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ISSMGE Bulletin Volume 3, Issue 4 December 2009 International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering www.issmge.org A Message from the President I NSIDE T HIS I SSUE 90 Day Progress Report 1 A Message from the President By Jean‐Louis Briaud [email protected] 5 Views of Young Geotechnical Dear Colleagues, Engineers You elected me approximately 90 days ago and I can assure you that it was one of the major highlights of my professional 8 Reminiscences career. I appreciated the large number of congratulatory emails, letters, and phone calls that I received. I tried to answer every 11 Case History one of them but may have missed a few. I also appreciated the photos that you sent me of the conference as I was so busy that 19 TC Activity I did not have time to take any pictures or even go see the Pyramids. But our hosts, led by Mamdouh Hamza, deserve so much credit for all the work they did and the great success of 22 News the Alexandria Conference. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. 30 Announcement As soon as I was elected I started to work and this is a short report on the progress I have made over the last 90 days with Editorial Remarks 32 the help of the ISSMGE Board, the Secretary General, and many of you as well. This first effort is part of my broader vision for the Event Diary 33 next four years which you can find on my web site in a few languages (https://ceprofs.civil.tamu.edu/briaud/). 36 Corporate Members Three new Board Level Committees (BLCs) started E DITORIAL B OARD The new organization chart for ISSMGE is shown in the Figure where you can see the role played by Jean-Louis Briaud the three Board Level Committees (BLCs). In order to start the BLCs I have accomplished the following. Osamu Kusakabe Ikuo Towhata 1. Worked with the ISSMGE Board Members to set up the three Board Level Committees that I presented to you in Alexandria and wrote the charges for the three BLCs (let me know if you Neil Taylor wish a copy of the charges) Pedro Sêco e Pinto 2. Contacted the people whose names were suggested to take the lead of these three very important committees Pongsakorn Punrattanasin 3. After convincing them, and after collecting comments on the draft charges, rewrote the charges and proposed the creation of the 3 BLCs for an official vote of the ISSMGE Board. Deepankar Choudhury 4. Got the Board to vote Imen Said 5. Contacted the chairs and vice chairs of the 3 BLCs and let them know that they have the green light to get started on their work. Makoto Namba Erdin Ibraim Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3, Issue 4 Page 2 A Message from the President – 90 Day Progress Report (continued) By Jean‐Louis Briaud ISSMGE Members and Member Societies ISSMGE Council FedIGS Board ISSMGE Board ISSMGE Secretariat Technical Membership, Innovations and Oversight Practitioners, Development Com. (TOC) Academicians, Com. (IDC) Com. (MPAC) Chair Chair Vice Chair Chair Vice Chair Secretary Vice Chair Secretary 10 Members Secretary 10 Members 10 Members Technical Conferences Example: Committees Members and Webinars Member countries I am very happy to report that the Board voted unanimously to create the 3 new BLCs and approved the inaugural chairs, vice chairs, and special leaders of the 3 BLCs. This was done in our first ever conference call board meeting on 26 November 2009. It required some sacrifice from some of us as the call was at 5 am for me in the USA and at midnight for Michael Davies in New Zealand. This conference call was made possible by the wonderful help of Neil Taylor and Paloma Peers who managed to solve a tough problem efficiently. The three Board Level Committees are: Technical Oversight Committee (TOC): Chair: Suzanne Lacasse, Co‐Chair: Kjell Karslrud, Vice‐Chair: Mike Jamiolkowski. The suggested charge of the TOC is: a. Oversight of the Technical Committees (TC) (decisions on the TC chairs, the TC core members, the TC members, the terms of reference, yearly evaluation). Each Technical Committee will be assigned a liaison on the TOC. The TOC liaison will keep in close contact with the chair of the assigned TC and help the TC perform well if necessary. b. Create and select the recipient for a Best Technical Committee award. This award will be given yearly. The award will consist of a certificate which will be distributed to all members of that TC. c. Oversight of the ISSMGE conferences. In this task, the TOC will work closely with the Chair of each conference to ensure that the highest quality is achieved. A TOC liaison member will be assigned to each ISSMGE conference. A serious effort will be made to involve the TCs in the program of the conference (e.g.: session titles in the conference program will have the TC name next to the title that contributed to the session topic and to the selection of speakers). d. Oversight of continuing education activities. These Continuing Education (CE) activities will include the in person short courses or international seminars, webinars, and videos. Interaction between TOC and the member societies will take place to identify the topics requested. e. Any other oversight effort which deals with the technical activities of ISSMGE. Membership, Practitioners, Academicians Committee (MPAC): Chair: Harry Poulos, Vice‐Chair: Luiz DeMello. The suggested charge of the MPAC is: ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3, Issue 4 Page 3 A Message from the President – 90 Day Progress Report (continued) By Jean‐Louis Briaud a. Membership drive to increase the number of Corporate Members of ISSMGE. This membership drive should start by asking corporate members what they want out of ISSMGE, and then by providing the service requested as long as it is commensurate with the membership fee. b. Raise funds for the new ISSMGE Foundation and develop guidelines for member countries to apply for funds from the ISSMGE Foundation. c. Membership drive to increase the number of member societies. This task is truly the responsibility of the Regional Vice Presidents but the MPAC will work closely with them to exchange ideas on how to increase membership. d. Interaction with member societies to help them with membership problems. e. Interaction with individual members, in particular practitioner members, to help them with membership problems. f. Create and select the recipients for the Member Society Recognition Award and the Individual Member Recognition Award. This award will be given yearly. The award will consist of a certificate which will be given to the president of the Member Society and to the individual member. Innovation and Development Committee (IDC): Chair: Dimitris Zekkos, Vice‐Chair: Charles Ng, Coordinator: Marc Ballouz. The suggested charge for IDC is: a. Develop innovations to better serve our members and to increase the impact and influence of ISSMGE and the Geotechnical Engineer in the world. b. Develop ways to enhance the value of the web site as a technical resource worldwide. c. Develop ways for individual members to communicate with each other in a very easy fashion. d. Initiate the webinar series e. Create and select the recipient for a best innovator of the year award. This award will be given yearly. The award will consist of a certificate which will be given to the ISSMGE member receiving the award. f. Strengthen and bring to a steady state the International Journal on Geoengineering Case Histories. Cooperation with the Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) and more generally all the Technical Committees (TC) is expected. g. Develop the lexicon into an electronic tool available on the web site The three committees now officially exist. The leaders of these committees are in the process of selecting the members of their committee and making plans for action. Students and Young Members Presidential Group (SYMPG): Chair: Jean‐Louis Briaud, Vice Chair: Jennifer Nicks. Another initiative that the ISSMGE Board and I have undertaken is the Student and Young Members Presidential Group (SYMPG). I asked the 6 Vice Presidents to select 3 students or young members from their region to become members of SYMPG. After collecting the nominations and applications, the 6 Vice Presidents selected their 3 SYMPG members. They gave me their list of three but added that it was a shame of having to turn down other candidates. So I have decided to create two categories of SYMPG members: the members per say and the corresponding members. The 18 (3x6) members of SYMPG will be the ones who will attend the conference call meeting and vote when needed. The corresponding members will be those who were candidates but were not selected; they will receive the news about the SYMPG, will be able to participate by email but will not be attending the conference call meetings and will not vote. If a member does not contribute, he or she will be replaced by a corresponding member who has shown definite interest and has contributed. I have also decided to enlarge the corresponding member list by including a few other young members from your national society. If you wish to have a corresponding member on the SYMPG please send me their CV, contact information, and a one page statement written by the young member indicating why they are interested in contributing to SYMPG. ISSMGE Bulletin: Volume 3, Issue 4 Page 4 A Message from the President – 90 Day Progress Report (continued) By Jean‐Louis Briaud The goal of SYMPG is for ISSMGE to listen to the wishes of the younger (less than 35 years old) geotechnical engineers on what ISSMGE can do to be more attractive to the next generation by letting them interact directly with the President.