Biophysical Society Bulletin | July/August 2023

Council Update

Tackling Strategy with Action BPS Council met for Spring Council at BPS headquarters in Rockville, Maryland on Friday, June 2. This was our first meet ing at the BPS offices since Fall Council in 2019. Although we met virtually and in person several times in the intervening three years and eight months, it was great to reconvene at headquarters to focus on the progress of the Strategic Plan and other efforts to move the Society forward. The meeting opened with an overview and discussion of BPS Committees including their charges, duties, and programs. You may recall that a priority for 2022 was updating the BPS Strategic Plan. Once the new Strategic Plan was approved by Council in November 2022, the committees began the pro cess of updating their charges and aligning their duties with the new plan. In addition, committee activities were compiled into a workbook where timing, audience, costs, effort, etc. could be examined and compared. Most importantly, align ment with Strategic Plan goals and objectives was detailed for each activity and enabled Council to see the progress being made in support of our goals as well as highlight gaps where more efforts are needed to further certain objectives. While our strategic goals of fostering a diverse and inclusive global community and investing in the future of biophysics will always be ongoing, much work has been done to advance these goals. Notably, efforts to increase participation and engagement, advance racial and ethnic diversity, and support biophysicists at every career stage were prioritized by most committees and Council. Recent evidence for this includes the open call for names for BPS Elections, the addition of a self-nomination option for BPS Awards, the President’s Symposium Black in Biophysics, the Multilingual Networking Event hosted by the Committee for Inclusion and Diversity,

and the launch of the Postdoctoral Reviewer Mentorship Pro gram initiated by the Editor-in-Chief of Biophysical Journal . In addition to committee programming, we assessed the BPS Ambassador Program. Launched in 2019 and currently on its fourth cohort, the Ambassador Program aims to support all our strategic goals, but it excels at enhancing the sharing of knowledge and advocating for biophysics as our ambassadors contribute content to the BPS Bulletin and blog, participate in education and career panels, and host Biophysics Week and networking events in their countries. We discussed how to better address large countries, such as China, where regional representation might be more appropriate and whether the program should be expanded. The discussion is ongoing, but the Ambassador Program itself is moving several of our stra tegic objectives forward quite effectively. As always, finances are an important component of every Council agenda. Strategy requires action, and action requires resources which usually means people and/or money. We ex amined and accepted the audited financial statements, which ensure that BPS is following appropriate financial practices and is financially sound. We also evaluated a request from the Education Committee to provide more support to our Stu dent Chapters by way of a new Student Chapter Events Grant Program. Council unanimously approved this idea, which not only aligns with our strategic goal of investing in the future of biophysics but is also a great way to help Chapter leaders strengthen their local programming. We revisited the new programming changes for the 2024 Annual Meeting and are excited to increase speaking oppor tunities with the new Symp Select and Flash Talk speakers.

July/August 2023

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