From owner-info@gso.bu.edu Fri May 22 21:00:10 1998 Received: from gso.bu.edu (GSO.BU.EDU [128.197.60.71]) by cs.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-01/27/97-fc1)) with ESMTP id VAA29339; Fri, 22 May 1998 21:00:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) id VAA04026 for info-list; Fri, 22 May 1998 21:00:05 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cs.bu.edu (root@CS.BU.EDU [128.197.13.2]) by gso.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-02/10/97-v1.0)) with ESMTP id VAA04022 for ; Fri, 22 May 1998 21:00:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: from csb.bu.edu (rip@CSB.BU.EDU [128.197.10.4]) by cs.bu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/(BU-S-01/27/97-fc1)) with ESMTP id VAA29317 for ; Fri, 22 May 1998 21:00:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Pitts Received: by csb.bu.edu (8.8.5/Spike-2.1) id UAA07418; Fri, 22 May 1998 20:59:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 20:59:57 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199805230059.UAA07418@csb.bu.edu> To: info@gso.bu.edu Subject: GSO - summary of Thu, May 21, 98 meeting Sender: owner-info@gso.bu.edu Precedence: bulk Status: RO Here is a summary of what we did at yesterday's Graduate Student Organization meeting. --Rob Summary ======= 1. Survey We will be beginning the data entry/analysis portion of the surveys shortly. Those who have volunteered for this task are: Fran Altvater Carlos Morales Rob Pitts Gareth Roberts We still need surveys back from a few departments, so if you were a distributor and have not collected them yet, please do so as soon as possible. We will report how many we received (along with other statistics) when we are done analyzing the surveys. 2. Orientation / New Student Resources Our participation in a grad orientation is still pending Assoc. Dean Whitaker's approval. Orientation events would take place the first week of Sept. Some feel that Whitaker may be trying to keep such an orientation under his control, i.e., a "GRS" event. Nonetheless, we will continue to present our ideas and ask to run some activities and have our organization's name associated with those activities. We would also like to have our group mentioned in mailings to new grad students. For example, to have a reference to the housing page (http://gso.bu.edu/housing) that we have been working on. According to Mike Hayes , Whitaker hasn't yet made decisions on orientation plans or even when they will send mailings to new students (and if our group's resources will be mentioned). Housing Resources ----------------- There is some debate about the feasibility of the "listings" sections of our housing pages. We think we have the manpower to add new listings in a timely manner. There is also concern about whether we will be able get enough listings to make it useful. On the up side, we're not aware of another set of BU-specific housing listings that are online. (The housing office does provide listings, but you have to physically go look at them.) A BU-specific web sight might help students who can't come to the area ahead of time hook up with other students. Comments are welcome, but take a look at those pages first. Already, people have mentioned that a listing of free realtors (i.e., that charge no realty fee) would be a good addition to those pages. Perhaps someone can suggest a reasonable way to go about finding these realtors and would be willing to volunteer some time to creating such a list? 3. Social Events Some of the people in the social group will be away for parts of the summer and some are planning orientation events, so we could use more help in this area. Gareth Roberts has volunteered to plan the next Pub Night (early June). Someone has brought up the idea of having an informal movie night. This would mean renting a movie and playing it in some available room/classroom (this is in contrast to the "sponsored" movie night that we discussed earlier in the semester and that we still hope to do in the fall). We know there is at least one "informal" movie night already run by a grad student. Perhaps that one could be expanded or someone might volunteer to run another one if students like this idea? 4. Policies We briefly discussed our policies towards participation of non-GRS grad students. Essentially, we agreed on the informal policies that we have used up until now... While we will concentrate advertising our social events to GRS students, grads from other schools at BU are also welcome to come. We won't concern ourselves with the money issue (i.e., we've gotten money for some social events from GRS and may do so again in the future) unless we feel that a lot of non-GRS students are attending, then we may ask for some money from those other schools. Grad students from other BU schools are welcome to attend our meetings. They should keep in mind, however, that we will primarily address issues of concern to GRS students. Nonetheless, there may be issues that are relevant to all grads. Grads from other BU schools can join our mailing list. Whenever someone (from GRS or elsewhere) asks to join the list, we verify that they are a grad student. This allows grads to post whatever information they feel will be of interest to other grads and allows e-mails about issues/problems to be frank. 5. Other Fran Altvater presented the idea of having a monthly column in the Daily Free Press addressing issues of concern to graduate students. This goes along with an idea discussed with Kaara Peterson about some kind of grad student newsletter. Either might be ways to get more word out to grad students about issues and about the GSO's activities. Those interesting in becoming involved in any of these activities can contact the appropriate people mentioned above or questions@gso.bu.edu.