Invitation to the Midwestern Association of Core Directors

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Clarifications

I have already gotten some nice responses to this invitation. Points of clarification:

1) One does NOT need to attend ABRF this year in order to participate in the group. One does NOT need to participate in order to be on the mailing list to keep abreast of events.
2) Those non-northeasterners who are not residents of the twelve states traditionally known as the Midwest are still welcome until there a further schism.

SDC

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The founders of Midwestern Association of Core Directors (MACD) have recently attended the Northeast Regional Life Science Core Directors (NERLSCD http://nerlscd.org/) meeting was held at Cornell University. The goal of this conference was to provide an opportunity for networking among life science core directors and managers. The meeting provided an opportunity for core directors to interact with colleagues, share technical advice, and discuss the continuing challenges associated with the operation of shared research resources and technologies. We felt that it would be useful to create a similar organization of Midwestern (non-east/west coast) facility directors.

Advantages in creating such a regional organization:
1. A smaller meeting provides a more intimate environment for greater interaction among participants. Sessions can be geared more towards interactive discussions rather than lectures.

2. We have distinct characteristics: we are more spread out than our colleagues on the East coast creating more isolation; we have somewhat different institutions, etc. This meeting would enhance networking.

3. By acting as a block, we might be able to develop closer ties to NCRR and to create greater leverage with our instrument and consumable vendors.

4. Travel expenses might be reduced.

It is our intent to have a pre-meeting at ABRF this March in Sacramento (http://www.abrf2010.org/) with the purpose of confirming the need for MACD and, if this is the case, planning the location/time for a meeting and defining the concerns this meeting will address.

We encourage you to respond via email. Please let us know if you are interested in the idea, if you would attend a planning meeting at ABRF, and provide any immediate input. We encourage you to share this email with others and to send us any contact information we could add to a Midwest list.

William Hendrickson
University of Illinois at Chicago
[email protected]