CS Grad Council Meeting Minutes – Mon., Oct 8, 2001

Secretary – Pete Schoenhoff

The meeting was brought to order at 5:00pm. Members present were Wendy Schafer, Marc Vass, Pete Schoenhoff, Vinoth Jagannathan, Ameya Datey, Josh Steele, and Mudita Singhal, who was joining us for the first time as the newly elected new student representative.

Interior: Josh has nothing to report.

Treasury: Marc says there is no change in the treasury since the last meeting.

Research Seminar Series: (Ameya reports) Dr. North has suggested a “student seminar series.” This idea seems to have a bit of support. Ameya will explore this. It sounds as though some participation would be voluntary and some encouraged by advisors. This would provide an extra opportunity for students to practice for a formal defense.

There are two more faculty “groups” left which will present in the series this semester. Lots of ideas offered about who else could present. Ameya will investigate.

Social: Cascades, Oct 13, pre-game trip planned.

Graduate Program Committee: Ameya has received no email about this. He will talk to Fernando to find out what’s going on.

Graduate Student Assembly: (Wendy reports) Dr. David Astrof, of the group in charge of student activities is planning to expand to cater to grad students as well (with respect to things like housing, meal plans, etc.) and is interested in our input.

Awards: Pete reports:

Dr. Ribbens nominated for the A&S College-level award "Certificate of Teaching Excellence”

Dr. Fox nominated for the "Alumni Award for Research Excellence"

Dr. Carroll nominated for the "Sturm Award of Excellence in Faculty Research"

Kate McDevitt for the "Outstanding Senior Award for Colleges"

Next meeting Oct. 30, 11am.

Other:

Josh is checking into SU/sudo access for gradcouncil on csgrad.

There is no word yet on the page quota / printing multiple virtual pages onto one physical page problem. Josh is still checking. One idea to address the issue of large amount of printing currently done was to encourage professors to make notes available at campus copy centers, and encourage students to buy course-packs that way. Some also suggested that this is not likely to address the issue.

Be aware of the upcoming Blacksburg Transit debate. At stake are times for a number of routes that run on or near campus.

The faculty meeting this week was cancelled. (Marc)

Mudita reports that the new students “are happy.”

Dr. Kafura has asked us to identify some (1-3) chief goals for the semester.

Some concerns have been raised about the need for upgrades for machines in McBryde 565 (Some machines are very slow.) Josh will look into it.