Many smaller, mid-sized and under-resourced campuses, including MSIs, HSIs, HBCUs, and EPSCoR institutions, have compelling science research and education activities along with an awareness of the benefits associated with better access to cyberinfrastructure resources. Yet, these schools typically may not have the resources or expertise in-house to go through the process of identifying, understanding and quantifying science drivers, understanding the cyberinfrastructure needed to support the applications; and, then provide both the technical and application support associated with matching the applications to the infrastructure, particularly when the required resources are outside of their campus environment.

We invite you and colleagues at your institution to participate in the Eastern Regional Network’s (ERN) Broadening the Reach (BTR) Workshop December 10-11 (https://forms.gle/KY1out4urW5Hqykt6). The workshop is bringing together representatives (including CIOs and/or provosts, vice presidents for research, researchers, educators, and technical support staff) from the small, mid-sized and under-resourced schools in the Northeast, including MSIs, HSIs, HBCUs, and EPSCoR institutions,  along with regional (and national) cyberinfrastructure experts with the goal of improving the Eastern Regional Network’s understanding of how best to support under-resourced academic institutions in the region. To participate in the workshop, please register here for the ERN Broadening the Reach workshop (https://forms.gle/KY1out4urW5Hqykt6) .

We also invite you and your colleagues to participate in the pre-workshop survey (https://delaware.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8wFAFke835Pi0Op), developed by the ERN BTR working group, designed to help identify perceived challenges and opportunities at participating institutions, and to use the knowledge from the survey to serve as a baseline framework for workshop discussion sessions. Only members of the ERN Broadening the Reach working group will have access to the information provided in response to survey questions, and individual responses will be kept private and secure. Participants will have the opportunity to remain anonymous.  Please note, please plan to take a few moments to complete the survey prior to the workshop and preferably by November 15, even if you are not able to participate in the workshop, your input is important to us.

We are seeking participation in the workshop and survey from each of the following areas: CIOs, VPRs, provosts, researchers, faculty, and research computing and Central IT technical support staff. Please feel free to forward to appropriate members of your organization. 

For additional information about the workshop or survey, please contact Forough.ghahramani@njedge.net or jhicks@internet2.edu.