The Section Advisory Committee (SAC) has held two meetings in the past year in which all 12 sections were represented. Celia Sladek chaired the first meeting that was held in Bethesda in December. A major objective of this meeting was to update section chairs on the procedures to be used for programming at the 2005 International Union of Physiological Sciences meeting, to be held in conjunction with Experimental Biology (EB) Meeting in San Diego, CA. Following this meeting, section Chairs met as the Nominating Committee to select candidates for President-elect and Council.
Susan M. Barman assumed the role of SAC Chair on January 1, 2003. SAC met separately and in joint-session with Council at EB 2003 in San Diego. A synopsis of SAC's major activities is reported here.
SAC Responsibilities
According to the APS Bylaws, one of the duties of SAC is to interact with the Long-Range Planning Committee (LRPC). In an effort to strengthen the relationship between the two committees, SAC has proposed that APS Council designate a LRPC member to serve as a liaison to SAC and vice versa. This change should promote more effective information transfer regarding future plans that impact on the membership. It is expected that the LRPC member would be able to directly inform SAC of how specific strategic plan initiatives are progressing, and the SAC member would be able to inform the LRPC of any concerns from the sections that relate to the ongoing and planned activities of the Society.
In accordance with the Section Operating Procedures, most of the sections have a journal representative on their steering committee. While in some cases this has been useful, in other cases the addition of this representative to the steering committee has not had any obvious benefit to the functions of the section. SAC members discussed ways in which the relationship between Section Steering Committees and Publications could be strengthened. One, the journals could advertise symposia or conferences of interest to the section by including �banners� when one accesses the journal online. Two, the journal representative could take a more active role in programming for the section. If the journal representative identifies a topic that seems to attract a lot of manuscript submissions, they might organize a Featured Topic or Symposia that highlights the topic. Potentially, this topic could be a focus of a later issue of the journal.
All SAC members recently received a copy of the Handbook for Sections of the American Physiological Society. They have been advised to check the "Statement of Organization and Procedures" for their particular section and to make certain it is current. In some cases, these documents have not been updated in over 10 years.
Annual Section Reports
During the SAC meeting, each section Chair was asked to report what they considered to be their section's biggest success and failure in the past year. Among the positive outcomes: several sections have been able to obtain financial support for their activities and awards, and others have seen an increase in the number of applications by qualified individuals for their awards. Interestingly, the opposite was expressed by other sections. Specifically, there was a desire (but limited success at best) in getting support from individuals, businesses, or drug firms, etc to help support section activities and awards. Also, some sections are concerned by the fact that only trainee level individuals apply for applying for the Society-sponsored Young Investigator Awards. Another area that is a recurring concern for many sections is the inability to get members of their section to be willing to serve on APS committees or to submit ideas for programming at EB.
Section Awards
In the past two years, there has been an attempt to prevent an individual from receiving more than one abstract-based APS award for attendance at EB meetings. For EB 2003, six applicants received more than one award. Although this is an improvement from two years ago, there is still a need to work on this plan which was proposed in an effort to spread the numerous awards available to as many student/fellows as possible. The ability to prevent multiple awards going to the same individual is dependent on all sections following a particular schedule for selecting their award recipients. There was agreement at our meeting that the schedule used for EB 2003 should be used again in 2004 in hopes that continuity in the plan will make compliance more feasible.
At the SAC meeting, several section Chairs voiced a concern about the confusion resulting from multiple awards being termed "Young Investigator Award." Thus, SAC made a proposal to Council to change the name of the Society-sponsored Young Investigator Award to the Research Recognition Award. APS Council unanimously approved this request. Arrangements will be made to change the information on the APS Award pages so this will become effective for EB 2004.
Several SAC members reported that no applications were received for their section New Investigator Award. This award recognizes outstanding independent investigators in the early stages of their career who have made meritorious contributions to the area represented by the APS section to which they apply. In part, the lack of applications might have been due to the late notice regarding the availability of the award. Efforts will be made to draw awareness of this opportunity for EB 2004.
Trainee Members of Section Steering Committees
All section Chairs have complied with the request to have a trainee member (student or postdoctoral fellow) serve on their section steering committee. In accordance with the 2000 APS Strategic Plan, these 12 individuals will comprise a new Trainee Advisory Committee, whose purpose will be to facilitate the role of the Society in addressing needs of the young membership. Most sections have included one of the student/postdoctoral section award winners to serve in this capacity for a two to three year appointment. Some sections have also allowed this individual to organize a Featured Topic Session during their last year on the committee.
Renaming of sections
Gastrointestinal Physiology Section: This section has had to compete with the American Gastroenterological Association and American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases for submission of abstracts as meeting times for EB and these organizations are approximately one month apart. This situation has led to a decline in EB attendance by investigators who work in the fields of gastrointestinal and liver physiology and pathophysiology. In an effort to reverse this trend, members of the GI Section voted in favor of a proposal to change their name to Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology Section. Council subsequently approved this name change.
Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology Section: Many Comparative Section members recently participated in a straw poll to re-examine the image and name of the section. The outcome was a strong sentiment to include the words "Integrative" and "Evolutionary" in their section name in an effort to more accurately describe the group interest. Section members voted in favor of a plan to change the name to "Comparative, Integrative, and Evolutionary Physiology." At the Spring Council meeting, a modification of the proposal was recommended. Specifically, Council suggested that the section be re-named "Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology" in an effort to better represent the scope of the section, to broaden its appeal, and to encourage comparative scientists who are not presently APS members to join the Society and become involved in the section's activities. The Comparative Section Steering Committee will continue to discuss the matter with their membership before making a final decision regarding the proposed name change.
Proposal to revise the format of Poster Sessions at EB Meetings
In his address at EB 2003, NIH Director Adam Zerhouni noted the steps that NIH has taken to advance biomedical sciences, and he challenged the research community to become a proactive partner in this effort. Specifically, he pointed out that two of the greatest challenges that we face are to break down the existing barriers that inhibit cross fertilization between disciplines and to actively foster the next generation of biomedical researchers. EB meetings were initially designed to foster interdisciplinary interactions and nurture young scientists. However, the current format for poster sessions fails to meet this challenge. Specifically, since each Society independently arranges their posters, it is often done in a manner that fails to promote interactions of scientists with different backgrounds. SAC has requested that Council consider a plan to re-organize poster sessions in the following manner. Posters from abstracts submitted to different Societies would first be grouped by a general topic (e.g., cardiovascular, neuroscience, endocrinology), but within each category they would remain grouped by the Society. For instance, cardiovascular biology posters might be in row A and start with APS posters followed by ASPET posters, etc. Major benefits of this new format are that it would: 1) help break down barriers that inhibit cross fertilization between disciplines, 2) promote interdisciplinary research, and 3) address some of the concerns raised by several young physiologists that the current format of EB meetings is not conducive to gaining new insight. Implementing this new format will require 1) that all participating Societies buy into the plan, 2) a small group of individuals to coordinate the project, and 3) development of a method to evaluate the success/failure of the new format.
Getting Involved in APS Section Activities
APS members are encouraged to become active participants in their Section activities. Each APS member can select one primary affiliation and as many secondary affiliations as fit their interests. For those who are interested in becoming more involved in sectional activities, you can contact SAC members. For further information on the 12 Sections, go to http://www.the-aps.org/sections/.
Susan M. Barman, Chair
Council Actions