Québec, Qc, 19-22 mai 1998
Jean-René Roy, Chair, Local Organizing Committee
The members of the organizing committee at Université Laval were Laurent Drissen, Serge Pineault, Carmelle Robert, Stéphanie Plante, Anne Pellerin, Gilles Joncas and Jean-René Roy. The latter person was the chair, and Gilles Joncas, who was the local organizer of the CFHT Users Meeting (18 - 19 May), took care of the link with the CASCA meeting for the special joint CASCA-CFHT day on Wednesday 20 May. During the meeting, we had additional help from U Laval graduate students. Claude Carignan took care of matters at Université de Montréal. This relatively large committee allowed a fair distribution of tasks, and Laurent Drissen kept a very vigilant eye by maintaining a well-built Web based organization, and by acting as a very efficient overall manager.
Except for the initial announcement which included a paper copy mailing to CASCA members without an email address, the logistics of the meeting was handled entirely via email and the CASCA 1998 Web page.
Registration
One hundred and forty (140) participants registered
(via Web form), most doing so
before the deadline of March 31 set for electronic registration.
Unfortunately, only about 65% of the participants sent their payment before
the April 15 deadline. Thirty-five participants paid a late
fee at the registration desk. Among the 140 people
who registered electronically, only a handful did not attend the meeting.
Student Travel Fund
For the first time, CASCA awarded travel grants totaling $2500 to encourage
graduate student participation to the annual meeting.
Twenty students applied from UWO, St Mary's, McMaster, UBC, U Vic,
U of T and U de M, for a total of $10400. The LOC decided to
award $350 to each student from British Columbia, $200 to those from
Halifax, $100 to Ontarians and nothing to Montréal students. All students
accepted the grants and attended the meeting (except one who decided not
to come, at the last minute, for personal reasons). All presented
either a poster or a talk.
It is the feeling of the LOC that these travel grants were
very helpful and that CASCA should increase, whenever possible, the total
amount to at least $3000.
Computer Access
The LOC tried to accomodate the participants who needed access to their
computers at home by providing 3 PC terminals with internet access.
The hotel did not have facilities to do that, so we had to have 3 dedicated
telephone lines installed by Bell (for $600). We noticed that these
PC were used regularly by about a dozen participants, and that the
vast majority did not even touch them...
The scientific program was extremely busy with 118 papers. There were 40 fifteen-minute talks in addition to the Beals
lecture, the keynote talk by Geoff Marcy
(University of California, Berkeley), the CITA lecture, and
the Plaskett lecture.
Twelve talks were given by graduate students and three by women
astronomers. On Wednesday, we had additional presentations more
directly related
to science done with the CFHT (see below).
There were 67 poster papers (31 by students).
The Observatoire du mont Mégantic
20th anniversary was highlighted with a series of eight review
posters. A model of the Mauna Kea GEMINI telescope was also on display.
Attendance varied from day to day: on Wednesday, a joint
day with the CFHT Users Meeting,
about 160 persons were present in the conference room. On Thursday,
there was about 120 persons. The meeting ended on
Friday afternoon with about 60
participants, most of them being non tenure and non tenure track
astronomers!
The schedule of the talks was organized in order to mix the astronomical
subjects. In general, half an hour was devoted, alternately, to the ISM,
stars, galaxies or cosmology. Technical talks about telescopes and instruments
and one educational talk were inserted in between. This type of mixed
scheduling seems to have pleased several participants.
The Annual General Meeting - Business Session - was scheduled for the
last two hours of the
second day. It was preceded by a stimulating CASCA president's
address by John Landstreet on the general state of Canadian
astronomy. About 50 people
attended the Business meeting.
The Keynote speaker, Geoff Marcy, gave a superb one-hour talk on the ``Observations of Extrasolar Planets''. His talk was scheduled on the second day, just before lunch. Most of the participants attended. Geoff Marcy gave an interview with René Racine and Gordon Walker for the French Radio Canada science radio programme ``Les années-lumière''. After lunch, Norman Murray gave the CITA Lecture (1/2 hr) on ``Migrating Planets''. Although we did not have a theme, the topic of extrasolar planets emerged as the ``hot subject'' of the CASCA 1998 Quebec meeting (see item 7).
The CFHT users meeting was held prior to the CASCA meeting at the same location. The meeting was attended by 70 participants with almost 30 from France; there were no attendees from the University of Hawaii. The first two days (May 18 and 19) consisted of discussions on instrumentation (present and future), policies, and the future of CFHT. The CFHT SAC was very pleased by the quality of the exchange of ideas on key issues like queue observing and the survey mode of MEGACAM. The last day (May 20) corresponded with the first day of the CASCA meeting and was devoted almost exclusively to science done with the CFHT. There were four invited speakers, two from France and two from Canada, giving 30-minute talks. A total of 15 shorter (15 minutes) talks were given.
CASCA met at the Hotel Loews le Concorde near the ``Vieux Québec''
and very close to ``Les Plaines d'Abraham''. Obviously the participants
greatly enjoyed the location and the night life activities. The hotel provided adequate facilities;
contrary to our early fears, the fact that all activities
were taking place very close to the same spot turned out
to make the meeting lively and encouraged the interactions. We can
only emphasize to future organizers the importance to
have posters very close to the conference room; in Quebec
we had 40 posters near the entrance of the main conference
room (this one was very large) and about 40 more in the conference
room itself. Long lunch breaks and 1/2 hour coffee breaks
allowed participants to brouse through the posters at their leisure.
There was a lighting system for each poster, and this was
highly appreciated.
Overvall, we believe that the disadvantage of higher costs for
holding the meeting at a hotel is greatly compensated by the
amenities of the hotel environment, especially if it
is conveniently located. Less expensive but nearby alternative accomodation
were used by some participants.
The CASCA banquet was held at the Restaurant du Musée du Québec
located at a 5-7 minute walking distance from the hotel (the cost per
person was $48, although $45 was charged).
René Racine presented a 20 minute allegorical talk on the short
sociological history of astronomy in Québec and Canada.
The 1998 Plaskett medallist was Dean E. McLaughlin, now at the University of California in Berkeley, who got his Ph.D. from McMaster University (Hamilton) under the supervision of Ralph Pudritz. His one-hour talk, entitled ``Star Formation in Molecular Clouds and Globular Clusters'', given at the end of the morning session on Friday May 22, showed that, not only did Dean produce a masterpiece thesis, but also that he is a clear and well-organized speaker.
The 1998 Beals award was given to Gordon Walker from the University of British Columbia. The lecture, entitled ``Challenges for the New Millenium: Some Persistent Astronomical Mysteries'', took place in the main conference room on the evening of the first day of the meeting (Wednesday May 20) and drew a large number of astronomers, including many French participants having attended the CFHT users meeting. Starting from a discussion of the diffuse interstellar features and going on to the search for planets around other stars, the lecture gave the audience a glimpse of the numerous and varied contributions that Gordon has made to the development of astronomy in Canada, and for which he was awarded the Beals prize.
A small review committee gave Mario Lelièvre (Université Laval) and Sébastien Lépine (Université de Montréal) the awards for, respectively, the best poster presentation and the best oral presentation. This initiative of the CASCA board is well appreciated in the graduate student community; it gives them more visibility and encourages them to participate actively in the meeting. The outstanding quality of the student oral presentations, that were also numerous, was noted by several senior participants!
The students decided to make a room for themselves in CASCA. They
met for lunch on the last day of the meeting and created the Graduate Student
Committee (GSC). This committee has a goal to promote the participation of graduate students
in CASCA activities and to increase interaction across the
country. They will meet at every CASCA annual meeting
during a lunch break, and will need a room to do so, like other CASCA sub-committees.
The possibility is also studied for the graduate student community to meet once a year and to hold a workshop on a scientific theme. This new activity is described in detail in the GSC meeting minutes. The meeting organization will require help from the graduate students of the institution hosting the annual meeting, as well as from the LOC. Mel Blake from York University is the head of this committee and will be the person taking care of implementing the resolutions of the GSC during the coming year.
Casca Photos
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