The Interdepartmental Science Students’ Society
Council Meeting
Agenda
6:00PM
November 14th, 2013
CCIS 1-033
Attendance
Executives: Colin Andrews, Shauna Regan, Albert Vu, Fahim Rahman, Betty Wang
Councillors: JeeSu Suh, Harman Khinda, Sayeed Devraj-Kizuk, Evan Sande, Arun Thomas,
James Hwang, Arsalan Ahmed, Kirsten Kelly
Other:
Chairperson: Harman Khinda
Minutes: Shauna Regan
1. Call to order
Meeting called to order at 6:03 PM.
2. Approval of minutes
Motion to approve the minutes of the last Council meeting of November 7th, 2013, as
written. Arun/Arsalan. Motion carried 8/0/0.
3. Approval of agenda
Motion to approve the agenda below, as written. Kirsten/Evan. Motion carried 8/0/0.
4. Adjournment
Motion to adjourn the meeting at 7:30 PM. Harman/Arsalan. Motion carried 8/0/0.
5. Presentations [6:08 PM]
1. Chemical Education Conference and Symposium 2014. Presented by Dr. Charles
Lucy. Sponsored by Fahim Rahman. Abstract: Organizing a conference next May. We
want to bring in two speakers to explore a no-text book (online) option; as we cannot
approach publishers for money so we are approaching different groups to get funding.
Key speakers that would be sponsored: D. Harvey & C. Harrison
a. Current funding: UBC Chemistry Student Group ($250.00), UBC Chem
Department ($250.00), UofA ChemSa and Department ($250.00) Target:
$5915.00, Gap: $4415.00
b. Colin: Essentially replace the CHEM 211 book if it was adopted. What is the
likelihood of this happening at the UofA and what is the timeline?
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c. Dr. Lucy: Could be next year but about a 25% likelihood. We are using a good
book right now. The first year that the textbook was used there was a poor
response from students but pdf vs. website was preferred. I think that
interest in this is shared with different professors and I hope to generate
interest.
d. Sayeed: Is it less accessible to some students? If students don’t have access to
a laptop or computer.
e. Dr. Lucy: That is why we want to talk with someone who has worked with it.
f. Arun: In the future does requiring a student submission support for an
undergraduate student?
g. Dr. Lucy: If you wanted to earmark I would let other Faculty members know
that there is an opportunity for student speakers.
h. Kirsten: Would an online version replace a hardcopy completely?
i. Dr. Lucy: Likely, would be difficult to have two sources.
j. Arun: Could some of the money go toward reducing the cost of attending the
conference?
k. Dr. Lucy: You could do it internally to the ISSS or ChemSA. There are student
research talks that go into the session and awards that you could support
through us.
l. Jee Su: What other sources of funding are you looking at?
m. Dr. Lucy: UofC, UofL, Simon Fraser, UVic, UofT, Thompson University. UofC
and UofL are interested. There is one company that I am thinking of but they
may already sponsor the conference.
n. Betty: Does everyone need to agree to use this?
o. Dr. Lucy: No, it is up to individual universities/professors.
p. Betty: Our adoption of a book like this wouldn’t affect others?
q. Dr. Lucy: There are several post-secondary institutions that use our syllabus
so there is potential for an indirect influence.
6. Executive Reports [6:23 PM]
1. President, Shauna Regan
a. Directors of Creative Outreach
i. Met with Arsalan & Victor this weekend to discuss what they wanted
to do with their portfolio & identified projects that the ISSS could
pursue. They will be working on video introductions to the ISSS
(mostly to help with transition of directors in a more engaging way
than written text), Victor will be talking to Robyn about starting
Fitness Days to bring together science students in a non-committal
forum, they will both be also looking at making and distributing a
mini-survey to see what sort of skills that science students think they
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are lacking or would like to obtain to make them more employable or
to diversify their experience. Other things that we discussed were
creating a short pdf introductory package for eClass to send to
professors at the start of term, creating a competition for students to
develop their own leadership & develop an ISSS-sponsored initiative,
and using a flashmob or daily boost to promote ISSS events like
Science Week.
b. Director of Membership Fees
i. Awards Adjudication Committee met on Tuesday to decide the
winners of the SCI 5 scholarships.
c. Director of Executive Administration
i. Executive/Councillor Evaluations
d. Director of Governance
i. Met with James on Friday and sequestered his help with the winter
SAGM. James will be organizing a constitutional review committee
meeting for November/December asap. James is also going to be
contacting Zainab to continue work on the Governance Day from the
summer.
e. Director of Internal Relations
i. Christmas Party & Secret Santa Update
1. Dawson offered the FIJI house for Jan 18. I think this is pretty
late, I’m in the process of asking my parents and should have
by the end of this week and then Christina will organize the
secret santa.
ii. Hide & Seek & Werewolves - who’s ready for this?
f. Elections Report
i. Please see the attached elections report. September elections were a
really difficult time & faced some unique challenges. March elections
are a lot more set in stone than September so hopefully we won’t be
given incorrect dates by the SU this year.
2. Vice President Academic, Fahim Rahman
a. Academic Advocacy
i. PRT is starting advertising for IAN nominations. Encourage your
friends to nominate cool profs and TAs!
ii. Survey: We ran out of physical copies. 2725 physical responses so far
but we haven’t checked the online responses. We are not going to
print more out so people going to classes are going to just promote
the link. 57 online responses.
iii. AAT is meeting next week to discuss inputting and the survey process.
b. Student Representation
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Academic Advising Survey and Unique Science Program Surveys have
been tabulated and summarized (attached below).
ii. Science Faculty Council representatives will meet with Dr. Loppnow
on Friday to be briefed on the Lab Experience Committee.
c. Associate Chairs Meeting
i. I was briefed on a few Faculty of Science committee activities and
information items discussed between the Associate Chairs
(Undergraduate), Senior Associate and Associate Dean.
ii. I presented to the Associate Chairs on administering our Survey and
handled questions they had. Dr. Klobukowski had a few concerns in
particular that I was able to address, but Dr. Loppnow and
Klobukowski said they’d follow up with me at a later meeting.
Regardless, we should be good to go forward on a scantron format for
next year, barring Council approval of course.
iii. A permanent student representative on this committee is a no;
contrary to the initial response we received from Dr. Schaeffer. I’ll
follow up with Dr. Loppnow and see if there are other relevant
committees that would benefit directly from an undergraduate
perspective when decisions are being made around changes.
d. Lab Experience Committee
i. Reduced hours were discussed.
ii. Lab fees - discussion isn’t finished and not meeting next Monday so I’ll
bring it up next council meeting.
3. Vice President Administration and Finance, Albert Vu
a. Office Hours
i. All of the new Directors have been scheduled for office hours. The
updated schedule is posted in the ISSS office beside the cash register.
The only shift to remain unfilled was Friday 1-2pm :(
b. Grad Photos
i. I’ve been getting a bunch of emails from students asking about grad
photos. Glad to see that we’re reaching some students with website
marketing, but I’d like to see some more photo sitting reservations!
c. Council/Exec Photoshoot
i. To confirm, the photoshoot will be on Thursday Nov 21st at 6:00pm,
at SUB Photo. Make sure you dress up and show up on time!
d. SCI 5 Bank Account
i. Colin and I set up a new savings account with Servus on Friday to hold
the funds we receive from SCI 5. Once we receive the money from SU,
it will be kept in this account, separate from the regular ISSS chequing
account.
i.
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4. Vice President Community, Victoria Pham
a. Newsletter: Sent out over the long weekend, Miranda and I don’t feel this
system is working as well because it’s a process that relies on a lot of people,
so we’ll be meeting when break is over to see if there’s another newsletter
format that’s more efficient that we can use for next time. Deadline will still
be the same, the 25th of every month though, just to keep something
consistent.
b. VAP: Shakiba’s still working on the proposal for this. We’re meeting after
she’s finished contacting the people at BP’s.
c. PR: Betty’s having a Sci Week Marketing meeting sometime this/next week,
which JeeSu and Dawson will probably attend given their directorships.
d. Design: From what I’ve heard, things are pretty quiet on design front. Things
should pick up as we’re getting closer to implementing marketing for events
next term though.
e. COSSA: Sent out email reminder encouraging COSSA groups to apply for next
round, as not as much was granted last round. The reason I think only $200
was granted out last round was because the Auto Funding might’ve covered
most expenses that groups would’ve usually applied for, and most events in
Fall Term are Orientation events (which we can’t cover in October round
because we don’t grant retroactively). I’m going to talk to Laura and see if we
can change something for next year (like deadlines or terms) to encourage
more groups to apply for money.
f. Other: Haven’t done too much ISSS work this week, had a huge report due
today in one of my classes that I was working on instead.
5. Vice President Programming, Betty Wang
a. Science Week
i. I made a timeline over the weekend of things that needs to be done
over the next very busy three weeks, I’m currently in the process of
going over this timeline with my directors, but it’ll most likely be
incorporated straight into the proposal.
ii. Sai will be in charge of the Fac-Off portions of SW, Annie and Harman
will spearhead the SW conference, and help me with the other minor
events of SW. They will also be in charge of writing the
procedures/budget portions of the proposal (for their respective
events), I think this will be good because it’ll give them an idea of
what my job entails, and maybe entice some future VPP candidates
*wink wink nudge nudge*
iii. I’ve sent out a million emails over the weekend asking for people’s
availabilities, but I’ve only received a few responses, most of them last
night… CHECK YOUR EMAILS PEOPLE =)
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b. Graduation
i. I had Ting/Seamus look into booking Faculty Club for grad, apparently
June 9/10th afternoon/evenings are still open, but I’ll need to decide
soon because they are accepting bookings for 2016 already…
c. Personal
i. Spent the entire four day weekend in my lab and writing ISSS emails…
JeeSu had her email spammed endlessly. And I’m one minute to the
exec-report-cut-off-time…. I will remember next week. Pinky promise.
6. Vice President Services, Colin Andrews
a. Handbook - Still waiting on Cheque from CU. Hopefully it will be in
tomorrow. I have set up a meeting with Kelvin to allow file transfers of last
year’s material to our new director. She is happy to start.
b. Student 2 Student - I have set a meeting to talk about the program with
Supraja. We want to reflect now on what went well and what went poorly to
collect ideas for next year and transition.
c. SCI5 - I went and set up a bank account with Albert last week. It looks like
we got the best plan for our money.
d. Microwaves - See motion! We want to start this process!
e. Software - See motion! We would like to start ASAP!
7. Question Period
1. Arsalan to VPC: Do we regulate any of the COSSA’s group’s websites? CSA came to
our class at the beginning of the year talking about Chem Study Groups… but I
checked their website and it’s still advertising 2011-2012 stuff.
a. Colin: we don’t regulate any COSSA websites.
2. Sayeed to VPC: How does the ISSS get the message out to science students about the
advocacy work that it does with the faculty?
a. Fahim: We consult with different academic bodies. We are bigger with
consultation than getting message out. RAUSS and SFC meet regularly; ISSS
council; posting on the website for relevant topics.
b. Betty: You’re asking about general science students? My perspective is
updates through social media (facebook) which informs students. They can
read minutes. I think this is a good idea especially this year.
c. Sayeed: Based on conversation with a previous ISSS member and they were
concerned that we weren’t doing anything.
d. Arun: Better for this to be a discussion topic.
3. Evan to VPP: I know for SW last year the programming committee was very helpful,
has one been established yet or is one not necessary?
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a. Betty: Brittany said that other than two volunteers it was better to use just
the Directors. I have 3 Science week directors and I think that that is enough.
4. JeeSu to VPS: How many microwaves are we planning to buy and in which locations?
a. Colin: The amount is directly from SCI 5 allocations. It is a percentage of the
60k. 2 in CCIS, ECHA (because the other ones are broken). (CAB, CS, etc.)
b. Betty: I am assuming that the health sciences group will fix the microwaves.
c. Arun: This money includes locks?
d. Colin: Yes.
5. JeeSu to VPC: Could you elaborate a bit more on the changes that need to be made to
the newsletter process?
6. Albert to Kirsten: Are you still planning on doing the stickers?
a. Kirsten: I never heard back from design team. I can follow up on that.
b. Albert: Can you clarify what you were going to use them for?
c. Kirsten: We were going to put them on things like the microwaves that SCI 5
directly paid for.
7. Arsalan to VPP: FROST t-shirts… What is the plan as people aren’t taking them? Is
there still a plan to donate them?
a. Betty: We could keep them for future events I don’t know how that would
work but I can just donate them (or someone with a vehicle can).
b. Sayeed: There are drop bins on campus for clothes.
8. Arsalan to VPAF: What are we doing with the cheese? Why is there still more?
a. Albert: They don’t expire until April. I don’t want to throw out good food.
9. Arun to VPAF: How is your progress going for Internal? What is the deadline?
a. Albert: Talking to David throughout the week. We can stick with the current
layout but need to purchase an updated version of the theme. We probably
won’t start from scratch because the database would be preserves. It should
be done by winter term.
10. Arun to VPA: Fahim you’re taking away a lot of your personal time for ISSS work and
your studying. How do you plan to address this issue to give yourself more time?
a. Fahim: No comment.
8. Old Business [6:40 PM]
1. Chemical Education Conference, Fahim
a. Fahim: How did you find the presentation?
b. Consensus: OK.
c. Fahim: Questions?
d. Evan: I noticed that pharmacology, biochemistry would be affected would
those student groups be interested as well. PSA and BCSA are COSSA groups
and I can pass on that information.
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e. Arun: I’m not sure how relevant it is to undergraduate science students
because we are sponsoring speakers. We can’t guarantee tangible results. I
would want more certainty.
f. Fahim: I agree that there is a risk with payoff.
g. Arsalan: I’m having troubles understanding why he needs this conference for
this decision to be made but it feels like he is trying to influence other
professors.
h. Fahim: The symposium is to have a discussion around how feasible it is and
plant the idea in other faculty members’ minds. Progress has been made with
the online book.
i. Betty: That is what I thought that there was some sort of working group that
would chose to adopt this. He may want to get more support from other
universities when he brings the idea to the UofA.
j. Arun: Academia relies on symposiums and conferences to discuss and
disseminate ideas. This can have impacts on the future if there is a greater
acceptance of online textbooks.
k. Arsalan: I’m supportive of this. I want to know what is stopping him from
using this in his class. Why can’t he use it for his class if he wants to do it?
l. Jee Su: Do you know how much we would contribute and how would that be
decided?
m. Fahim: It is up to Council. UBC was $250.00. Chemistry department matched
ChemSA. We could get Chemistry or FoS matching us. There doesn’t seem to
be much stopping him from using the textbook but there is a reason that the
211 textbook is used. He may want to gauge other universities and provinces
before changing the norm.
n. Sayeed: Recommended or prerequisite courses have multiple profs. It may be
a departmental decision on what textbook to use.
o. Arun: Who is the course coordinator for the course?
p. Fahim: I don’t know. It could be Dr. Lucy.
q. Betty: He said the probability is 20% in the next year. What are the factors in
the way after this conference for the UofA adopting this book?
r. Fahim: There are a lot of variables: government priorities (UBC dedicated
money to online resources and learning for their highest enrolled courses
this is a provincial government priority).
s. Betty: Could he just cite a few things that he thinks are key barriers?
t. Kirsten: Going back to Sayeed: some people may not have access and I dislike
online textbooks. I support paper textbooks even though free is good.
u. Arun: If it came in the online textbook would be primary and then there
would likely be a recommended book rather than a required book.
v. Fahim: Or just a pdf talk.
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w.
x.
y.
z.
aa.
Colin: Strawpoll?!
Evan: Is this open source or is there a registration cost to it?
Fahim: It is currently open source.
General: Majority for.
Arun: I think we need to clarify the effect to undergraduate science students
and the factors preventing him from bringing forward the textbook.
bb. Fahim: I think benefit for science students is a lot of reduced costs, could
start a trend for same quality of instruction without high cost, impacts a large
number of science students (300 students).
2. Research Certificate, Fahim
a. Fahim: These are quick comments/suggestions to Dr. Loppnow. I wanted to
know if there is anything that you wanted to add?
b. Sayeed: I talked to the undergraduate chair in psychology. Under concerns it
seems that you would basically get the certificate if you are in honors. It
would be departmental specific.
c. Fahim: I don’t think that is the case with the biological sciences groups.
d. Betty: Were you going to bring up all of these?
i. Research Paper: Reasonable and currently used.
ii. Grading: Depends upon supervisor. You could instead ask how you
could streamline the grading process because it is very specific to the
professor.
e. Sayeed: I understand that no courses would be added. I would like to know if
any would be added.
9. New Business [7:00 PM]
1. Motion to approve $519.73 for the Winter 2014 SAGM. Shauna/James. Motion
carries 8/0/0.
a. Shauna: Most of the costs weren’t spent from last meeting for marketing. This
pays for food and more tabloids.
b. Arun: Did you go through finance committee?
c. Shauna: The original report did.
d. Albert: It has the fall and winter SAGM budget and FC didn’t have issues with
it.
2. Refurbishing the ISSS Office, Albert
a. Albert: We haven’t bought a lot for the office. We used to have a coat rack.
b. Arun: The coats got to heavy. If you got one that wasn’t attached to the wall.
c. Kirsten: How much do you want to spend for this.
d. Albert: No more than $50.00.
e. Betty: I think we should have a drink station. Like tea and coffee. Maybe on
top of the fridge.
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f. Albert: Would you be willing to bring in tea and coffee?
g. Betty: We could invest later on in a simple coffee maker. I will bring in tea
and other people can too.
h. Albert: Sounds good.
i. Evan: Stand coat rack.
j. Arun: Should be one that can hold a lot of coats…
k. Sayeed: No lab coat policy! Secondly, has anyone ever tried a current splitter?
l. Albert: Send me a link to where I could find this.
m. Albert: New laptop. One of them is dead. Robin may be able to get cheap
laptop parts. If you want specific specifications or features send me an email.
Robin could start looking at people.
n. Betty: We could clean out the laptops especially the downloads folder.
o. Sayeed: Why is it dead? We could fix it…
p. Albert: I think we can afford to buy one that lasts longer.
q. Arsalan: Could we get real tables?
r. Albert: They wanted to get the benches because that is all that would fit. We
could look into getting another table. We can still use the tables.
s. Shauna: The white ones were supposed to be a place to sleep.
t. Arun: We should get something permanent. What about a desktop. It is
cheaper to make out of parts.
u. Albert: We need at least one laptop for UBS.
v. Fahim: Talk to Brodie about making the office more student friendly. Books,
TV…
w. Albert: Ask him to include me in conversation with Robin.
3. Recognition of Past and Present ISSS Execs/Councillors/Directors, Albert
a. Albert: Inspired by James Hwang. We should put something on the walls to
recognize past Exec/Council. I think it is worth looking into and that we
could recognize their work.
b. Kirsten: What about a class photo style or something?
c. Fahim: Sign the office but ours may not be a good idea.
d. Arun: If we look back we could pull up pictures. Past ones could be done and
we could use next week’s photo session for this year. I think it should be just
Exec/Councilors.
e. Albert: We could just put Director’s names.
f. Betty: Scrapbook for every year.
g. Arun: I don’t find value in scrapbooks. It depends on how dedicated each
group is to it.
h. James: Scrapbook could be replaced by internal.
i. Shauna: Just a simple board with rosters from each year. Easy for transition.
j. Albert: I would like something permanent.
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k. Arsalan: I think scrapbooks to capture our other memories. But it would be
best online through ISSS internal.
l. Albert: This isn’t the only thing to remember but I think something simple
would be nice.
4. Motion to extend meeting to 7:40 PM. Harman/Arun. Motion carries 8/0/0.
a. Albert: We organized internal event. We should let people know that we
might be late.
5. Motion to approve $454.06 for microwaves, stands, and locks. Colin/Arun. Motion
carries 8/0/0.
a. Colin: So this money is allocated from SCI 5. Undecided on locks or not. We
haven’t had a problem and neither has anyone else. Only in science buildings.
I would probably get them from Costco in St. Albert.
b. Arun: First microwaves that the ISSS had were stolen. Especially if
unattended.
c. Fahim: I’m surprised no one stole ours.
d. Betty: How plausible is it to lock microwave?
e. Colin: Lock to a stand.
f. Arun: We need to have an idea of where money is going specifically.
g. Colin: I could bring back.
h. Arsalan: If we are looking long term. Should we get warranties?
i. Colin: We will void the warranty probably.
6. Motion to approve $126.00 for editing software for the director of handbook.
Colin/Kirsten. Motion carries 8/0/0.
a. Colin: My link was deleted. It is adobe creative cloud, two people can use this
and cloud storage (VP services and handbook). This is really necessary we
cannot do it without it. Kelvin is going to teach Cynthia. We get a 60%
discount for this. 6 months (January to May) would be covered $21.00 each.
b. Arun: Just in case we miss the deadline on renewing account would all the
information be there still.
c. Colin: I would have to get back to you on that. We should not miss deadlines.
I would like to be done the handbook by end of May.
d. James: Do we use this for last year too?
e. Colin: We had a 1 month free trial previously and Kelvin got the software
elsewhere.
f. Kirsten: Would this be every year?
g. Colin: Double this for every year.
h. Fahim: What about a design volunteer?
i. Colin: It can be on up to two computers at a time. Logistics could be
frustrating but it is possible.
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10. Attachments
1. Research Certificate Comments
2. Original Proposal for SAGM
3. Follow-up Report on SAGM
4. Elections Report
5. Academic Advising and Unique Science Programming Feedback
11. Good and Welfare
Comments and criticisms of the meeting for the good and welfare of the organization.
12. Next Meeting
The next meeting of the Council will be at 6:00PM, Nov 21st, 2013, in CCIS 1-033.
The chairperson of the next meeting will be Arsalan Ahmed.
Minutes will be taken by Fahim Rahman.
13. Adjournment
Meeting adjourned.
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