a NuPECC meeting in Spain. JM, SJ, GG, MG approved the expense
via email.
