Minutes of the General USUCGER Meeting held at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA, in conjunction with the Annual ASCE/G-I Conference on Monday, June 11, 2001 _________________________________________ USUCGER Board Members Present: Paul Mayne, Past-President Deborah Goodings, President Kyle Rollins, Treasurer Charles Shackelford Mehmet Tumay _________________________________________ Meeting commenced at 7:40 PM. --------------------------------------------------------------- 1.Paul Mayne opened the meeting at 7:40 PM. Paul noted that three action items identified at the last general USUCGER meeting held at GeoDenver in August of 2000 had been completed; viz., (1) the generation of the USUCGER postcard, (2) the merging of the web site at Louisiana State University with the web site at the University of California-Davis, and (3) the sponsorship of the Ph.D. dissertation presentations at the annual TRB meeting in January 2001 in Washington, D. C. Paul also noted that there are approximately 42 geotechnical research programs at U. S. universities that still are not USUCGER members. --------------------------------------------------------------- 2.An award for service was presented to Cliff Astill who is the Geoenvironmental and Hazards Mitigation program director at the NSF. Dr. Richard Fragaszy, Dr. Astill's colleague at NSF accepted the award for Dr. Astill who was not able to attend due to health problems. --------------------------------------------------------------- 3.Deborah Goodings assumed duties as the new USUCGER President from Paul Mayne. However, announcement of the new Board membership was postponed because the results of the general election were not known. Deborah also noted that the certificates acknowledging service to USUCGER were presented to outgoing USCGER Board members Paul Mayne, Mehmet Tumay, and Bill Kovacs. Paul will remain on the Board as the Past President. --------------------------------------------------------------- 4.Dr. Rick Fragaszy gave an overview of the research funding levels and opportunities at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He noted that a 5 % decrease is expected for the FY02 (10/01/01 - 09/30/02) budget for the Civil and Mechanical Systems (CMS) program at NSF, but that increases in CMS budgets are expected for FY03 and FY04. Rick noted priority-funding opportunities in: Sensors and instrumentation, especially non-intrusive subsurface techniques, such as geophysical techniques Remote sensing Wireless and micro instrumentation (NEES project) In the earthquake and hazards mitigation area, increased funding is expected for earthquake hazards over the next few years. In the environmental area, funding emphasis is being placed on the interaction between the built and human environments and for global environmental problems. As such funding typically is not exclusively within the domain of geotechnical engineering, geotechnical investigators can enhance their opportunities for funding by partnering with other investigators who are more in the mainstream of these areas. Rick noted that emphasis at NSF is being placed on collaboration between industry and universities, especially for industry participating as a "true partner" in university research. An example of such partnership is by including members of industry on an advisory committee for a research project. Another current emphasis at NSF is larger and longer duration awards ($200K - $400K/yr) involving multiple investigators (e.g., 3-5) from different disciplines. Other program opportunities identified by Rick include: Supplementing the budgets of existing grants Including undergraduate students in research activities, particularly to establish a pool of future graduate students Incorporating researchers (faculty) from non-Ph.D. granting schools through the ROA (Research Opportunity Awards) program (money goes to the funding institution) Submitting collaborative proposals Establishing REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) Sites (does not require an existing NSF project, and no money for this program comes from CMS) Participating in the RET (Research Experience for Teachers) program, which typically involves about $10,000 to support a teacher ($7,000 for salary, $3,000 for M&S) doing research at the host institution during a summer (this opportunity is underutilized and can be requested at any time) Encouraging students to apply for doctoral fellowship applications during the senior year of college or the first year of graduate school Finally, Rick noted that greater emphasis in proposals should be placed on review criterion No. 2 that pertains to the broader impacts of the research, including technology transfer to industry. --------------------------------------------------------------- 5.Kyle Rollins, USUCGER treasurer, noted that the current budget is about $8,300. --------------------------------------------------------------- 6.Deborah Goodings briefly summarized the two USUCGER awards, the Research Initiation Award (to be given every other year, the first one presented in 2000 at GeoDenver), and the Outstanding Service Award. Deborah also noted USUCGER efforts to nominate members for the National Medal of Science, the ASCE OPAL, and the Civil Engineer of the Year Awards. --------------------------------------------------------------- 7.Deborah Goodings noted that the "New Ph.D." session held at TRB was well received, with about 50 attendees and 18 presentations. Provided sufficient funds are available, another such session will be planned for the next TRB meeting. --------------------------------------------------------------- 8.Deborah Goodings noted that USUCGER will undertake to plan another member workshop for 2003, the funding for which will come from the collection of membership dues and the writing of a proposal to NSF. --------------------------------------------------------------- 9.Some discussion ensued regarding the continued efforts to update and upgrade the USUCGER web site. There was also some discussion regarding monitoring use of the USUCGER email messages (beyond the present practice of discouraging commercial announcements, and non-academic job advertising; the consensus was that there will be no new efforts to censor email traffic. --------------------------------------------------------------- 10.Jean Louis Briaud (TAMU) floated two proposals for USUCGER to consider: (1) creation of a section on the existing USUCGER website giving links to various potential funding sources and their programs, in recognition of the need to look beyond the usual federal and state agencies, and beyond traditional applications of geotechnology; and (2) beginning to place more effort in geotechnical education. The meeting came to a close at 8:40 PM.