Travel Awards

A letter is sent to the Committee welcoming new members and outlining tasks for following year.

The annual Travel Awards (CPDD & CSAT) are first publicized each year as part of the general announcement for the annual CPDD meeting that is distributed through CPDD Executive Officer Äôs office (Dr. Martin Adler) (see announcement for 2005 awards below). The Committee Chair will receive a request, usually in the Fall, from CPDD Executive Officer Äôs office asking for any changes/updates to the announcement. Applicants are instructed in the announcement to submit their materials directly to the Committee Chair Äôs office, and usually has to be postmarked by December 15th for CSAT awards and January 15th for CPDD awards. The call from CPDD Executive Officer Äôs office about updating the Travel Awards announcement is a signal to contact the CSAT liaison (currently Karl White, e-mail: KWhite@samhsa.hhs.gov, phone #: 301-443-8448) about publicizing the CSAT Travel Awards. The mailing out of CPDD Executive Officer Äôs office is not sufficient publicity for the CSAT Awards. That has to be done via CSAT. Please note that CSAT Äôs publicity scheme has been very effective in the past (e.g., 388 applications in 2003, 204 in 2004, 81 in 2005), but the Chair should agree on a scheme for efficiently processing those applications so that the burden is not too much. Around January 1 the Chair sends out an announcement to the CPDD listserv reminding members of the CPDD travel awards and the upcoming January 15th deadline.

The Chair collects input from Committee members and prepares a mid-year progress report to the Board of Directors (BOD). The Chair often attends this mid-year meeting. CPDD Executive Officer Äôs office will notify the Chair of the meeting.

There are three Travel Award categories: CPDD Early Career Postdocs, CPDD Early Career Pre-docs, and CSAT Awards for Community Clinicians

Early Career Postdocs: These individuals must be within 5 years of receipt of their Ph.D. or other terminal degree or within 5 years of the completion of clinical training after M.D.

Early Career Pre-docs: With these awards, priority is to go to applicants from institutions with little NIH funding. Applicants for CPDD Early Career Investigator Awards must have a letter of recommendation from a mentor confirming their current position. You may wish to give preference to those who have submitted abstracts, although this is not mandatory. Approximately 20 fellows are selected for the Early Career Awards. Of these 20, two should be foreign scientists and three should be pre-docs. No more than one travel fellow can come from any laboratory or similar administrative unit. Any laboratory or administrative unit may have one foreign scientist travel fellow in addition to one regular travel awardee.

CSAT Awards for Community Clinicians: These awards will go to 30 applicants who hold full-time employment in a community substance abuse treatment program. The CSAT awards are targeted to individuals in supervisory and program development positions capable of initiating best clinic practices in their clinical settings. Preference will be given to individuals who have not previously attended the CPDD Annual Meeting. Awardees will be acquainted with the most recent scientific advances in prevention and treatment interventions, genetics, neuroscience and the epidemiology of drug abuse and dependence. All travel expenses and conference registration costs will be covered by the Award. We will recommend a list of 30 candidates. CSAT will make the final selections.

Travel award applications begin arriving in the Chair Äôs office in early December. Keep separate files for CPDD and CSAT applications. Regarding CPDD applications: the Chair does a first review to determine eligibility (e.g., Are there multiple applications from a single lab? Do applicants meet age/experience criteria? Are pre-doctoral applicants enrolled in doctoral programs?) Identify applications from foreign scientists. These characteristics are taken into account when making awards (2 slots are allocated for foreign scientists staying in the U.S. for less than 2 years). For CSAT applications the Chair does an initial review to determine eligibility (e.g., Are there multiple applications from a treatment agency? Are applicants working in a clinical treatment program in some supervisory capacity?). In 2005, we received 28 CPDD applications and 81 CSAT applications. Chair Äôs office creates a spread sheet to track applications for both CPDD and CSAT. Spreadsheet variables should include: last name, first name, institution, mentor/agency director, address, e-mail, phone. Set deadlines for evaluating the applications. Send applications to appropriate Committee members, with letter of instructions and scoring procedures/worksheets. Having each CPDD application independently scored by 3-5 Committee members and CSAT applications by 3 members has been effective; a smaller number of raters on CSAT applications is due to the large number of applications). Chair can act as a reviewer to reduce the overall workload on the Committee. Applicants frequently wait until awards are announced before they make travel arrangements, meaning that the review process needs to progress expeditiously. Allowing reviewers 2 weeks to complete the reviews has been effective. We have used a 1 (best) to 5 (worse) scoring system. Scores are submitted to the Chair Äôs office where they are collated and averaged across reviewers. The Chair has the responsibility of resolving questions that arise in the scoring process regarding eligibility, foreign status, etc. Committee members are excellent at spotting substantive issues - generally discussed by e-mail- and can be very helpful to the Chair in resolving problems. Send a list of awardees and regrets to the CPDD Executive Officer Äôs office. Send e-mails to awardees confirming they plan to accept the award and plan to attend the meeting. Neico Smith from the CPDD Office will process awardee and rejection letters. Those letters will also contain general information about the travel reimbursement arrangements and the CPDD Early Career Investigator Awardees Äô luncheon. With CSAT awards, we send a recommended list to CSAT liaison (Karl White) for their internal review. They make final selections, often with some changes from recommended list in order to satisfy their institutional goals, etc. They then send back a revised list of awardees to the Chair Äôs office who sends out award/rejection letters. In the CSAT awardee letter, inform them of the travel agency Äôs roll (CSAT contracts a travel agent to manage travel and reimbursement for awardees) and the time/location for the CSAT breakfast. The travel agency CSAT uses sends all the logistics of the travel to the CSAT awardees. The Chair Äôs office submits reimbursement requests to CPDD and CSAT. Select 5 individuals who attend CPDD to serve as mentors for CSAT awardees who by definition have not attended a prior CPDD meeting and might need some assistance with orientation to the CPDD meeting.

Chair Äôs office or a designated Committee member makes sure CPDD luncheon and CSAT breakfast are scheduled. That is usually done in consultation with Ellen Geller in Dr. Adler Äôs office. Chair also needs to check in with relevant Committee members on the organizing and scheduling of mentoring activities at the CPDD meeting. (NIDA grant-writing workshop - Cindy Miner and CPDD Brunch with Champions - Jennifer Tidey).

Chair sets up annual meeting of the Committee at the CPDD Annual Meeting. Ellen Geller can arrange for a meeting room. The CPDD Board has requested committees hold their meetings on the Saturday of the Annual Meeting.

Send lists and information about awardees to the CPDD newsletter editor and to Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Draft, price, and prepare the annual CPDD Travel Awards brochure. We made 1500 copies of the brochure in 2004. Drafts are on disk. Costs are billed to Dr. Adler Äôs office. This past year, Drake Morgan Äôs office prepared the brochure, which was a great help. Brochures are mailed to the hotel at which the CPDD meeting is being held a week in advance in the Travel Awards Chair Äôs name. They are distributed via CPDD staff at registration, at the luncheon, at poster sessions, and other sites deemed appropriate by the Chair.

Prepare and submit annual report to the CPDD Executive Board prior to the Annual Meeting. The Chair attends the CPDD BOD meeting during the Annual Meeting and presents the report.

Early Career Investigator Awardees are invited for three additional lunches after their award year. Strict response deadlines must be set on RSVPs (it is extraordinarily expensive to Äúplate Äù a meal that was not ordered Äì so even current awardees who don Äôt respond may be turned away by the CPDD staff). The invitation is a big deal to many former awardees Äì and an excellent way to maintain interest in CPDD. Neico Smith sends out invitations to the past and current awardees and keeps a count on the people who RSVP.

The Chair Äôs office is responsible for sending Travel Award Luncheon invitations to the CPDD Executive Committee; the NIDA Director, members of the Travel Awards Committee; to the originator of the program (Dr. M.J. Kreek), and previous Chair of the awards program. Again, RSVPs are important. The Chair Äôs office informs Neico Smith who accepts the invitation.

Sometimes winners of the NIDA Travel Awards mistakenly come to the luncheon, but are not eligible.

Have new awardees introduce themselves at the luncheon and say something briefly about their current status and area of interest (e.g., I Äôm a postdoc with Dr. Jones studying treatment of cigarette smoking) Äì it gives a great overview of the breadth of the field. It is also useful to Äúengineer Äù the seating (gently) so that people meet new colleagues. The current CPDD President, Dr. Kreek, and the NIDA Director are invited to say a few words of welcome and encouragement to awardees.

CSAT awardees all attend the CSAT breakfast. Invitations are also sent to the CPDD President, CSAT Director and CSAT award contact (Karl White). Also, Dr. Charles Schuster, one of the originators (along with Westley Clark of CSAT) of the CSAT awards program, is invited. CSAT mentors are also invited to the breakfast. This breakfast is scheduled at the beginning of the CPDD meeting (Sunday or Monday morning), which allows the CSAT awardees to meet their mentor early on and have a person to contact if questions concerning the CPDD meeting should arise. Ellen Geller will need the number of people attending the breakfast and will make arrangements.

Follow up letters are sent to awardees (should be coordinated with Membership Committee Chair who will be inviting them to join CPDD), reminding them that they will be invited to lunch for three more years, and asking them to keep the CPDD Executive Office informed of address changes.

The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), formerly the Committee on Drug Dependence, is a professional group of basic and clinical scientists whose research is directed towards a better understanding of drug dependence. CPDD has been in existence since 1929 and is the longest standing group in the United States addressing the problems of drug abuse and dependence. CPDD is committed to familiarizing clinicians and policy makers with what is known scientifically about drug dependence as well as with what is not known. Since 1938 a major focus of CPDD has been the sponsorship of an annual scientific conference. The conference brings together a broad array of scientists and clinicians from academia, government, and the private sector. Starting in 2001, CPDD, in cooperation with Current Issues in Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) sponsors 30 travel awards for drug abuse treatment providers to attend the conference. Awardees will become acquainted with the most recent advances in prevention and treatment, genetics, neuroscience and epidemiology research on drug dependence. The conference is characterized by formal and informal discussion in an atmosphere of open and warm professional collegiality. Special conference programming will orient awardees with the many exciting scientific and social events to be enjoyed. We encourage all eligible candidates to apply. To be eligible, candidates must hold full-time employment as a counselor/therapist in a public or private community substance abuse treatment clinic.

CPDD will award a number of competitive travel fellowships to attend the 2005 Annual Meeting (registration and up to $750 travel expenses). Winners of previous CPDD Travel Awards are not eligible. Postdoctoral Awards are available to scientists who are not more than five years beyond their doctorate (Ph.D.) or residency (M.D., D.V.M., etc.). There are also a limited number of awards for foreign scientists spending not more than 2 years in the United States. Pre-doctoral Awards are available for individuals in Ph.D. programs at institutions with little or no NIH support. Individuals currently supported by NIDA/NIH training grants or individual Pre-doctoral National Research Service Awards (F31) are not eligible for Pre-doctoral Awards.

Application instructions: Only 1 individual from any laboratory or administrative group can apply for each category of award. To apply, please submit 5 copies of the following: (1) a recent copy of your curriculum vitae including publications, presentations and previous travel fellowships; (2) a brief letter stating the type of award for which you are applying, why it is needed, and your reasons for attending the meeting; and (3) a letter of recommendation from your mentor. Applications must be postmarked on or before January 15, 2005. Application materials should be sent to

Chair, CPDD Travel Awards Committee
Dr. Donald Calsyn
UW Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute
1107 NE 45th Street, Suite 120
Seattle, WA 98105

A luncheon at the Annual Meeting is planned for all 2005 CPDD Early Career Investigator Awardees and recipients of Awards in 2002, 2003, or 2004.

The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) is expected to sponsor 30 Travel Awards for substance abuse treatment practitioners to attend the 2005 CPDD meeting. To be eligible, candidates must hold full-time employment as a director or clinical supervisor in a substance abuse treatment program and not be an employee of the federal government. Only one award will be given to any specific program. Previous CSAT travel award recipients are not eligible to apply. To apply, send five copies of the following: 1) a letter stating interest in receiving an award and a statement (not to exceed one page) as to how this conference will benefit your work in your current position; 2) a letter of support from your direct supervisor stating should you be selected that you will be allowed to attend; 3) a complete resume/vita of your work and academic experiences. Deadline for applications is December 15, 2005. Applicants will be expected to arrive prior to 4:30 PM on June 17, 2005, attend a networking session sponsored by CSAT on June 17, the CSAT-sponsored satellite session June 18, a breakfast sponsored by CPDD for the awardees, and remain for the entire CPDD meeting. Materials should be mailed to

Donald Calsyn, Ph.D.
UW Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute
1107 NE 45th Street, Suite 120
Seattle, WA 98105