GSC BoD Meeting
Thursday, July 12 , 2000
Directors present:
Alex Backer, Tanja Bosak, Marco Casari, Catherine Cornu, Bob Gingrich, Will Green, Anil Hirani, Ying Huang, Michael Johnson, Tim Lesko, Fok-Yan Leung, Nick Pornsinsirirak, Steve Pracko, Claude Seywert, Hui Wu
Directors absent:
Jeff Bergthorson , Magali Billen, Will Dunbar, Mike Fleming, Serena Guarnaschelli, James Harrington, Tobias Kippenberg, Jose Mumbru, Athanasios Nenes
Guests:
Jo-Ann Ruffolo (Career Center)
Chair Alex Backer presiding.
a.
Introduction of guests
Jo-Ann is here to talk about the PhD Career Conference
b.
Additions to the agenda
PhD Career Conference
The June minutes are unanimously accepted.
a.
PhD Conference
The PhD conference will be on September 7 and 8. The keynote speaker is Peter Fiske from nextwave.com. Jo-Ann distributed a handout which had a list of possible topics for the various sections and asked whether the GSC had any further ideas. The list was very comprehensive and the BoD thought that all their concerns were well covered.
b.
Possible GSC Issues
Alex had a meeting with Parandeh where they talked about topics of concern to graduate studies. These topics are based on a survey that was done 2 years ago, entitled “Quality of Life”. The most important issues (and the ones where the GSC can take action on) are listed below:
· M/F ration: The graduate office is hiring a professional recruiter to attract more women and minorities to the campus. Caltech also makes an effort to send women students on recruiting tours.
· Student social life/ interaction with non-Caltech persons: Parandeh is studying the possibility of reviving a shuttle to UCLA to give the students the possibility to visit (and party) at a bigger campus.
· Housing prices/stipends: While housing prices have gone up, our stipend remains rather constant. This is a good issue for us to work on, especially as the faculty is looking at the stipend level too in order to remain competitive with other schools. Alex asked for a volonteer to look into the evolution of the stipends in the past couple of years (and compile a list on what is paid now). Unfortunately noone seems to care so the issue is left hanging.
· Ethnic/cultural issues: apparently some people have problems with American culture, however the BoD doesn’t see how the GSC could change that.
· Advisor issues:
o The GSC is still trying to get clear guidelines for all the options in the catalogue, in the 4 options where we wanted to see some improvement thing are happening: The CS students are writing their own section, Ph and MA have added a section (let’s wait for the catalogue to see whether it’s ok) and Steve is working on the latest version for Aph.
o During orientation there will be a session where upperclassmen explain the pitfalls of the student/advisor relationship to the incoming class. Alex, Tanja, Ying, Tim, Marco and Hui volunteered to help with that.
o Since student advisor issues are hard to solve, we want to put the focus on prevention these problems from arising. One idea is to have labreviews, possibly posted anonymously on a website. There are a bunch of problems associated with this and Jo-Ann suggested we contact people at UCLA where they were trying something similar. Claude, Steve, Will, Fok and Nick are interested in looking into this.
o Alex also suggested that the Counseling Center organize some kind of management training for professors.
· Teaching Quality: Alex suggested starting a course evaluation guide which might encourage professors to do a better teaching job (if they get bad review all the time) or at least would alert students. Apparently GPS has already something like that (any other option?). The best thing would be to do this in collaboration with the undergrads as they take more classes. Will will look into it.
Other stuff: Alex wants the GSC to publish an annual report so we are more accountable and people can see what we actually did.
c.
Summer Term Party
Michael agrees to organize a party on August 5
d.
Gradiators
Bob (by default) is in charge of gradiators.
e.
NSO
The schedule is online and any updates will appear on the webpage. Nick is looking into some additions to the schedule (Sunday, Monday)
f.
BoD Retreat
The tentative date for the retreat is August 26. The place is not defined yet and any suggestions (so far: Catalina, Lake Arrowhead) are welcome –and organizers too!
a.
Flyer Task Force
Check the GSC homepage for the assignments. The BoD agreed that it is sufficient to send the flyers by email (no color though!)
b.
TA awards
Alex expresses his thanks to Thanos for taking care of the awards.
c.
Catalina Housing Update
· The waiting list for the Catalinas has shrunk from about 130 after the lottery to about 70 at this time.
· 7 persons applied for the vacant CHCC position (Martin is leaving). After the interviews the selection committee (Catherine was the GSC representative, along with Ying) decided on Serena Guarnaschelli. Rob’s position is opening up too so more interviews will be necessary.
· The only activity last month was a movie night on June 26 where 20 people showed up.
d.
Other
· A template for clubfunding proposals (due September 1) can be found on our website.
· There was a discussion about revising the quickfunding guidelines. Fok will look into it.