The EPO Standing Committee met virtually on March 11, 14, and 18, 2022. The attendees for part or all of the meeting included: Committee Members: Mike Brudzinski (chair), Tadesse Alemu, Wesley Brown, Jascha Polet, German Prieto, Dayanthie Weeraratne
IRIS Board of Directors liaison: Jackie Caplan-Auerbach
IRIS staff and consultants: John Taber, Wendy Bohon, Perle Dorr, Tammy Bravo, Michael Hubenthal, Jenda Johnson, Danielle Sumy and Mladen Dordevic, Bob Woodward
The meeting, which was held as separate sessions over 3 days, began with a review of the minutes and action items from the previous meeting, followed by a discussion with IRIS President Bob Woodward about the status of merger planning. He also discussed the Board guidance to the Standing Committees and then the committee charge was briefly reviewed. This was followed by a presentation and discussion on EPO program highlights over the past 6 months and the staff priorities for the next 6 months, including planning for the 2022 SAGE/GAGE workshop, for which IRIS is the lead organizer. An overview was then presented on the status of the 4 Simpson Fund projects which were approved for funding by the IRIS Board in late 2021. The status and next steps for implementation of the IRIS anti-racism plan was then discussed. This was followed by a discussion of the best way to prioritize use of shipping and rental support funds for MSI requests for equipment as part of implementation of IGUANA modules at their institutions. There was then a discussion about the use of alt metrics to help quantify program impact. The final discussion of the session centered on potential innovations in IRIS online educational products, tools, and workshops/professional development.
There were two topics in the 2nd session. The first was an update and discussion regarding UNAVCO ECE activities. This was followed by a discussion of the planned review of IRIS EPO/UNAVCO ECE later in 2022. Much of the discussion focused on evaluation and how to best present evidence of impact to NSF.
The 3rd session began with a review of EPO Program priorities for the remainder of the NSF SAGE award, followed by discussion of the priorities and corresponding evaluations. This was followed by a presentation and discussion about the proposed NSF SAGE Y5 EPO budget and priorities for spending of any Y4 carryover. Then there was a discussion of program opportunities for innovation during the 2-year extension of the NSF SAGE II award. This was followed by an executive session. The final discussions of the meeting centered around various aspects of planning for merged facility governance, including planning joint meetings of the ECE and EPO advisory committees.
