Sep 13, 2024 | J-KOA September 2024 BOD Meeting

Attendees: Koya, Toni, Mckenna, Andrea, Kayla, Oscar, Alexis, Erik, Yvonne, Betzaida, Amy

Excused: Julio, Brittany

Meeting Notes

• Ice breaker: your house catches fire and you have the opportunity to save one item after saving your pets and loved ones. What do you save?

  • Laptop

  • Hard drive of photos

  • Lab notes

  • My ENTIRE PC

  • Box of cards

  • Magnetic board of letters (last letter from grandma if have to choose)

  • Identity theft folder

  • Hard drives of life’s work

  • Sketchbook of everything meaningful

• Update from President on recruitment efforts

  • We will host our next GBM on August 26

    • Mentors will sign their commitment letters 

  • Launch of our second TEKs program

    • Mentorship team hard at work

    • 4 steps for launch:

      • Recruitment

        • Shoutout to Koya, Oscar and Alexis for tabling over the summer!

      • Program planning

        • Handouts, timelines, etc. 

      • Outreach

        • ACC, Boston P-8, AST

        • Share journey with students, do a demo

        • DMRSEF Kickoff is now virtual!! 

        • BIG PLUS because this makes it more accessible 

        • Kickoff still slated for October 7

      • Marketing

        • Social media campaigns

        • Tabling materials

        • Flyers posted around CU Anschutz Campus 

• Outreach Campaigns

  • Sept 17, 19 & 20 - AST morning meetings

    • 15-minute events

    • Individual presentations (videos okay)

  • Sept 27 - Boston P-8 presentation

    • 50-55 minute periods

    • Presentations (J-KOA, Science fair)

    • Demos

    • Intro to the scientific method (option to tie into first science fair meeting)

  • Online recruitment went from 2 to 9 thanks to new posted flyers

  • Amy: SACNAS Saturday Academy

    • Help needed for running Nov 16 SACNAS Saturday academy

    • Topic: Structural biology

    • Agenda: 

      • check-in (15 minutes)

      • topic discussion/learning (1 hour)

      • lunch (30 minutes)

      • activity portion (longest segment, 2.5 hours)

    • J-KOA volunteers would come for day-of support! Need 1-2 volunteers

  • Toni: Social media

    • Back-to-school campaign

    • Social media calendar moving forward

      • 5 post cycle, 2 posts a week!

      • Let Toni know of any posts you want to see made on the J-KOA instagram

      • Don’t forget to follow us at https://instagram.com/jkoaoutreach (:

    • Link to folder for sharing pictures [here]!

• Mentor team updates

  • Erik and Kevin are spearheading mentor efforts!

  • Expanding efforts to AST and Boston, hopefully by October 7

  • To maximize efforts, they are creating volunteer tiers (overseeing teams, showing technical skills, how-tos etc.)

  • Mondays at Boston, Thursdays at AST (tentative)

  • 10-minute quick lessons and then jumping into projects

  • Group projects ideal but won’t steer students away from project ideas they are really passionate about

  • Developing “lab notebooks”

    • One for mentors

      • How to mentor

      • How to talk to students

      • How to resolve conflict

      • Etc. 

    • One for students

      • Entire science fair timeline and processes

  • Once the program is launched we will suspend most outside outreach initiatives to keep our focus on the students

• Publication proposal

  • Mckenna to provide a template!

  • CompSci courses to be opened up to J-KOA students (potentially)

  • analyzing students' collected data to combat imposter syndrome, socioeconomic challenges, etc. 

  • data collected can also be used to pinpoint J-KOA’s program’s weaknesses and successes

  • should J-KOA become a nonprofit it can still publish data

  • The board is to consider this for a month, and come back at next month’s meeting to discuss the full dynamics