Continuing Education Committee Annual Report of Activity 2008-2009

1. In late 2008, the committee reviewed several proposals for workshops to be held at the 2009 Toronto meeting. The two proposals for JANA and Twinning workshops were found to be well conceived, timely, and prepared in accordance with ACA guidelines. Recommendations to proceed with these workshops were passed on to council, and the workshops have now taken place and appeared to have been successful. An additional application on Small Angle Scattering was received late and was found to be incomplete in that some required information was lacking, although the topic itself was deemed to be of sufficient interest as to warrant a workshop. The committee’s recommendation in this case was to defer this workshop, along with a suggestion that the applicants consider putting together a more complete application and submit it according to schedule for evaluation at a future meeting.

2. In January of 2009, William Furey assumed the role of acting chair of the committee as Chris Cahill, the official chair for this year, was on sabbatical and was unsure of his ability to commit the appropriate time to chairmanship responsibilities during the period.

3. In April of 2009, the committee received 151 travel grant applications for the Toronto ACA meeting. General guidelines for scoring the applications were established, and the applications were separated into three categories. There were 29 Materials and Methods, 34 Small Molecule, and 88 Macromolecular applications that were reviewed and ranked. Each application was reviewed by at least two committee members, and the final scores were averaged. The committee is grateful to ACA council for obtaining substantial funding for the travel awards, such that about half of the applicants received an award despite being in a year with a very large number of applications received.

4. The committee was charged with the task of coming up with a set of requirements and guidelines for applications/proposals to hold ACA sponsored Summer Schools. Traditionally two schools were offered each summer, one on small molecule crystallography and the other on macromolecular crystallography, although other topics are also open for consideration. This work is in progress, and the results are expected to be available in the near future, but certainly in time for a fresh call for proposals appropriate for the 2012 small molecule and 2010 macromolecule summer school, if applicable. The committee was surprised to hear that there was no macromolecular summer school this year, and would have liked to have been informed of this at an earlier stage.

5. Of note, the CEC was supportive of brining a Brazilian student attendee at the 2009 small molecule summer school to the Toronto meeting. Lorraine Malaspina will present a talk at the Educational Outreach in Crystallography session describing her experiences at the course. Her input should help inspire preparation of guidelines mentioned in item 4.

6. For the coming year: The US National Committee on Crystallography (USNC/Cr) intends to submit an application for an educational workshop at the 2010 Chicago ACA Meeting. This will target High School teachers and ideally provide training/ideas for incorporation of crystallographic principles into their curricula. The CEC looks forward to this application as well as to any opportunities to participate if appropriate.

7. Also of note: The USNC/Cr has declared its desire to begin work on an updated policy document (vs. the 2005 version). The CEC is willing and able to participate in this activity as well.

Submitted by William Furey,

Acting Chair of the Continuing Education Committee