BGSA Exec Meeting Minutes – 13:00 January 28, 2018
Regrets: None
Meeting with Toby Spribille (15/20 min)
- Graduate opportunities for EcoEvo Seminar
- Coffee break afterwards is a step in the right direction. In September Felix will leave and Kim will be joining to organize the seminar. Want more grad student engagement. Going forward, want to look at creating themes, making it more well-connected. Want to begin a conversation to see how this could change and become better!
- Possible ideas: have a seminar for post-docs and graduate students to present, and another for external speakers and professors.
- Think about how to change courses and requirements for the better. How to integrate seminars and presentations better with coursework.
- Graduate field trip with visiting students
- From a university in scandinavia (Uppsala – SLU)
- They organize a field trip every few years, look at places to go, vote on it, and their next trip is Alberta. Toby is helping to plan and will be instructing. Tentatively planning 19 August – 2 September, 2019. Staying for 14 days, 9 hopefully with students from University of Alberta at a UofA field station. They will organize joint projects that are completed within the week there. There are several instructors that will go along. They have published this research before. Martin Lake and Kinsella locations? Participation might be free, credits/grades/PD might be possibilities. They do literature seminars beforehand, so doing prep here would make sense.
- Toby will email Andrew with slides and information.
Housekeeping
- Working Group on Collegial Governance: Logan
- On Friday 1 PM CW410, feedback on ideas presented so far and discuss new ones. Main ideas, changing culture on how council works so people are more engaged. Ideas on trying to recoup what was lost with RIGS (research interest groups) and gets the benefits of what they had. Talked in DBS council about having teaching areas/research areas that overlap with different areas. Can grad programs be structured in a different/better way? How do we connect the grad programs to undergraduate programs?
- Event form submission: Nikki
- Will create forms and a How To to help with future event submissions.
- BGSA Lounge: Andrew
- Re-arranged a corner and have coffee canisters now. Coffee could be offered after other seminars as well. Money is being made off of the coffee break, which is great. Will see if Jeff can fix the ping pong table.
- Budget: Antonia and Spencer
- Different ideas on how to make money. Ask grad students what they want money to be spend on. Need a formal budget that people can look at before planning events.
- Mentor/supervisor awards: Colleen
- There will be a vote.
Post-Mortem
- Christmas Party: Alyssa?
- Well attended, but people were not drinking alcohol. That way very little money is being recovered.
- Chili Cook-off: Antonia
- Was good. Nice working with the department since they have money. Lots of grad students came. Made a package for next year so it will be easier to plan.
- 3MT: Colleen
- Good. Department paid for it, which was nice. Will only be one 3MT event per year for department.
Future Events
- Volunteers Needed
Science FUNday (March 9th)
- RE Peter: Spencer/Colleen/Andrew
- IDP (February 7th): Nikki
- Curling (March): Yueyang
- South Campus $125 per sheet per hour. That would end up being $1500 for 4 sheets. Will look at another location (Granite?) as well and see if it is cheaper.
- Candidacy (April): Andrew
- Writing Workshop (February/March): Spencer and Andrew
Other Business (none)