Attendees:

Mir Farooq Ali, Robert Capra, Nathan Conklin, Tracy Lewis, Ragavan Srinivasan, Kimberly Woods

Not present: Pankaj Poddar

Meetings:

The next meeting is scheduled at 4:00 p.m. on September 4, 2000.

Objective:

This meeting was designed to discuss status of several pending issues.

GPC

Two slots are again open for GPC Representatives. The first GPC meeting for Fall 2000 will most likely be held next week. Ragavan and Tracy will attend.

Discussion will most likely be centered around Ph.D. qualifying exam. Grad Council would like to add the following items to the agenda:

· Course offerings

· Faculty/student ratio

· Funding

· Offering advising prior to registration

· Updating course pages prior to registration

· Making GTA Assignments earlier in Spring semester (April for Fall GTA)

· Available computing resources

Fall Picnic

Nathan and Kim asked all Grad Council members to remain until the end of the Fall picnic to assist with the cleaning up process. Carpools will also be provided. Nathan and Kim have divided the planning for the picnic between themselves, but need volunteers for the following:

· Carpool

· Setup

· Cleanup

· Icebreakers

A brief meeting for volunteers hosting icebreakers will be held after the Graduate Council Meeting.

Graduate Student Dues

Dues will be set at $6/semester or $10/year. Fundraisers will also be discussed at a later time.

Pankaj does not have an office space, so we need to provide a means for students unable to contact him to pay their dues. An announcement will be made at the Fall Picnic and other social events, as well as email mailings.

Lockers

Lockers in 655 will have to be emptied by Wednesday, August 30, 2000. At that time, new locks will be placed on the lockers, and students will have to sign up for locker space. Tracy is working on a joint form for locker/research space.

Locker units for McBryde 133 will not be available for one month. Assignments will be made to GTA on a per-course basis. Individual assignments will be made.

Brodie Hall

Two rooms are tentatively available in Brodie Hall. Room 115 currently has two small cubicles and one network drop. Room 117 will have five desks and five network drops. This space will be assigned to master’s thesis and master’s coursework-only (independent study) students.

Action Item: Rob will speak to Sandy about adding 1 network drop per available space. At this time, no computers are available for these areas.

McBryde 133

This room will be operational by Monday, August 28, 2000. There will be seven cubicles, and five network drops. Grad Council members have decided how the five computers will be distributed, but will also petition the department for two additional computers.  Cubes will be numbered. Five will be assigned; two will be designated as an overflow area, as decided at the last Council meeting.  One schedule book will be placed in each cubicle so that GTAs and students can sign up for cubicles during non-scheduled times.  Microsoft Outlook Server will be considered as a future solution for signing up for GTA space.

Action Item: Rob and Tracy will assign GTAs to spaces and fill out assigned times in each of the schedule books.

Lab Cleanup

The first lab cleanup has been scheduled for Wednesday, August 30, 2000 at 2:30 p.m.

Grad Council will randomly recruit available volunteers. Signs will be posted in advance to notify students that cleanup will take place. One cleanup per month will be scheduled.

Action Item: Tracy will post signs regarding Lab Cleanup and send email.

 Seminar Series

New students will be encouraged to attend the series at the orientation. Mentors were encouraged to help generate enthusiasm for the series amongst their students.  The first seminar is scheduled on August 30, 2000.

Action Item: Nathan will create an abstract for the seminar series and send to all students.

Graduate Lab

Rob suggested that we do something to ‘liven up’ the environment in McBryde 659. Paintings and posters were suggested.

 New Graduate Student Representative

A new graduate student representative will be selected in December, once the new students have had some opportunity to get to know each other.

Submitted by: Kimberly Woods August 25, 2000