Planning Meeting 1

As you may have seen in Prof. Dasu’s follow-up email after last week’s forum, an idea was put forth to assemble a graduate student council. We wanted to start the discussion of what the council should look like and how it should be formed.The council should be a reflection of the needs and ideas of all the graduate students, so we have organized an open forum for all graduate students to participate in a discussion of what they want out of the council and how it should operate. For that reason, we have reserved the colloquium room (Chamberlin 2241) for Thursday April 5th at 5 PM. This is an idea that has been very successful in other departments. At the meeting we plan to talk about models used at other departments and whether they make sense to adopt here or if there are things we should do differently. Things we hope to brainstorm on:

• What is the goal of the council? What would you hope to get out of it?
• What positions should exist within the council?
• How often should the council meet, and what should they discuss?
• What sort of timeline for forming the council should we aim for?

For those with schedule conflicts, or those who would feel more comfortable providing input anonymously, we have attached a survey form so that you can provide your two cents before the meeting. We will discuss the survey results at the meeting as well. Please complete the survey by Wednesday April 4th if you want your responses mentioned at the forum. If anyone has any questions or comments before the meeting, feel free to reach out to us. See you next week, Thursday April 5th in Chamberlin 2241 at 5pm! — Adrian Fraser, Sarah Mancina, and Kayla Leonard Survey Form: https://goo.gl/forms/5zK3Sb0k0TX4LuIl2