Dear Research Scholars,

Greetings from your RS liaison again.  Hope you all all are enjoying
these last, long days of summer.

In anticipation of our luncheon this Wednesday, I wanted to send out a
note raising some issues about the Research Scholars program and how
we and CSW might enhance it. These issues arose both in the
questionnaires that you all filled out -- we had a great response
rate, thanks to all -- and in my meeting with Kathleen and April on
Aug 11.  We can discuss some of these things briefly at the lunch.  We
can continue those discussions on the listserv too.  Here's how the
listserv works:  If you want to send out a note to the entire group of
research scholars, all you need to do is send an email to:

[log in to unmask]

The only people who receive these e-mails are your fellow Research
Scholars.  No CSW staff are privy to these e-mail communications.

To those of you who can't make it to the lunch:  please feel free to
share your thoughts via the listserv prior to Wednesday, and we can
take your ideas with us to the lunch.

One of the things I took away from the questionnaires is that there
are two main camps among the Research Scholars:

** those who are happy with things as they currently exist (one common
refrain was a great appreciation for the e-mail account, library
access, and institutional affiliation that RS status confers)...

** and those who want to see more community and opportunities for
connection among other Research Scholars and the broader UCLA community.

So one of the key issues at hand, then, seems to be:  how can we
promote more connections among the Research Scholars?  I should
emphasize -- as Kathleen and April emphasized at my meeting with them
-- your participation in any/all of these activities is totally up to
you.  None of this should feel compulsory.  The RS program exists to
help you, as independent scholars, in whatever way best suits you --
whether it's heavy or light attendance at these things.  For those who
DO want more connection, some different possible models emerged in the
questionnaires and in my discussion with Kathleen and April.  Here are
a few:

- we hold an informal monthly coffee on the first [fill in the day] of
every month, at 10 am.  We could have access to a conference room in
Rolfe Hall for this.  [I think we tried this last year... was there a
decent response to this?] We might explore the possibility of having a
few of these as "kid friendly."

- we hold "Satellite coffees" in different areas around L.A. --
drawing together Research Scholars who live near each other who want
to avoid the schlep to UCLA.  (like myself -- I live in Altadena...
anyone near here??)  These could also be kid friendly, very informal,
at a Starbucks, etc.

- we establish a "home base" in that Rolfe Hall conference room, which
would be set aside for the RS one or two times per month, for informal
drop ins.  We'd have to set up a regular day/time for this and make
sure it gets on the conference room schedule.

- for the brown bags, make sure we vary the weekday these are
scheduled, to allow for people's various schedules.

Some other suggestions that came up in the questionnaires:

- have one brown bag that would be more of a group discussion about
research methods, disciplinary approaches, questions arising in our
various projects.  So instead of one person presenting, make this one
more of a "bull session" about our various work-in-progress.

- some RS expressed a need for more child care assistance.  We might
discuss this further at the luncheon.

- someone suggested that the RS have their own dedicated space on
campus, where we could drop in at any time.  I loved this idea!
According to Kathleen, this would be impossible -- hence, the
suggestion that we reserve space in Rolfe once/twice a month for this
same purpose.  It's obviously not as flexible, but might help a little
in this regard.

- more grant support for research, travel to conferences, etc. And
help from the CSW in seeking out other funding sources.


I'll stop here.  There were a lot of other suggestions on the
questionnaires, which I'll try to share on Wednesday.  But for now,
these were some of the key things that came up, particularly with
regards to this issue of how to forge more opportunities for connection.

All of this is really up to us -- in terms of whether people want to
do this, and how to make it happen.  The CSW will facilitate providing
space to the extent that they can.  But organizing these has to be a
"grassroots" endeavor that comes from the Research Scholars
themselves.  (As your liaison, my duty is not to organize this stuff,
but rather to facilitate communication between ourselves and the CSW
staff... ).   This is where the listserv comes in -- it's a great way
for all of us to communicate amongst ourselves.  We can continue this
discussion on Wednesday, which will be a good chance to see if we can
put any of these ideas into a concrete plan.

One last thing -- please be thinking about the brown bag seminar.  If
you would like to present, you can let me know at the luncheon.  If
you can't make it to the luncheon and you have ideas for the brown
bags or would like to present, please drop me an e-mail soon.

I look forward to seeing you this Wednesday.

best,
Becky