Graduate Student Council Meeting Minutes (5:30 pm Mad Mex): 2-22-06
In Attendance: Jon P., Brian, John C., Christina, Kerrie, and Jennifer
Jon’s presentation at the EMS faculty meeting on Feb. 14 th, 2006 went really well. He
received lots of positive feed-back from a variety of faculty members. We hope that this
helped get the council some exposure so people know who we are and what we are trying
to do!
The faculty senate meeting on Feb. 21 st, 2006 was attended by Jon P., and Brian. The
senate just wanted to know about student experiences in EMS but seemed more interested
in what the undergrads had to say than the graduates.
GEMS – We’re still working to establish more ties with GEMS. As of now nothing solid
is planned, but Jon P. plans on emailing Colleen ASAP to try to get the ball moving on a
couple items, such as: our attending the GEMS meeting (March 24 th?), having a member
of GEMS act as our liaison, help to communicate what we want from GEMS.
New awards and Fellowships Development Committee (John and Jon) Report: They’ve
come up with two ideas for proposals for new awards; 1. Professional Development
Award (similar to goals of Centennial, but the goal would be to establish a specific
funding source so we always know where the money is coming from), and 2. Teaching
Fellowship/Award. The goal of this fellowship/award would be to set up an endowment
such that students can develop and teach a course and be funded for a semester while
doing so. This would require some big money, but it is worth putting the ideas out there!
(GSC members - for further description of each award, see the notes posted on ANGEL)
Centennial Award Committee (Brandie, Christina, and Kerrie) Report: We held extensive
discussions and the six committee members present voted on a number of items
pertaining to the Centennial award. 1. We unanimously decided that, we, as council
members cannot apply for the centennial award as it poses a severe conflict of interest. 2.
We, as a council, also decided to distribute the $5000 prize money to one recipient per
department (for $1000 each). At this time we will not ask the department for matching
funding. 3. Department reps will talk with their graduate program heads to discuss the
handling of the applications. Each department will decide for itself who narrows down
the applicants to a “top 5” if it is necessary (i.e. if a department gets 10 nominations we
may ask whomever (grad program head, dept. head, awards committee, or GSC reps) is
handling it for that department to narrow it down to the top 5 nominations. The
nominations will then be given to the respective GSC reps to be presented to the rest of
the committee for judging (we will not judge our own departments). The following
tentative timeline is in place: Next week (Feb 27 th-March 3rd), have the call for
applications sent out to faculty AND students. March 31 st, 2006 – nominations due on
the department level. April 7 th, 2006 – departmental deadline for turning in top 5
applicants to GSC. April 28 th – Award recipients chosen by GSC. Fall awards banquet –
recipients announced. (NOTE – modified announcements and nomination forms will be
finished and posted on ANGEL asap, so stay tuned!)
Increasing the profile of GSC: Jon’s speech was a start for notifying the faculty, but we
want to get wood out to students too. How?? Brian and John C. put together some fliers
for distribution in student mailboxes twice a year (once/semester). These will be posted
on ANGEL for comment. Need to determine how we will pay for printing of these simple
fliers (some departments have some serious restrictions on printing so that might be a
problem). The Million Dollar Question – How to be known (and loved) without being
annoying???
International Focus Groups – basically just choose 5 international students from each
department, take them out to lunch, and ask them, “Why did you come to Penn State?”
and let the conversation flow from there. Can both reps go? – John will email Karen and
ask.
State of the Happy Hour – last week’s happy hour was attendance wasn’t great.
Attendance seems to have dropped. Why? We’ve decided just to do it twice a semester.
We’ll wait till April to do the next happy hour (either on a Wed. or Thursday).
Next meeting is tentatively set for March 22 nd, 2006 at 5pm at Mad Mex.
Meeting Adjourned at 7 pm