GSC Meeting Minutes September 30, 2005

Last meeting's minutes: approved

GRAD TEAS
=========

Erika: Results of survey: most people think grad teas are a good idea.
People in remote places like GCATT feel marginalized. This will change
as everybody moves to more central buildings. 

Division/group or general grad teas? Big: it's better to keep them
open to everybody.
 
Many complain that teas are not at consistent times, making planning
attendance difficult.

Complaints about faculty not being there. This might be solved by more
advertising, but consensus is that grad teas should remain a mainly
students' thing.

Conclusions:
Grad Teas ar regular times? 
Tracy: no 
Jay: Afternoons later in the week might work better.

The consensus apparently is to continue like they have been managed in
the past.

Halloween grad tea, at Tech Square might be nice, possibly outside in
the square. Ask Daron and Barbara.

GSC MEETINGS
============

Reschedule gsc meeting in January 2006 to Fri at lunch to try to see
if attendance can be improved. Next Meeting (End of October) will be
in TSRB. GSC will sponsor a Grad Tea on December 2 in conjunction with
the GSC meeting.

REPORTS FROM GSC MEMBERS 
========================

Daron: CCD faculty meeting 
Rich Fujimoto spoke about CSED. Development of a relationship w/ Oak
Ridge may be an opportunity for CS graduates.  There has been talk of
faculty mentoring -- could this be an occasion for revitalizing
mentoring programs for PhDs? Once the faculty mentoring starts, we
could look at how they do it and do something similar.

Bryan: Undergrad Prog. Comm.  
There is a plan for revamping introductory courses with a focus on
more programming and needed skills. Also the sequence of courses may
be restructured. There is plan to introduce specialization paths for
undergraduates. These changes may take effect starting next year.

Yan: Faculty Review
Tentative date 10/21. Alternatives for places:
- Veni Vidi Vici / Gordon Biersch
- TSRB Globe
- GT Hotel
We still need to recruit senior students from Databases, Security and Networking.

COC PICNIC
==========
Tracy volunteers whirlyball picnic?
Could transportation be organized using buses?


OFFICE SPACE FOR NEW PHDS
=========================
The issue was mostly fixed.


UNFILLED POSITIONS
==================
Steven Dow volunteers to take on the HCC rep position