Minutes of the Councilors Meeting
Michigan Chapter, Society for Neuroscience
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
Wednesday, February 4, 1998


1. President Report. Matt Galloway welcomed the members and opened the meeting. He thanked the organizers of the last Chapter Meeting for the superb job they did.

2. Treasurer Report. Keith Lookingland reported that the Chapter has a balance of $4,285.62. He reported that last year’s meeting cost $11,754.03, and estimated that this year’s cost would be between $8,000 and $9,000, if we brought in one keynote speaker. He said he was generating a new mailing list. Galloway said he contacted the Society for their Michigan list, and was told it would cost the Chapter $130. Lookingland will coordinate with Galloway to look into obtaining this list.

3. Secretary Report. Gary Dunbar presented the Minutes of the last meeting. Uhler moved, and Svensson seconded to accept the Minutes. Motion passed.

4. Awards Chair Report. Kjell Svensson reported on plans for the Awards Committee for the Chapter Meeting. It was agreed that the Preliminary Notice of the Meeting be mailed (via regular mail and e-mail) to the members in early March. Deadlines for submissions for the Duncan McCarthy Award would be April 17th and deadlines for the abstracts would be May 1st. Svensson suggested that reviewers comments be added to the review process and offered to students who desired feedback. Councilors agreed that this would be a good idea. It was also determined that each Councilor would be responsible for selecting a judge for this year’s Meeting.

5. Annual Meeting. Paul Waker reported that this year’s Meeting will be held at the McGregor Memorial Conference Center at Wayne State University. He said their should be ample parking available and that it has easy access to the major freeways. Wayne State will cater the meal, which will cost approximately $15 each. The meeting will be held on Friday, May 22. Peter Cobbett alerted members that this would be the start of the observed Memorial Day weekend. Councilors generally thought that this should not negatively affect the turnout, but that it would be advisable to end an hour earlier this year. The preliminary schedule was discussed. It was suggested that the number of talks be reduced to allow students to focus on the poster sessions in the morning, with the Award talks between 1:00 and 2:00, and the keynote address at 3:00. Possible keynote speakers to be contacted include Steve Heinemann of NIMH and Robert Sapolsky of Stanford. Lisa Baker volunteered to contact the vendors for this year’s meeting.

6. Brain Awareness Month. Councilors reported on their planned activities for the upcoming Brain Awareness Month this March. Paul Walker, Susan Koch, and Matt Galloway reported that WSU planned to continue their grade school and high school outreach program and to schedule some public talks, perhaps at local libraries in the Detroit area. Lisa Baker reported that she planned similar outreach programs and may coordinate with Kalpana Merchant at PNU on some activities for this year and/or next. Gary Dunbar reported that he will continue the outreach and have an open-house at the CMU lab, including a public talk. Peter Cobbett indicated that schools in the Lansing area seemed less receptive to the outreach program, but he liked the idea of scheduling talks at local libraries. Mike Uhler indicated that UM faculty and students would continue their efforts again this year.

7. New Business. Galloway indicated that we need to consider candidates for this year’s election of President-Elect and Treasurer. He volunteered to handle the nominations. Cobbett proposed that CMU and WMU be granted full-member status into the Chapter. Baker will look into the By-Law changes needed to accomplish this.

Meeting adjourned.