The application period for the 2006-2007 worldwide SEED Engineering
mentoring program ends in under 26 hours (at midnight PST on 12 June).
SEED has 222 applications so far. Only 84 are complete (application
form, resume, and all
letters of recommendation are in). We are going to have a very busy
day tomorrow. The selection decisions will be made and announced
on 15 June.
Tanya Jankot and I are working with the materials and applicants
now to give everyone a chance to show as well as they can. Quite a few
applicants either left off key information or gave a garbled version
of their titles, grade levels, hire year, etc. Some writers of
letters gave a “1” Recommendation Level (meaning Not Recommended) after
writing an evaluation which clearly indicated strong positive support.
We are getting back to each of them to ask if they want to change their
rating to a 6 or 7 (where 7 = Strongly Recommended). Most are making the
change.
Just over half of the applicants work in the USA. We are getting a strong
showing from China, Czech Republic, India, and Russia. About 20 people
have been disqualified, usually because they are too junior for the
Established Staff program. Some of them are very disappointed; however,
the SEED program has very limited resources and is tightly scoped to
support the people our analysis shows will benefit most from
the program’s offerings. Even though it is necessary, it is painful
to exclude worthy people.
Tanya and I also moved offices last week (just across the courtyard)
and we are now settling into Sun Menlo Park building 16 with Sun Labs.
We had the first of our weekly teas on Thursday and entertained
a mix of our usual tea crowd plus some new local visitors.
Ever since my 20 boxes arrived on Friday morning, I have been trying
to find the particular box with one thing or another in it.
They haven’t finished cleaning or painting my office so I don’t want
to unpack too much yet. So far, I have found my teacup, business cards,
paper pads and post-it notes and my stapler (but not my staples). I
have gotten the local printer to work and found the outgoing U.S. Mail
drop point.
So far, so good!
KatysBlog 