Graduate Resources for Advancing Diversity with Maryland Astronomy and Physics

The most important part of planning the Winter Workshop is to start early. Start early. If you start early, then people will plan it into their lives. If you don’t start planning early, then you will struggle to find volunteers. What does early mean? See the timeline above for a draft of when to do a particular task, but generally this means September. 

 

The workshop will likely occur during the first or second week of January. Pushing it to the third week will likely not work out because many schools are in session by January ~15. Astronomy folks might be at AAS, but in this case, be prepared to lean on the “P” in MAP. I do NOT recommend having the workshop days (post Green Bank trip) overlap with Dec 31 - Jan 1. In addition to many grad students and faculty being out of town, it will be difficult to find restaurants that are open and available to cater a group of ~20. 

 

INCLEMENT WEATHER PLAN

Surprisingly, we were snowed out for the first time in Jan 2019. We were unprepared and the Team Lead (Amy Steele) did not clearly present a plan of action because she did not know what to do. This is Amy talking about herself in the third person btw :). In the future, here is the plan for bad weather during these parts of the workshop: 

 

Fri - Sun prior to start: 

• Cancel the Green Bank trip and hold the students at the hotel. Be prepared to provide them with per diem and have them cover their own meals. 

Mon - Fri of main work week: 

• Hold the students at the hotel and set up Skype or WebEX so that EVERYONE can avoid venturing out. 

Sat - Sun of end: 

• Cancel the final presentations, but have the students finish up their slides by 5:00pm on Sunday. 

• Send the students home. 

 

Typical Team Member roles: 

Python lead

Field Trip Organizers (one per trip, ideally someone who will go on the trip)

Meals (one person to pay the check for each meal)

Pick-ups/Drivers (two drivers per transport, can also be outside volunteer)
 

Future Suggested Dates: 

2020: January 3 - 12 ,   AAS in Hawaii, Jan 4 - 8 

2021: January 1 - 10,    AAS in Arizona, Jan 3 - 7

2022: Sunday, January 2 - 9, January AAS in Utah, Jan 9 - 13 (Tricky to do the Green Bank trip, Students would have to arrive on Dec 31 and do “nothing” on New Years Eve)

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Rough Timeline:

September: open the application, decide on CSS visits and/or Open House, create and distribute flyers, find potential mentors, request Green Bank Trip 

October: prepare for CSS visits/Open House, find potential mentors, being planning the Python bootcamp

November: finish up CSS visits, application due with enough time to send out decisions before Thanksgiving break

December: finalize field trips to national labs before break

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Links:

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