Minutes of the Councilors Meeting
Michigan Chapter, Society for Neuroscience
Michigan State University, East Lansing
Thursday 22 February 2001


Present: Amy Goodwin, Peter Cobbett, Sean Donevan, Gary Dunbar, Verne Hulce, Keith Lookingland, Audrey Seasholtz, Yvonne Will-Murphy

Absent: Amy Goodwin, Kristi Haik-Creuger, Kalpana Merchant, Lisa Baker, Donald Kuhn, Paul Walker, Laura Smale

1. Brief reports from Lookingland (Treasurer) and Dunbar (President). These reports lead to some discussion on the state of the MISFN website and the MISFN finances (current balance at about $12,000 with all incoming/outgoing from the 2000 annual meeting complete).

2. Plans for Annual Meeting
Cobbett & Lookingland, meeting co-organizers, presented their plans for the Annual Meeting of MISFN to be held 5/24/2001 at the Student Union Building at Michigan State University. They confirmed dates for submission of abstracts for posters and poster competitions (5/11/00) and for submission of materials for the student Duncan McCarthy and Chapter Awards (4/27/00). Cobbett & Lookingland confirmed the plan for a mini-symposium at the Annual Meeting with two or three speakers (to take the place of a presentation by a single speaker) and presented a schedule for the meeting.The speakers are Bruce McEwen ( Rockefeller) and Huda Akil (Michigan) and (hopefully) Ned Kalin (Wisconsin) with a general theme of stress.Considerable discussion followed.  As in 2000, the symposium will be held in the morning session and the poster session will be moved to the afternoon session.  The business meeting will be held at lunch and the Duncan McCarthy and Montford Piercey Award (aka the Chapter Award) recipients will make their presentations in the afternoon session. This schedule is intended make the whole day more attractive to all attendees (and reduce the loss of attendees after lunch). It is also intended to increase the interaction between the featured speakers and attendees and between attendees and the vendors.
It was confirmed that most of the details concerning the 2001 Annual Meeting will be posted to the Chapter website during March.  Letters giving information on the Annual Meeting to MISFN members will also be mailed in March.

3. Plans for Brain Awareness Week.
Brief outlines of institutional activities for this year’s BAW activities were given.  It was confirmed that there will be a posterboard for each institution to illustrate its BAW activities.

4.  Student Travel Award.
Dunbar reminded Council of the “new” travel awards to be given by the SFN to graduate students attending the annual SFN meeting.These are competitive awards requiring selection of an appropriate student within MISFN (by late May for the 2001 award) who will be nominated to SFN to receive the award. Each student entering the competition must submit an abstract for the (current year’s) annual SFN meeting and letters of recommendation from research advisors and faculty.  It was agreed that this Travel Award will be brought to the attention of MISFN members through the Chapter website and that entries must be submitted by 5/15/2000 (?) to Walker who will coordinate selection of a Michigan nominee to SFN.

5.  Miscellaneous Items.
Dunbar reminded Council that Council elections will occur at the Annual Meeting.  Nominees for the open positions must be found!!  Open positions are: Treasurer, Secretary, Awards Chair, MSU Councilor (?), UM Councilor, Pfizer Councilor, Student Councilor, Meeting Organizer (University of Michigan).

6.  Meeting Adjournment.