Minutes of the CSGSA meeting held on 01/18/2000 Taken by: Sameh Elnikety (sameh@cs.rice.edu) 1. The rotating char was John Clements. --------x------------ Pizza arrives -------------x----------------- 2. Clements randomly selected me, Sameh, to write the minutes. Then, Clements reviewed the CSGSA representatives. 3. Clements explained the job of the rotating chair (involving mainly ordering pizza and scheduling the next CSGSA meeting). Darren Sanders volunteered and was accepted unopposed as the rotating chair for the next CSGSA meeting next summer. 4. For the faculty meetings, Eric was not present. [Ed. Note: Eric has since agreed to continue in his role as faculty meeting correspondent for the remainder of the spring semester. - JBC,2000-01-23] 5. For the faculty recruiting committee, Mohit said that the committee has not met yet. Also, as Mohit will leave in February, he will ask someone to replace him. [Ed. Note: that person is Robby. Robby has agreed to fill the post.] Mohit also said that there will be a joint CS/ECE faculty recruiting comitee especially for the systems group for the new "Computer Systems Lab". Faculty members in the CSL can be associated with either CS or ECE. It has been decided to find out more about the new joint CS/ECE recruiting committee and to take part in the recruiting process. 6. For the graduate committee, Qing Yi said that the committee did not meet yet. Several people pointed out that it should be certain that the CSGSA representative would be informed when the meeting of the graduate committee is held. Also, the CSGSA representative should contact the members of the graduate committee and let them know about him/her. 7. For the Graduate Recruiting Committee, Chen Ding said that the committee did not meet yet as it is still too early for the applications deadline. Anyway, he noticed that there are too few domestic applications. This year, about a dozen domestic applications were received. Last year, there were about two dozens of domestic applications. A remark about what is meant by domestic was raised. Almost everybody wanted "domestic" to stand for students graduating from USA schools rather than being USA natives. Chen Ding said he will check this out. Shriram and Robby commented on the $1000 travel grant for successful applicants who apply early. Someone wanted to give early applicant a free gift or waiving their c-exams :) Some senior students said that the travel grant is useless for fresh graduate students whereas Philip objected to this because he is a fresh graduate student and he is attending a conference in his first year. Geraldine said that she had a bad experience meeting the prospective graduate students. So, it was suggested to ask Matthias for a more accurate and more detailed plan and time table for the prospective students to visit Rice. 8. For the facilities Committee, Mohit said that the next meeting will be held on February. Someone will replace Mohit as he will not be available in February. Mohit said that he mainly raised three points with the committee: making a laptop available for presentations, installing the KDE software, and some issues regarding PCMCIA cards. [Ed. Note: specifically, a request for macintosh wireless networking. A good laugh was had by all.] 9. For the undergraduate Committee, Tod said nothing has taken place yet. Clements said that Tod should find out what is up. 10. For the affiliates meeting, Alex said that his role was marginal in the affiliates meeting last semester. Anyway, he noticed that the number of affiliates is decreasing. 11. For the GSA meetings, Clements pointed out that a new health center is under considerations as the existing health center is very small. There has been suggestions to move the health center to the new South College or entirely off campus (in west Plaza). Anyway, these suggestions did not see the light because it was decided to save half a million of the budget by not having the health center in the new South College and undergraduates would object to an off campus health center with a 25 min walk. Others suggested that the health center should be open for longer hours. Clements mentioned that the health insurance for the graduate students was totally re-negotiated. It is superior in some points over the faculty health insurance. Darren said the new health insurance restricts the prescriptions to pharmacies participating in the "First Pharmacy" network. Anyway, that is not a big problem as Walgreens is in the "First Pharmacy". 12. Clements announced that the department picnic will take place in three months. He said that volunteers will be needed to the setup and clean up. He also suggested that graduate students should take charge of the picnic rather than the administrative staff. As Chen Ding is a member of Sam's club, he volunteered to take part in organizing the picnic. Also, he will re-new his membership and will provide a wagon to buy whatever is needed. We had the following people for the pickup: 1- Alex Grosul 2- Geraldine Morin 3- John Clements This is in addition to the coordinator who is Sameer. We had also four volunteers for both the setup and clean up: 1- Daniel Chavarria 2- Darren Sanders 3- Zoran Mircevski 4- Rusty Holleman Someone suggested that for the next picnic all volunteers should be first year students to give them a chance to take part in the department events. It was decided that the date should be from April 1st to April 15th. The exact date should be determined with coordination with Darnell and Donna, and by contacting people to find out the date when most of the people would be able to come. it is also important to inform the Rice Police Department about the picnic as alcoholic drinks will be served. We also may have to have a bartender. 13. For the graduate peer mentor representatives, Daniel, the current coordinator, said that the meeting where each research group presented their research directions was held late only because he was too busy. It was suggested to hold this meeting at the end of the first month in the Fall semester. Also, it was re-emphasized that the coordinator should have more enthusiasm rather than more experience. Cristi volunteered to be the coordinator for the next year. 14. Clements mentioned that there will be a bizarre "drink & ride" festival in March for both graduate and undergraduate students. There will a team for each college and one team for the graduate students. The contest consists of 10 loops of chugging and biking. Last year, graduate students had the sixth position. Interested students should contact Clements. 15. Geraldine mentioned that there has been a survey about teaching assistantship at Rice. This report was done for Jordan Konisky. Geraldine said that some points in the report do not apply to labbying in the CS department. Also, students do not get paid for labbying. Clements said that already all stipends in the CS department are very high and it is unlikely that any decision about teaching assistantships would affect the current status at the CS department. A discussion went over about who pays tuition and stipends for the graduate students in the CS department. Someone said that advisors pay everything including tuition and stipends. Another one said that advisors pay only the stipends and students receive a tuition remission so that tuition is a fictitious value. Someone noted that after four years or so of studying tuition would be like $400. This gives the value of the education one can get after four years :)