Alex Backer, Magali Billen. Marco Casari, Ioannis Chasiotis, Catherine Cornu, Bob Gingrich, Fok-Yan Leung, Piet Moeleker, Chantal Morgan, Steven Pracko, Adam Rasheed, Sandeep Sane, Claude Seywert

Directors absent:

James Harrington, Ying Huang , Cindy Quezada, Georgios Zamanakos

Guests:

Parandeh Kia, Heather Dean (Caltech Y), Athena Castro (Caltech Y), Martin Griffiths (CHCC), Diego Dugatkin (CHCC)

Chair Piet Moeleker presiding

1. Introduction of Guests and New Directors

Piet welcomes the guests and new directors

2. Additions to the Agenda

Technique update added under Old Business
GSC Copy account and Paintball game added under New Business

A note is added stating that the sports field issue mentioned in the May minutes is unconfirmed. The minutes are unanimously approved.

1. Announcements

About 150 persons attended a very successful soccer BBQ. This event should be repeated.

The Italian Club Gush was also a great success. About 100 people showed up for italian wine, beer, salami, prosciutto,…

The ice-skating event attracted 80-100 students, somewhat less than usual. This might be related to the fact that it happened on Mother’s day and there was table tennis tournament at the same time.

The Quizbowl event the GSC funded had only half of the expected attendance (30 students). It is not clear what contributed to this poor turnout.

2. Catalina Housing Update

The different buildings have been divided among the 4 housing coordinators. This is mainly related to the security and emergency plan.

The sprinklers will be redone. The Catalinas will be tied into the central Caltech system.

The housing coordinators are updating the material for the new incoming students. They have also arranged for a credit card to allow for an easier planning of events.

At this point the Catalinas are booked up for September. Thus they might need a lottery. Note that postdocs will only be allowed in after all the graduate students have been accomodated. Also the APE people that lived there during their project are gone.

3. Social Activism Speaker Series

Continuation from last meeting. A funding of $750 for this event is proposed. Everyone present approves. The GSC keeps the option open to give more money once the series start.

4. Graduate Studies Committee report

Chantal reported on the reaction of the GSC2 to the discussion points the GSC submitted to them (see May minutes).

• Student-faculty relations: we informed them that some of the new passages outlining student-faculty relations in the catalogue are good, others are just plain useless. Apparently it is not possible/desirable to have the same procedure in every option. They send us back telling us that we should make a template of what we would like to see and then every option will pick. Piet will write something up.
• Uniformity among options: Apparently this is not within Caltech philosophy and would destroy the whole Caltech uniqueness. The fact that stipends differ among options is because Caltech needs to pay what other schools do, there is a competition for the best students and it also depends on the outside funding sources (which offer different compensation depending on the subject).
• Extra-curricular events: no reaction whatsoever.
• Students with families: we would like to have cheaper day care for grad students and clear guidelines. The GSC2 thinks that this is a ‘case by case’ issue. But there is survey going around, so we’ll have to wait and see.
• Tuition: that issue (graduate students more expensive than postdocs) seems to be resolved.
• Teaching level: the GSC2 sees no need for action and basically blames the graduate students for not giving enough feedback at the beginning of the class as well as in the surveys that follow most classes. They were not very receptive about the idea of teaching workshops. We want to have the possibility of anonymous feedback. A good place where this issue comes up and we have some input is the TA training program; get involved (contact Parandeh).
• Faculty diversity: this was at the end of the meeting and did not receive much attention. We think the small report that Alice Huang did (and that we would like to make public) is not enough.
5. TA Awards

A committee of 5 (headed by Ioannis) picked the recipients among 20-25 nominations. There will be 2 awards for teaching, 1 for mentoring and 1 for TA. Amazingly only two people were nominated for best TA.

The advertisement seemed adequate but the response generated was minimal (the nominations that got in where of high quality though). Ioannis has some ideas that need to be reconsidered next year (website, going into the classrooms,…)

6. New Parking Structure

The work will start right after commencement and take about 6 month. The blueprints however are not yet finalized. The new structure will feature charging stations for electric vehicles. There is a question about pedestrian access to the Catalinas (from Beckman) without walking through the structure. Such an outside walkway is not in the plan at this point but will be reviewed. Same applies to bike racks. The parking will have surveillance video cameras; we would like to know whether they actually record the image or just show it on a screen. Note that we also would like the bike racks to be under video surveillance. We need to wait for the final review to see whether our concerns have been taken into account.

7. Technique Update

The technique editors decided to change the publisher, they got a better deal. They also switched from LaTeX to PageMaker format primarily because it is easier to convert it to HTML. The update of the information in the Technique is completed. Unfortunately they do not receive many restaurant reviews; the contest for these ends on commencement.

1. Graduate Office BBQ

The BBQ is on June 4^th. The grad office expects about 400 people (all graduate students are invited). The goal of this event is to get people more involved in programming (be that TA training, GSC, Caltech Y, CHCC,…). Apparently there is no more need for GSC funding.

2. Prufrock Luau

Unfortunately noone was present to expose this event. The GSC thinks it’s worth funding but in the absence of details no decision was taken.

3. Gradiators

Gradiators will take place at the end of July or the first week in August. Ioannis needs help for designing and printing T-Shirts, organizing the games,… A sign-up sheet for volunteers went around and Ioannis will contact these volunteers. The first meeting should be June 15.

4. NSO

This was just a call for helpers. As soon as Cindy is back in town she will contact the volunteers. More helpers are still needed.

5. GSC Retreat

Piet wants to organize a GSC retreat, presumably at Capra-Ranch, for a weekend at the end of June or early July. 12 directors were interested, 7 can actually go during that time. Piet will keep us posted.

6. Caltech Y

The Caltech Y asks for funding for an event called ‘Tea at Huntington’. It is supposed to foster better interactions between undergrads/grads/postdocs/faculty/alumni. Heather handed out a preliminary budget. After some discussion the majority of the board voted to sponsor the event. The amount of funding was decided to be $100. ($200 was requested, 5 directors voted to give $200, 6 voted to give $100 and there was 1 abstention).

7. Copy Account

Steve will set up a copy account for the GSC at the SFL. He will get extra debit cards for the GSC that will be distributed to the directors.

8. Paintball Game

Alex proposes to organize an outing to play paintball in late August. The cost of such a day of paintball is $50 per person (that includes the group discount). Alex proposes that the GSC pay half of that. The belligerent nature of the game led to a discussion about whether the GSC should sponsor such events. The board decided that this event can be funded (7 for, 3 against, 1 abstention). However the board also decided that the cost was too much and that we would fund at most $10 per person. The final decision on the amount to be funded will be taken next time (Alex gets some more details until then).