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CS Grad Council Meeting Minutes – Mon., Aug 22, 2001 Secretary – Pete Schoenhoff |
The meeting was brought to order at 5:06 pm. Members present were Fernando Das Neves, Ameya Datey, Vinoth Jagannathan, Wendy Schafer, Pete Schoenhoff, Mudita Singhal, Josh Steele, and Marc Vass.
Interior: Josh
·
Will send out a “no food
/ drink” memo to address some of the current grad-lab problems
·
The printer quota is now
fixed, multiple pages printed on a single sheet of paper are now charged as on
page. The quota is set up as if it were
a monetary quota, although students are not technically charged for this. The quota represents 10 cents per page. Let Josh know of any problems.
·
The machines have been
re-cloned.
·
Josh will schedule
another lab clean-up day soon.
·
Ameya brought up the
issue of gradlab machines being locked for extendend periods. The lab has become very noisy. Other lab space (Brodie) has been lost, and
so overcrowding is a real issue. Much
discussion ensued from this.
o Sound panels in the room were proposed to reduce noise
levels.
o It was suggested that the room might be dedicated to
quiet, individual work only. This
notion was rejected, as a very large portion of class projects entail group
work, and the lab is the only reasonable place for groups to collaborate. Perhaps separate “quiet labs” and
“collaboration labs” would be desirable.
o Wendy and Josh will talk to Ginger about options.
Budget: Marc
·
$10.00 in dues have been
collected since the last meeting.
Social: Vinoth
·
Should we reschedule the
Cascades hike? Is 2 weeks acceptable?
·
Dave McPherson was
serious about having a social at his house.
Vinoth will try to set this up.
·
Wendy mentioned a stage
production of “Footloose” which is coming soon. Perhaps this could be a group activity for the csgrads.
·
Movie nights – (ideas –
everyone bring a movie, have people vote on one; also could do a double feature
contest – have the group vote on a “best” movie and “worst” movie.)
GPC: Fernando
·
Strategic Plan discussed:
o Increase ratio of Students/Teachers
o Increase
number of GTAs
o Fernando pointed out that the real issue is too
few GRAs. To provide more GRAs, faculty
must shop for research funding, which would pay for the new positions.
§
This idea has now been
added to the strategic plan.
·
Lots of general
discussion
GSA: Wendy
·
The GSA has not met
lately.
CRC: Josh
·
Nothing lately… Josh
thinks he may not be on the e-mail list.
He will check this out.
Faculty Meeting: Marc
·
Qualifiers: 17 people
are signed up to take them
o 2 have passed already
o Breakdown
§
1 High Performance
Computing
§
3 Algorithms
§
3 Networking
§
1 Software Engineering
§
7 Data and Info
Visualization
§
3 Human-Computer
Interaction
§
1 Programming Languages
§
1 Unknown
·
1.5 years from the time
you pass the qualifiers, you must submit a request to have your points
“tallied.”
·
Wendy will try to find
out who the Qualifier people are, in hopes that we can meet with them as they
go through the process.
Survey: Pete
·
One big concern in the
survey is the lack of general courses. (Most
courses deal with special topics)
o One suggested idea involved a “Special Interest Group”
– a faculty member and students could meet informally to explore a topic under
the guidance of the faculty member. As
this would (obviously) be volunteer work, several concessions would have to be
afforded to the faculty in order for such a proposal to seem appealing:
§
Cap on the size of the
group set by the faculty member.
§
Faculty member could set
the requirements on group membership: (Example, all members must publish)
§
As this is explored, a
repeatable process should be established for forming such groups in the future.
o Another idea involved “Sessions” – one day short
courses.
Other:
·
Blacksburg Transit is not
going to cancel any services!