2008 election
Please, find below the statements from the council chair candidates:
Hank Crawford
Hank Crawfod is from Space Sciences Laboratory University of California, Berkeley CA 94720
I would like to continue to serve as Chair of the STAR council to provide continuity through a spokesperson change and to complete the work begun in my first term. I believe that the Council will have to take a more active role in STAR operations, and we have begun this process with the adoption of detector subsystems by participating institutions. We are desperately short of experts for many subsystems and we need the Council members to take active roles in supporting the experiment. I am also very interested in completing the publication policy revisions undertaken by the Publications Committee. The institution review process should be tuned to concentrate on content rather than editorial issues, and the supporting document requirements should be completed to provide a clear, reproducible, paper trail. I believe we have an excellent future in forward and 4pi physics and I am optimistic that we will be able to continue our path of improving our physics capabilities with upgrades to the basic detector. I look forward working with our new Spokesperson as Council Chair as STAR continues its excellent work in probing the nature of the sQGP and discovering the underlying structures responsible for the spin of the proton.
Jim Sowinski
James Sowinski is from Indiana Univ. Cyclotron Facility, Bloomington IN 47408 USA
I have now been a STAR collaborator for over 10 years. Not being from the heavy ion community this has given me the opportunity to join a very vibrant group of physicists at a very exciting time for the field. I have enjoyed working with new colleagues, developing new friendships and learning new physics in a large international effort. I have been very happy to see that STAR has operated as a true collaboration, recognizing that the spin and heavy ion program rely on each other for the strength of the overall program. A colleague asked me to run for Council Chair and I have agreed as an opportunity to further serve the full STAR community. I am honored to see my name along side the respected collaborators on the ballot.
I now know many of the people in STAR to various degrees, but the members are constantly changing, especially our younger members. So I should introduce myself. I am a research scientist at Indiana University, and spent my first years with STAR constructing and installing the endcap electromagnetic calorimeter with my colleagues. I have been involved with spin physics essentially by whole career, but have always enjoyed the excitement ever present in the heavy ion community. I have been Indiana's council rep. since 2002. During that time I have served on a council committee to rewrite the bylaws and am currently serving on the spokesperson election committee. I am one of the spin physics working group convenors and chair of the STAR talks committee. I have served many shifts in the Wide Angle Hall as detector expert, shift leader and most recently as period coordinator. I have been principle author on the two jet A_LL papers.
STAR and RHIC face a very challenging time. Budgets every year seem to provide hope and disappointment affecting running plans and schedules. Nevertheless planned upgrades present new physics opportunities even in the face of new competition, in physics and for our colleagues' time, from the LHC. STAR needs to address its manpower needs both for hardware, as evidenced by our "orphaned" subsystems and loss of experts, and computing and software. There need to be additional opportunities for growth and recognition of experts to draw more participation of the collaboration to these activities vital to the strength of STAR.
However it is not the council chair's job to take on these issues directly. The spokesperson is the frontline leader on these and other important issues. The council, led by the Chair, is now carrying out its most important task in choosing the new spokesperson. I see the Council chair's duties as to guide the council in working with the spokesperson on a common set of goals, remind the spokesperson of the collaborations concerns, and facilitate communication and consultation with the council necessary for the buy-in needed for the spokesperson
to be successful in addressing our challenges.
We will be moving forward with a new spokesperson and much of the early work of the council in the near term will be to work with them to form an effective management team. Many of these appointments must be ratified by the council and this will need to happen in a timely manner with appropriate oversight. There are details of the bylaws that we may need to consider altering to shape the team along with the spokesperson's and collaboration's needs. After an appropriate period evaluation and feedback to the spokesperson on their progress will be an important role of the council to be organized by the Council chair. A number of years ago the Council established an advisory board to the Spokesperson. This could be an effective tool for communication but has not met on the regular schedule originally envisioned. by-laws. We need to make sure that the by-laws and practice agree with the desires of the Council and new spokesperson.
The council also has ongoing work, such as the publications policy, that need to addressed in a timely manner. Such issues should not bridge multiple collaboration meetings. We need to resolve issues discussed at collaboration meetings in a timely matter via email, phone conference or special meetings if truly necessary. The goal should be to resolve the issues with the maximum opportunity for participation but as efficiently as possible. We should look at resolving issues via email when face to face discussions are not required so that the meetings can be kept to a reasonable length. I am committed to attending and chairing all Council meetings.
In conclusion, I look forward to a vital future for STAR and offer myself to serve as Council Chair to further that end.
Gary Westfall
Gary Westfall is from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1321 USA
I would be honored to serve as STAR Council Chair.
I have been a member of the STAR Council for 15 years, representing Michigan State. I have served as chair of the STAR Council Chair nominating committee. I served as the Convener of the Event-by-Event Physics Working Group. I have served as Period Coordinator and Shift Leader. I was part of the team that constructed the STAR Electromagnetic Calorimeter. I also served as Chair of the RHIC Users’ Executive Committee.
I propose to help lead the STAR Council through the upcoming years. These years will see the completion and deployment of STAR upgrades as well as several important physics runs. The STAR Council needs to make sure that the Collaboration can carry out its physics program by seeking the support of STAR institutions and RHIC management. The STAR Council also needs to address the problem of operating STAR in the LHC era, including the loss of key Collaboration support.
If elected as Chair of the STAR Council, I will work with work closely with the newly elected Spokesperson to address these challenges. I will institute more frequent meeting of the STAR Council so that the Council meetings can be shorter and focus on fewer agenda items.