DRAFT Minutes
2019 CAP Congress DNP Annual Business Meeting Minutes
The meeting was called to order at Simon Fraser University by DNP Chair Gerald
Gwinner (GG) circa 12:30 on Monday, 3 June 2019. Thirty two DNP members were
present.
Secretary-Treasurer Barry Davids (BD) moved that we approve the agenda, the
motion was seconded by Past Chair Reiner Kruecken, and in the absence of
objections or additions the agenda was adopted. The Chair pointed out that the
minutes of the 2018 business meeting could be found on the DNP website at
http://dnp.phys.uregina.ca/content/2018-annual-business-meeting. Vice Chair
Corina Andreoiu (CA) moved that the minutes of the 2018 meeting be approved; BD
seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously. GG then introduced the
2017-2019 CAP DNP Executive Committee:
Gerald Gwinner, Manitoba, Chair
Corina Andreoiu, Simon Fraser, Vice Chair
Reiner Kruecken, TRIUMF & UBC, Past Chair
Barry Davids, TRIUMF, Secretary-Treasurer
BD presented a financial and membership report which is summarized below.
In the year starting Jan 1st, 2018, we began with a bank balance of $3750 and
ran an operating deficit of $1764, leaving a year-end balance of $1986. Our
operating expenses during 2018 consisted of $1364 to support DNP-suggested 2018
CAP Congress plenary speaker E. Cornell, $1000 for the 2016-17 DNP thesis prize,
$500 paid to the University of Regina for website hosting and programming
services, $250 for student prizes at the 2019 Winter Nuclear and Particle
Physics Conference (WNPPC), and $400 for student prizes at the 2018 CAP
Congress. Partially offsetting these expenditures of $3514 were revenues of
$1750 in membership fees. Although we were promised monthly accounting
statements starting in July 2016, they have not been forthcoming. The statement
received by BD prior to the business meeting was incomplete. A corrected
statement was received after the business meeting and these minutes reflect the
updated figures.
As of March 24th, 2019 the DNP had 121 full members, 6 college and secondary
school teacher members, and 186 student members, for a total of 307 members.
This represents a 4% decrease from 2017’s 119 full members and 200 student
members. There are currently 56 graduate student members and 130 undergraduate
members. Total membership has declined 8% from the 2017 peak that was driven by
student recruitment efforts, but the number of full members has been rather
constant. With respect to last year, there was a 15% increase in graduate
student members and the decline in student members is due to lapsing
undergraduate memberships.
Annual membership dues increased from $10 to $15 in 2016. If our full (paid)
membership numbers remain roughly constant as they have recently and dues remain
at the current level, we can expect revenues of ~$1800 per year. With the usual
annual expenditures of $1000 for the DNP thesis prize, $300 for CAP Congress
student prizes, $250 for WNPPC student prizes, and an average of $250 to support
Congress registration fees and travel for DNP-invited speakers, we can balance
our budgets. Since the thesis prize is not awarded every year and we don’t
always support invited speakers at this level, this is not a financially risky
approach. We have maintained the ~$2k bank balance we agreed in 2016 would be
appropriate.
As this is an odd-numbered year, an election of a Vice Chair and
Secretary-Treasurer to serve 2 year terms during the 2019-2021 period was
required. The new Vice Chair will succeed the Chair in 2021. Nominations were
solicited by BD via an email sent by the CAP on February 15th, 2019 with a due
date of April 20th. One nomination for Vice Chair and one for
Secretary-Treasurer were received. Michael Gericke (Manitoba) and Barry Davids
(TRIUMF) were therefore elected Vice Chair and Secretary-Treasurer,
respectively, by acclamation. The service of departing Chair GG and Past Chair
Reiner Kruecken was acknowledged by the assembled members with applause.
The 2019-2021 CAP DNP Executive Committee will be as follows.
Corina Andreoiu, Simon Fraser, Chair
Michael Gericke, Manitoba, Vice Chair
Gerald Gwinner, Manitoba, Past Chair
Barry Davids, TRIUMF, Secretary-Treasurer
In discussing the activities of the Division, the Chair mentioned that we
haven’t supported any conferences since 2016 due to financial limitations and
the CINP does this now. GG summarized the Division’s participation at the 2019
Congress as follows. We had 22 students enter the prize competition for best
oral presentation; no poster competition was held. This is the largest number of
student competitors from any division. GG said that we didn’t provide financial
support to any invited DNP speakers this year but that it was a blockbuster
meeting by our usual standards, presumably due to TRIUMF’s close proximity. The
DNP had 58 talks in this year’s Congress, nearly twice as many as the 31 given in
Halifax in 2018. Of the 58 talks, 45 were contributed. In addition, there were
10 invited talks during the John D’Auria memorial symposium. The talks were
spread over 12 DNP sessions, of which 5 were joint with other divisions and 7
were solo. GG thanked CA, Pascal Reiter, and Thomas Brunner, who served as judges
in the student competition. The Chair noted that there were fewer parallel session
slots this year than in the past, which required undesirable scheduling, e.g.,
simultaneous nuclear structure and astrophysics parallel sessions. The program
committee was exploring the effect of the Tuesday Symposia as a way of driving
increased attention in some areas. DNP’s entry was the D’Auria memorial
symposium. This experimental format may or may not persist but the scheduling
pressure on the DNP is not expected to continue. If the Program Committee
decides to pursue it this fall, a call would go out to the membership to propose
symposium topics.
DNP Chair GG next described the CAP Council meetings he had attended in October
2018 in Ottawa and June 2019 in Burnaby, which included discussions of the CAP
website transition and the plan to use the DNP’s website as a test case for
other divisions. Previous DNP Chair and continuing DNP webmaster Zisis
Papandreou is meeting with the CAP for this purpose. The existing Drupal-based
web hosting at Regina has become time-consuming. If additional hosting services
are required we may need to pay for them. Iris Dillmann mentioned that the CINP
just moved its website to TRIUMF. Other topics discussed at the executive
committee meetings included the push to revitalize and increase the size of CAP,
with the pool of industrial physicists mentioned as potential recruits. Other
divisions reported that there is some lack of interest among young faculty
members and a reluctance to join has been noted. This has not been observed in
the DNP, in which it is believed the whole field is adequately represented.
GG reported on the 2018–2019 DNP Thesis Prize competition. The application
procedures are explained on the webpage
http://dnp.phys.uregina.ca/content/how-apply-next-dnp-thesis-competition . There
were only two entries this year. As there were fewer than the minimum required 3
entries, the chief judge CA confirmed that a competition was not held this year
and the two submitted theses will be entered into the next competition. GG
opined that the prize will likely be awarded only biannually, due to the
number of entrants.
During the discussion of other business not explicitly included on the agenda,
the Chair raised the issue of ambiguous language regarding financial support for
the DNP Thesis Prize winner to give a seminar at TRIUMF and a talk at the CAP
Congress. TRIUMF’s Marcello Pavan expressed the view that the funding obligations of
each institution were not clearly identified. GG wondered if the DNP shouldn’t pay for the
Congress trip. BD pointed out that in the past, the DNP has not routinely
offered travel expenses to the winner for either of these trips, whereas TRIUMF
routinely supports the travel costs of its seminar and colloquium speakers.
CINP Treasurer Iris Dillmann mentioned that the CINP has funds available and BD
suggested that the Chair write to the CINP to make a standing request that it
support the travel of future DNP Thesis Prize winners to the CAP Congress.
All business having been discussed, BD moved to adjourn the meeting circa 13:30.