Mir Farooq Ali, Robert Capra, Nathan Conklin, Chad Wingrave, Craig Ganoe, Wendy Schafer, Miranda Capra, Tracy Lewis

Not present: Pankaj Poddar, Vijay Hanumolu

Meetings:

Our next meeting will be February 1st, 2001.

Objective:

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

Committee Reports

Everyone - Please remember to remind the faculty to invite you to the
committee meetings for your committee.

GPC - Tracy
Qualifying Exam

  The current grading of the qualifying exam has changed to a format
  of 3 graders.  The scores are assigned and an average is taken.  The
  score is then reviewed by the GPC.

  The GPC is reviewing the following three options for the Qual:

  1) Open book + less restrictive time
     Department supplied laptops to help with the write-up
     Also, a points system is to be established to determine if the
       student is "qualified".  This system is based on three
       sections: GPA, Research, and Qualifying Exam.  In each section
       the student will be rated on a scale from 0-3.
     In GPA:
       0 - 4th quartile GPA of all CS graduate students
       1 - 3rd quartile GPA of all CS graduate students
       2 - 2nd quartile GPA of all CS graduate students
       3 - 1st quartile GPA of all CS graduate students
     In Research:
       0 - No demonstrative behavior towards research
       1 - Demonstrates research initiative by either finding an
           advisor
       2 - Demonstrates research ability in the form of completing
           a research project, independent study, or RA
       3 - Demonstrates research ability in the form of completing a
           research paper and having it published.
     In Qualifier:
       0 - Fails the qual at all levels
       1 - Passes the qual at Masters, but fails at PhD
       2 - Passes the qual at PhD
       3 - Performs exceptionally well on the qual

     A student would have to have a total combined score of six (6) in
     order to have passed the qualifying milestone.

  2) Student must receive an A or A- in 7 of 11 core courses.

  3) Student must complete a smaller set of core courses
     Student must read about 20 papers assigned by advisor and take
     either an oral or written exam.

  The graduate council will send around a note soliciting feedback.
  Tracy will present the feedback to Dr. Shaffer.
  Tracy will also find out when the next faculty meeting is.
  We need to inform all graduate students to solicit feedback.

CRC - Farooq

  Dr. Erich is the head of the CRC now.
  Farooq will voice our problems with administration of CSGRAD at the
    next CRC meeting
  Chad and Farooq are going to the Friday 3:00 CRC meeting

Space allocations

Tracy will make changes to the applications to stream line the
process.  These changes have been approved.  Applications will go out
immediately.  They are due back by Friday.  Assignments will be made
by Monday.  All lockers will be reassigned.

Super Friends

To battle with the continued need of administration flexibility, we a
considering having a group of "super friends" who share some
priveledges to the CSGRAD machine.  Pete, Vijay, Jason, and Nathan
are being considered for the position.  Rob will work on a list of
needs that we have for CSGRAD.  They will be something like:

  - priveledge to clear tmp
  - priveledge to reboot the machine
  - priveledge to clear some of /var/spool

Constitution

Nathan is working on his first pass at the Constitution.  He has
requested that everyone review the description of their position.
Everyone should update (re-write or create) a description for the
position.  They should also document contact information needed for
attending meetings and becoming part of the committee.

The document will move from a LaTeX version to a solely HTML version.
There will also be a separation of the document into two documents.
One will remain the constitution - a static artifact of the bylaws.
The other will become a dynamic artifact that discusses procedures and
processes that may/will change.  This dynamic portion will contain the
position descriptions and event descriptions.

Social Events

Social events on the calendar include:

  - Ethnic dinner (Bob offered to host)
  - Ice Skating
  - Movie night (Jason showed interest)
  - Virginia Trek Scavenger Hunt

Open Meetings

We are planning to hold our first open meeting on either Febraury 5th
or 6th.  This date should be better finalized and should be published
for all the graduate students.  At this meeting we will request
feedback for where the students concerns are and what the graduate
council can do to work towards these concerns.  We also want to make
it known that all meetings are open.

Submitted by: Nathan Conklin January 22, 2001