The ARP Grad/Postdoc Committee met during the last ARP conference in Evanston, Illinois in July, 2009. We were quite pleased about the high attendance at the meeting—about a dozen of you were able to attend! Moreover, we were delighted to witness the great enthusiasm on the part of many towards establishing a greater presence for young researchers at ARP. During the meeting we brainstormed about ideas for a possible professional development series to take place at the next ARP conference in Riverside, California in 2011. We raised the possibility that the series could serve as a personality-specific version of the mentoring luncheon which has been held at SPSP for a few years now; we also discussed other ideas and other formats (such as panel discussions with a Q&A component).

Grad students and post-docs, we would like YOUR input on the possible features and content of such a series. We have created a quick, relatively painless, 5-minute survey to get your opinion about what would be most worthwhile at such an event.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/297484/arp-graduate-and-postdoc-survey

Second, we believe we speak for all members of ARP in saying that were very impressed with the set of talks students gave at the Rising Stars Symposium. Congratulations once again to Jon Adler, Josh Jackson, Nicholas Turiano, and Simone Walker! Thanks again to the Executive Committee and others (we know at least of Dan McAdams, Kali Trzesniewski, and Jenn Lodi-Smith) for conceiving of the symposium and bringing it to fruition.

Finally, we welcome any additional questions, comments, or suggestions through email (jfayard[at]illinois.edu or eenoftle[at]gmail.com). Let us know what we can do to make ARP even better for you.