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2008 Committee on Committees Report

The Committee on Committees (CoC) is composed of representatives elected by the 12 APS Section Steering Committees and two Councilors who serve as Chair and In-coming Chair.  Its primary duty is to nominate individuals to serve on APS standing committees and on outside bodies where the APS is represented.  CoC members are dedicated to the concept that their role is twofold: to identify and promote members of their section who might serve on committees, but then to set aside sectional affiliations to nominate the best-qualified individuals to serve the Society.  CoC members also promote diversity and the involvement of young APS members in the committee structure.  A recurring problem is that one section (Comparative & Evolutionary) has not sent a representative to the CoC meetings in April in the past several years. 

Application and Selection Process:  An APS member interested in serving on a committee must self-nominate by completing a Candidate Information Form indicating prior activities relevant to the committee on which he/she wishes to serve, a statement of interest, information about prior APS service, citations to two recent publications, a statement of academic interests, and contact information of their endorser.  A single Endorsement Form is completed by someone who knows the candidate and comments on their ability to carry out committee responsibilities.  Both forms are available on the APS website under “committees” along with a listing of committee vacancies for the upcoming year and a link to the description of committee member responsibilities for most of the Society’s standing committees.  In addition to CoC members, the committee Chair also reviews the slate of nominees for that committee.  At their meeting at Experimental Biology (EB), the CoC develops their recommendation for each committee vacancy, along with alternates, and submits this for approval by Council.  New in 2008, Council considered the CoC recommendations at their meeting on the last day of EB rather than delaying the vote until the summer Council meeting.  Approved nominees will begin their term of appointment in January 2009. CoC members are instructed to only consider those applications containing both the Candidate Information Form and Endorsement Form.  In addition, they are asked to pay attention to the applicant’s response to the query on the Candidate Form as to whether they have attended an EB meeting within the last three years.  This is particularly important for those committees which have a face-to-face meeting at EB. 

Characteristics of the 2007 Applicant Pool: The CoC was pleased with the pool of applications for committee vacancies this year.  The number of applicants was down slightly from last year but a significant increase over 2006 (see Table 1).  Four of the 12 Sections showed an increase in the number of members who applied for committee vacancies.  Table 2 shows other characteristics of the applicant pool. Note that the percentage of the applicants that are under the age of 45 or women greatly exceeded their respective representation of the membership of the APS.  Also, a large number of applications were from pre-doctoral (10) and postdoctoral trainees (8).  The number of completed applications for each APS standing committee varied from 0 (Daggs and Senior Physiology Committees) to 22 (Education Committee).  Six of the 13 APS standing committees with vacancies had nine or more applicants.

Results from 2008 Coc Meeting and Council Deliberations: During deliberations at their meeting on April 5, CoC members sought to instill diversity in the committee structure on the basis of sectional affiliation, geography, gender, and seniority from the qualified group of applicants. The Chair of the CoC brought a slate of nominees to the APS Council for further discussion at their meeting on April 9. Council approved 53 APS members to serve on committees beginning January 1, 2009.  Table 1 and Table 2 show the section affiliation and other characteristics of these individuals, respectively.  The CoC is particularly pleased with the approval by Council to increase the number of trainees participating as members of APS standing committees.    Both the Awards and Conference Committees will now have a trainee member, Communications, Education, Membership, and Women in Physiology Committees will each have two trainee members.  Also, Council accepted the recommendation of CoC to increase by one the number of regular members on Conference, International Physiology, and Women in Physiology Committees. 

Table 3 shows the section affiliation of the APS Standing Committee members in 2007 and 2008 and the composition for 2009 based on the CoC and Council deliberations.  Table 4 shows the composition of the committees in terms of representation by members that are under the age of 45, women, residing outside of the US, employed in Industry, and trainees.  The Tables also compare the relative proportions of these groups on committees and within the entire APS membership.

In 2009 there will be 143 APS members serving on APS standing committees.  In addition, the Committee on Committees, Joint Program, Liaison with Industry, Section Advisory, and Trainee Advisory Committees each have a representative from the 12 APS Sections, allowing for participation of 60 additional APS members in committee activities.  Also, each of the sections has a Steering Committee.  Thus, there are many opportunities for APS members to become actively engaged in helping the Society achieve the goals it has set forth in its strategic plan.

Planning for 2009

The CoC hopes that many APS members will consider serving the Society as a member of one of its standing committees.  Applications can be submitted via the APS website, and are due by January 15, 2009. Those candidates who were not selected to serve on a committee this year are encouraged to re-submit their credentials for consideration for the same or another committee in the next cycle. An individual who has been selected as an alternate for a committee will be re-considered next year without re-nomination.

Table 1.  Section Affiliations of Completed Nomination Packets and New Appointees

Table 2:  Other Characteristics of the Applicant Pool and New Appointees

* This number refers to student members.  Some post-doctoral trainees are regular members of APS.

Table 3: Section Affiliation of APS Standing Committee Members (not including Committee on Committees, Liaison with Industry Committee, Section Advisory Committee, and Trainee Advisory Committee)

Table 4:  Other Characteristics of APS Standing Committee Members (not including Committee on Committees, Liaison with Industry Committee, Section Advisory Committee, and Trainee Advisory Committee)

* This number refers to student members.  Some postdoctoral trainees are regular members of APS.