Committee Mission Statements and Objectives:
- To provide science outreach programming for schools and local community organizations in order to foster scientific literacy, spread brain awareness, and communicate what it means to be a scientist to individuals outside UVA
- To forge lasting, meaningful relationships between the UVA Psychology Department and the Charlottesville community
- To cultivate ways of active learning, provide real world interactions, and normalize scientific inquiry as a method of understanding the world
- To maintain a committee structure that is self-renewing, student-led, and project focused
Outreach Committee Components:
President: This will be a graduate student who will lead the outreach committee as a whole, lead committee meetings (full member and subcommittee leads only), keep track of all projects, monitor new project google form, help internal communications person recruit new members, and create/maintain a committee manual to ensure smooth leadership transitions. Time commitment- 3-5 hours/week
Community Liaison: This will be a graduate student who will lead the Community Liaison subcommittee, be the community contact person, coordinate efforts with BOIP and other science outreach groups at UVA, help with outreach placement, keep a database of past events, establish a system for contacting (when contacts have already happened and who has been contacted) using a new platform other than google sheets (maybe UVA Box?), establish/use shared virginia.edu email for the committee and check often. Time commitment- 3-5 hours/week
Internal Communications: This will be a graduate student who will lead the Internal Communications subcommittee, take notes during meetings, send emails to volunteers; lead grad student and psych undergrad recruitment (attend grad student orientations, psych undergraduate club meeting and create a listserv); maintain a committee calendar; schedule meetings and reserve rooms as needed. Time commitment- 3-5 hours/week
Curriculum: This will be a graduate student who will lead the Curriculum subcommittee, approve curriculum for all events, maintain database of presentations and activities, research new ideas; research and purchase new supplies; organize and keep running inventory of existing supplies; keep up-to-date on school curriculum requirements (school outreach programs only). Time commitment- 3-5 hours/week
Public Relations: This will be a graduate student who will lead the PR subcommittee, manage external communications, lead marketing/branding efforts; manage social media, maintain website, creating flyers; create templates for commonly used materials (flyers, slides, etc.); publicize things we do with UVA today/UVA PR and local news sources. Time commitment- 3-5 hours/week
Each subcommittee will be made up of a team of 2-4 highly motivated psychology graduate and undergraduate students, while the committee as a whole will be open to anyone from the psychology department or any undergraduate student who wants to volunteer at one of our outreach events.
Pilot Program: Brain Awareness Week
See Brain Awareness Week page for details
Expenses per year:
Materials for outreach presentations $700
Printing $100
Shipping (for virtual outreach presentations) $100
T-shirts $300
$1,200
Calendar:
Spring Semester
January
- Graduate student facilitators will attend new student orientation, psychology club, etc. to recruit interested undergraduate students and create an email listserv
- Host the first monthly meeting of the semester
February
- Organize Brain Awareness outreach presentation schedule by coordinating with teachers and undergraduate volunteers
- Host monthly meeting
March
- Participate in Brain Awareness Week outreach presentations
- Host monthly meeting
April
- Host monthly meeting
May
- Host monthly meeting
Fall Semester
August
- Graduate student facilitators will attend new student orientation, psychology club, etc. to recruit interested undergraduate students and create an email listserv
- Host the first monthly meeting of the semester
September
- Host monthly meeting
October
- Host monthly meeting
November
- Host monthly meeting
December
- Host monthly meeting