http://rsiccnt/rpsd/minutes_of_meetings/jun0500.html

Radiation Protection

and

Shielding Division

Attending: Bob Little Ray Klann John Bennion Nick Tsoulfanidis Michael Momeni Laurie Waters John Valentine Bernadette Kirk David Court Ham Hunter Bill Hopkins Larry Miller Karl Warkentin Peggy Emmett David Anderson Don Todd Gerry Woodcock R.T. Perry Dave Bartine

Don Todd from Texas A&M University announced that the 2001 ANS Student Conference would be held in College Station, TX, hosted by Texas A&M University, Thursday, March 29, through Saturday, March 31. He reported that due to a shortage of bids for student conferences next year, this will be the only student conference held. He asked that RPSD consider a funding request for this upcoming conference. He stated that this official request for funds would be forthcoming in November.

Gerry Woodcock from Fluor Hanford/Eastern Washington Section reported on progress from the 2000 RPSD Topical in Spokane. Approximately 150 papers have been submitted, with approximately 40% from the HPS. The HPS course credit had not been firmed-up at that point. Concern was voiced that the conductors from Argonne of the RESRAD class had not been contacted about the class to be offered. Gerry indicated that a significant price reduction was achieved by holding the conference in Spokane as opposed to Seattle. A question was asked to determine if it was possible to allow a discount in registration for students who might desire to attend the topical. The general consensus was that the 50% overhead tax applied by National prohibited a discount at this time. But a suggestion was put forth that when the new taxing structure was implemented after this meeting ($60 per head and 25% off of the top) that a suggestion could be put to National to waive the $60 fee for students.

2. Chairman's report - Bob Little Election Results: Gayle Marcus: National President-Elect National Activities: Bob Little circulated a report (contact rcl@lanl.gov) outlining national activities. Among topics discussed: ANS effort in the Gen4 power plants and the congressional budget push; ANS support for the design of Gen4 reactors; push to revitalize NE departments: NERI - nuclear engineering research initiative; at this time, only talk of a new research reactor, but at least that. Professional Division meeting: Minutes were provided by Bob Little (rcl@lanl.gov). Infrastructure 3 was discussed. Possibility of submission of full papers based on accepted summaries. Possibility of coffee/refreshment breaks during sessions: the thought was that it would probably cost too much. Possibly a monetary incentive plan would be implemented to achieve minimum targets for support at both meetings.

3. Chair-elect's report - Laurie Waters Two newsletter submissions had been received. Jess Greenborg was to supply an add for the Spokane Topical, so a request to hold printing was granted. President's meeting: The approximately 15 ANSI standards under ANS and the Nuclear Facility Standard Committee were discussed at the meeting. Concern was expressed about the loss of corporate memory due to apathy. The public policy standard was also discussed. Anyone can propose a policy and submit it to the policy committee. The policy committee would then like a division to take ownership of the policy and write a position paper, which the policy committee would then summarize. The president would like to be able to call on the expertise of the divisions for any ANS policy statements.

4. Treasurer - Ray Klann (copies of the treasurers report were provided) No request for support of cy-2000 student conferences was received. The possibility of applying this budgeted amount to next year was discussed. Appropriations discussed: $2000 for Blizard scholarship and $100 for best paper award. Laurie Waters then made a request to provide help to student in Los Alamos who lost all of their nuclear engineering text books in the recent Cerro Grande fire. RT Perry also indicated that any foreign national students that lost books were not eligible for federal disaster aid. Bernadette then made a motion for the committee to consider: apply the $500 budget surplus from the MCNPX short course to be applied to aiding the Los Alamos student who lost textbooks in the fire. This passed unanimously. One suggestion was to have the Trinity local section administer the funds. It was then left to the chair-elect and incoming treasurer to develop the mechanism for disbursement. 5. Standing committee reports Honors and Awards - Nick Tsoulfanidis Nick submitted his resignation as honors and awards committee chairman, and offered to continue to help the next chairman. He then nominated Bernadette Kirk to fill the vacancy, who accepted. Bernadette then asked if it were about time again for a Rockwell Award. The consensus was that definitely a division excellence award would be given, and possibly a Rockwell. Bob asked that nominations be submitted to Bernadette for consideration. These will start being accepted in November for consideration for an award in 2002. It was also indicated that this would be an excellent excuse for a division luncheon/dinner. The national awards manual can now be accessed on the net. It was reported that an additional $10k was donated to national for a new award. Also, it was reported that 3-4 awards had not been filled. Program - Dave Anderson (copies of the ANS RPSD program committee were provided) The new session track program was discussed. Sessions will now be divided into tracks as opposed to sessions by divisions. A request was made for any comments on the new session track approach to be submitted. The Wednesday (June 7) demonstration of the electronic review process was announced, and encouragement to attend was expressed. Membership - Blumberg (via Bob Little) The national membership report was circulated (available from rcl@lanl.gov). From cy-97 to cy-00, national membership declined from 12.4k to 10.2k. In the same time period, division membership declined from 1490 to 1180, which represented a greater per cent decrease. RPSD still remains the 4th largest division. The report indicated that a lot of new members are lost: after 5 years, 43% have dropped from the ranks of the society. Nominating - Kirk/Little The next slate of candidates for RPSD officers will be due later this summer. Standards - William Hopkins ANS is responsible for 6 standards. There will be a special panel at the Washington, D.C. conference on ANS/HPS standards (Hertel-dose conversion, and Pace-skyshine). Ray Klann reported on ANSI 6.3.1 Shield Testing for LWRs and indicated that a meeting was being held on Wednesday (June 7). RT Perry indicated that standards were being lost because they were coming up for review and the chair was not pushing for acceptance. Both Ray and RT requested volunteers to help on respective standard committees. Benchmark - Hamilton Hunter (proposed charter supplied) RPSD is the last division to vote on the proposed charter (as per Russ Mosteller). Hamilton submitted the proposed charter for the Joint Benchmark Committee for approval. Bernadette moved that the charter be accepted, and was passed unanimously. Bob Little appointed Hamilton Hunter to fill the RPSD co-chair position, who accepted. Laurie Waters and Nolan Hertel volunteered to become members of the Joint Benchmark Committee. Bill Hopkins added that benchmarks can now be submitted to ANS as standards. It was announced that SINBAD 2000 would be coming out this summer. Hamilton also suggested that RPSD check the public policy website for any current policies that would apply or affect RPSD. Blizard Memorial Scholarship - Dan Ingersoll (via Bob Little) John Poston, Nolan Hertel, and Dan Ingersoll reviewed fifteen candidates for the Blizard Scholarship. The committee was very pleased with this turnout, not only since it was the largest number of applications ever reviewed, but also because five different universities were represented. Based on an established review process, we selected a first choice and two alternatives. The top candidate was apparently selected for higher paying ANS scholarship, so this year's Blizard Scholarship goes to our second choice: Christopher S. Melhus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Christopher received his BA in Physics from Reed College in 1997 and served as Associate Director of the Reed Reactor Facility. At MIT, he is working toward a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering with an emphasis on health physics and personnel dosimetry. He will receive the $3000 award at the beginning of the fall semester.

7. New Business Waters, Anderson, and Hunter attended the professional division training workshop. The general consensus was that the workshop was good, but it was suggested that it be reduced to about 4 hours. It will take place once a year. The possibility of a division luncheon was discussed. A concern was that dinner would present too many conflicts, and lunch would be better. A tentative program would be lunch, awards, and a speaker. A suggestion by Bill Hamilton was that a Potomac River Cruise would be a possibility for the Washington, D.C. conference. He indicated that this was generally on the order of $25 per person. Bob requested that Dave Anderson explore the possibilities for a luncheon in D.C. when he attended the paper review there in July. A final suggestion was that Wednesday would be the day with the least conflicts.