Table of Contents
9 September 2011
- Time: 5:00 pm
- Location: LWSN 3102
- Call to Order at after 5:00.
Roll Call
- Present
- Philip Chair
- Brittany Treasurer
- Brandon PGSG Senator
- Rhadika Travel Grants
- Rohit Faculty Search
- Praveen Graduate Committee
- Swetha Graduate Committee
- Gowtham Undergraduate Committee
- Kushal College of Science Advisory Committee
- Ahmet Webmaster
- Rahul Google Pizza Ambassador
- Absent
- Ruby Faculty Search
Minutes of Previous Meeting
- No minutes of previous meeting.
Officer Reports
- None of the officers had done anything yet, except Brandon.
- Brandon had gone to a Senate meeting.
Old Business
- No old business.
New Business
- Philip and Brittany need to go to SAO Assembly.
- Event Planning
- 1 event per month, with food.
- Karaoke, Game Night on HarrisTron, Tech talks
- Grad student welcome event
- GSB Budget Proposal
- [Travel Grants: $4,000]
- Food: $2,000
- Swag: $ 500
- Group Outing Event: $ 500
- Mentorship Lunches: $ 500
- Total [$7,500] with Travel Grants, $3,500 without Travel Grants
- The Travel Grant budget reflects our expectation that 4 students will be awarded a Travel Grant to cover up to $1,000 towards conference attendance costs.
- The Food budget reflects the cost of 10 social events with food at an average cost of $200 per event.
- The Swag budget reflects the expected cost of subsidizing promotional material for GSB, such as T-Shirts.
- The Group Outing Event budget reflects the expected cost of subsidizing a group of CS students to attend an athletic event or other extracurricular social activity.
- The Mentorship Lunches budget reflects the expected cost of subsidizing Mentorship lunches at an average cost of $20 per group with 25 groups (50 new students paired with 25 senior students).
- Decision made to pressure Head Search Committee to add Students Reps to committee and to publish list of traits they are looking for in the next head.
- Decision made to ask Prof. Prabhakar for a copy of the ERB report.
- Something about committees for reviewing realignment. Probably a question about does one even exist.
- Reminder about Corporate Partners Presentation.
Next Meeting
- Next Meeting is in ~1 month.
Adjournment
- Adjourned, probably around 6:00 pm
6 October 2011
- Time: 4:30 pm
- Location: LWSN 3102
- Call to Order at 4:33.
Roll Call
- Present
- Philip Chair
- Brandon PGSG Senator
- Rhadika Travel Grants
- Rohit Faculty Search
- Praveen Graduate Committee
- Kushal College of Science Advisory Committee
- Ahmet Webmaster
- Rahul Google Pizza Ambassador
- Absent
- Brittany Treasurer
- Ruby Faculty Search
- Swetha Graduate Committee
- Gowtham Undergraduate Committee
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
- Minutes of the 9 September meeting approved without objection.
Speaker
- Prof. Prabhakar spoke about the External Review Board's report. (see attached notes)
Officer Reports
- Officer reports were unceremoniously skipped.
Old Business
- Rohit has the mentorship website ready to go. Email will go out to students soon and GSB will advertise the program at the social hour on 7 Oct.
- The GSB budget calls for $2,625 more than the GSB currently has in the BOSO account. A formal request for the missing money will be made by the Chair to the Interim department head.
New Business
- The issue of GSB paying for PhD awards was settled by the new business manager in the business office. The department will pay for those awards from now on.
- Noted was the fact that, in the last year, the GSB payed out $500.70 for these awards despite having not received any money from the department in that time.
- The GSB gave unanimous approval to asking to the Dean for a copy of the External Review Board's report.
- The GSB decided to not seek a student on the Faculty Search committee, but instead asked the interim department head to make providing feedback on the candidates a more formalized process by allowing graduate students to log in and make comments through a webservice, like the faculty do.
- The GSB unanimously approved hosting a social hour in the future.
Next Meeting
- ?????
Adjournment
- Time ran out and the meeting wasd adjourned at 6:00pm so that the Town Hall could begin.
ERB Report Notes
- Recent Accomplishment in the CS Dept
- Finding: Disharmony since 1999 (noted in 1999 and 2005 ERB reports), there is evidence that the dept is performing qulaity work and making notable achievements
- Need for a University Wide Vision for Computing and Information Tech
- Recommendation: That the Provost lead a pan-Universtiy consideration of how CS and IT will be taught, will advance scholarship and will exploit the leverage to be had in interdisciplinary cooperation across the University.
- Committee notes (as did 2005 ERB team) that Purdue addressing this issue is a rare opportunity to have substantial national impact. But that the current administrative structure is unlikely to survive such a planning effort
- Dept Leadership and Changing the Climate
- Recommendation: The Dean of Science and Provost should declare that consideration of the single issue of realignment of CS into CoE is closed. They should carefully communicate that, while the proposal has some positive attributes, the process for consideration of this singleton realignment issue is no longer functional and is terminated. CS should participate in the pan-University process of repositioning the University to best embrace and exploit CS and IT for education and research.
- The dean specifically requested that the ERB not cover this issue, but they must since it is the elephant in the room.
- Recommendation: The senior faculty should collectively establish a positive and civil department culture. Disharmony will continue if discussion about realignment continues.
- The dept needs to have a stronger strategic vision for the next 5 - 10 years, how to improve national standing (how to recruit the best faculty and grad students), how to leverage educational and research prgms with activities elswhere at University. Primary focus should be faculty hires.
- Recommendation: The dept head search should begin immediately.
- Most important trait is geuine leadership and management skills. Head candidates should be told that the primary objectives of the dept are to build quality and reputation, to sort out and resolve challenges students face in working across borders between CS and other units, and play a leading role in the determination of the futurte for computing-related research and education across the University.
- Recommendation: It is vital that the Dean of Science and the Provost empower the new head not only with the requisite administrative backing to accomplish what must be done, but in addition, with the resources necessary to carry out the ambitious goals for the dept.
- “I think this is talking about the Dean and the Provost more than the new head… those two need to support CS and not try to shut us up.” - unattributed quote.
- Quality and Perceived Ranking
- Recommendation: The dept should select and advance profs for distinctive recognition. The Dean should bend rules if the dept is slow.
- Undergraduate Program
- Finding: Good job on the undergrads.
- The tracks need work (too traditional, need more edge stuff, like ML and CompStat). The divide between CS and ECE does not serve students well.
- Recommendation: <Strong> that CS and ECE address the issues that affect student choice and achievements.
- Recommendation: Carefully moniter statistics and adjust number of TAs to keep up with growing classes. Encourage all students to take CS and monitor exposure to CS as a key metric for Purdue.
- Graduate Program
- Finding: PhD numbers are growing, and placement is good.
- The department is not benefitting yet from the paying MS, they NEED to do so.
- Recommendation: Receive money for MS program and give it to TAs and PhD students.
- Diversity
- Finding: Little progress made.
- Recommendation: Create a climate conducive to promoting diversity.
- Stop leaning on women faculty to be the token women. Have a non URM represent URMs, with that as their only position on the committee.
- Recommendation: hire more URMs. Use the Provost to hire them faster.
- Finding: Purdue lags behind national average. Thus, outreach should increase to women and URMs.
- Infrastructure and Staff
- Finding: Good.
14 October 2011
- Time: 4:30 pm
- Location: LWSN 2150
- Call to Order at 4:35 pm.
Roll Call
- Present
- Philip Chair
- Brittany Treasurer
- Rhadika Travel Grants
- Rohit Faculty Search
- Gowtham Undergraduate Committee
- Absent
- Brandon PGSG Senator
- Ruby Faculty Search
- Swetha Graduate Committee
- Praveen Graduate Committee
- Kushal College of Science Graduate Student Council
- Ahmet Webmaster
- Rahul Google Pizza Ambassador
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
- Minutes of the previous meeting were not sent out, so could not be approved.
Officer Reports
- Chair
- sent an email to Dean Roberts requesting a copy of the ERB report
- sent an email to Prof. Prabhakar requesting money for the GSB
- Treasurer
- so far, no one knows where the TG money is or was. Prof. Eugster says it was a gift from a company
- Travel Grants
- nothing to report
- Faculty Search
- nothing to report
- Graduate Committee
- did not attend, but there should be something about MS course requirements
- Undergraduate Committee
- nothing to report because committee has not met
- College of Science Graduate Student Council
- did not attend, but nothing to report because council has not met
- Webmaster
- did not attend
- Google Pizza Ambassador
- did not attend
Old Business
- None?
New Business
- Plan for lobbying for student representation amendment to CoS Constitution
- Rohit is against lobbying for student representation on the search committee because there is no genuine reason for students to be on the committee and students on the committee would not actually represent students.
- Gowtham is in favor of lobbying for student representation on the search committee because students will provide a different and necessary view that faculty alone cannot provide
- Philip is in favor of lobbying for student representation on the search committee because havbing students on the committee is the right thing to do and excluding students from such important decison making processes implies that students are not important.
- We talked at length about student representation on the department head search committee. The consensus we came to is that GSB should put out a survey to the graduate students to compile a list of issues that grad students want the search committee to ask applicants during interviews. And also that we should ask faculty to support an amendment to the CoS Constitution requiring future department head search committees to include students.
- Graduate Committee Question re: PhD Qual / MS course buckets
- We talked about the MS course requirements and the change that the graduate committee is considering (eliminating the compilers requirement). No decision was made about what to do about it yet, though.
- Student on Graduate Admissions Committee
- We discussed student representation on the graduate admissions committee. We decided we don't even know how the graduate admissions committee works and were not really sure how a graduate student could make a positive impact on the process. So, we decided the first thing we should do is figure out what the committee does and how they do it and then figure out if there is a way for a graduate student to help make the committee better.
- Barriers to Interdisciplinary Research
- Brittany shared her experience with attempting to do interdisciplinary research with us. She took a research course from the IE department in the field of Human-Computer Interaction and was told by Dr. Gorman that such work is not applicable to her PhD degree from the department of CS. She is considering leaving the CS program, and Purdue, entirely if she cannot do the research that she wants to do. She came to Purdue because they advertised being strongly in favor of interdisciplinary research, but she now feels that the department does not live up to that advertisement.
- The GSB members present thought it was ridiculous that interdisciplinary research is discouraged, despite the fact that the department likes to advertise itself as being in favor of such research. We decided to send an email to Profs. Fahmy and Prabhakar, as chair of the graduate committee and interim department head, respectively, to ask about the department's policy on interdisciplinary research and how graduate student can work with the graduate committee and the department faculty to encourage and support efforts to engage in interdisciplinary research as part of graduate study.
Discussion
- We talked about how students hear about approved courses outside the department. We decided that it would be best if the department issued a list every semester of the courses being offered outside the department that are approved for CS plans of study.
- We discussed upcoming GSB events. We decided to have a movie night at the end of October with food catered by Chipotle. The movie will be decided by a vote of the GSB.
- We discussed the Travel Grant fund confusion. We still don't know where the money is or ever was and are still curious to find out. According to Chris Mayfield, a previous chair of the GSB, the money was gifted to the GSB several years ago in the amount of $10,000 and that $5000 (at least) should still remain. We do not know where to go next since the answer we got at the Town Hall was that the department (including the business office) have no idea what we are talking about when we speak of Travel Grant money.
Next Meeting
- The next GSB meeting is in approximately 1 month.
Adjournment
- Meeting adjourned at 6:05 pm
11 January 2012
- Time: 2:00 pm
- Location: LWSN 1168
- Call to Order at 2:05 pm.
Roll Call
- Present
- Philip Chair
- Brandon PGSG Senator
- Rhadika Travel Grants
- Praveen Graduate Committee
- Kushal College of Science Graduate Student Council
- Rahul Google Pizza Ambassador / Socials
- Absent
- Brittany Treasurer
- Ruby Faculty Search
- Rohit Faculty Search
- Swetha Graduate Committee
- Gowtham Undergraduate Committee
- Ahmet Webmaster
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
- Minutes of the previous meeting were not sent out, so could not be approved.
Officer Reports
- Nothing to report.
Old Business
- ???
New Business
- CS Course Advice
- Brandon will conduct a survey of the graduate students to get feedback on the proposed course list.
- Grad Admissions Committee
- Kushal was selected to serve as GSB representative.
- Travel Grants
- GSB approved setting the amount of the GSB Travel Grant award at $1000 (up to $1000… if the student needs less, they use less).
- Social Chair
- Rahul agreed to be GSB Social Officer. He is now in charge of running and paying for events (he will be reimbursed by GSB). All GSB members are expected to help Rahul set up, run and clean up after all events.
- Mentorship
- Rohit is a big lazy bum. Once mentorship teams have been notified, a mentorship event will be staged to introduce mentors to mentees and give them A/R charge cards to pay for a lunch (put $20 on each card).
Events
- Movie and Games Night - January
- Sporting Event - February or March
- Canoe Trip - Summer
- Bowling and Billiards - February, March or April
- Finals Pizza - May
- Movie Nights - February and April
- Mentorship Lunch - January
Next GSB Meeting
- Next GSB meeting 2/3 or 2/10, catered by Jimmy John's. Fill out meeting poll and send your order to Philip.
Adjournment
- Meeting adjourned at 2:50 pm
3 February 2012
- Time: 4:00 pm
- Location: LWSN 2150
- Call to Order at 4:05 pm.
Roll Call
- Present
- Philip Chair
- Brittany Treasurer
- Rhadika Travel Grants
- Praveen Graduate Committee
- Swetha Graduate Committee
- Gowtham Undergraduate Committee
- Absent
- Brandon PGSG Senator
- Ruby Faculty Search
- Rohit Faculty Search
- Kushal College of Science Graduate Student Council
- Ahmet Webmaster
- Rahul Google Pizza Ambassador / Socials
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
- skipped?
Old Business
- RA Resume Bank
- Gowtham will create a Google form to gather information from graduate students to answer Renate's questions.
- Graduate students will fill out the form at the beginngin and end of each semester and the spreadsheet will be disseminated to Renate and faculty so they can directly contact graduate students looking fro RA-ships.
- Mentorship
- Going OK.
- Some groups have turned in receipts.
- Rohit will do a survey at the end of the semester to get feedback from mentors and mentees.
- The GSB will probably sponsor another mentorship lunch. Brittany is going to file CRFs soon.
- Department Money in BOSO Account: Hooray! We can do events now!
- GSOGA Money: Still not there yet.
New Business
- Next Meeting Planner: Ruby.
- Ruby will pick the next meeting date and time during the week of 2/24 - 3/2, reserve the room, file the EPF, and order the food ($50 budget, reimbursed by GSB).
- Movie and Games Night:
- The GSB will host a movie and games night sometime between 2/20 and 3/4.
- Budget is $200.
- Food suggested is Pizza.
- Rahul (as designated Social Chair) will pick the date, reserve the room, file the EPF, and order the food.
- Bowling and Billiards (?):
- The GSB will host a big event in March, possibly Bowling and Billiards.
- Budget is $400.
- Swetha will pick the date, reserve the location, file the EPF and order the food.
- Department Head Search:
- WTF is up with it?
- We don't know.
- Philip will find out WTF is up from Atallah.
Next GSB Meeting
- Next GSB meeting: week of 2/24 - 3/2, organized by Ruby
Adjournment
- Meeting adjourned at 5:10 pm
24 February 2012
- Time: 2:00 pm
- Location: LWSN 3162
- Call to Order at 2:05 pm.
Roll Call
- Present
- Philip Chair
- Brittany Treasurer
- Brandon PGSG Senator
- Ruby Faculty Search
- Rohit Faculty Search
- Praveen Graduate Committee
- Swetha Graduate Committee
- Rahul Google Pizza Ambassador / Socials
- Absent
- Rhadika Travel Grants
- Gowtham Undergraduate Committee
- Kushal College of Science Graduate Student Council
- Ahmet Webmaster
Minutes from the Previous Meeting
- skipped?
Old Business
- Bowling and Billiards Night (possibly sponsored by Intel) - Swetha in charge. Tentative date: 3/8. Email sent to Intel with details, awaiting reply.
- Dept. Head Search Update - Still gathering applications. Interviews have not yet started.
New Business
- Ahmet graduated.
- He is preemptively fired.
- Brandon will take over as Webmaster.
- Praveen will take over as PGSG Senator.
- Brandon will help Praveen get PGSG Senator paperwork filed.
- Poor attendance at faculty candidate student meetings.
- Not sure what can be done.
- Games and Movie Night
- Rahul in charge.
- Tentative date: during Spring break or Monday after.
- Next meeting planner is Rahul.
- He will set date 3 - 4 weeks from now, reserve room, order food, etc.
- TEDxPurdue TED Live Screening in LWSN 1142
- Philip got help from Prof. Eugster and Pam Graf to resrve LWSN 1142 for TEDxPurdue to hold TED Live Screening.
- Women in CS mentorship event
- No idea what to do. Philip will bug CSWN again.
- College of Science Advisory council does not exist.
- Kushal is now GSB Liason to Graduate Admission Committee.
- Because that's what he is doing now anyways.
- And he's doing a good job.
- GSB Awards
- GSB will look for big-ass trophies to give away as GSB awards.
Next GSB Meeting
- Next meeting: TBA by Rahul.
Adjournment
- Meeting adjourned at 2:52 pm
