List of Meeting Minutes
BGSA meeting, 18 March 2015
Fund Raising Report
Some ideas about fund raising activities for next year were discussed.
- A photograph competition was proposed and the competitors would be selected for making a Biology department calendar that we could sell
- The competition could include also artwork such as plots and images that you make for your research
Involvement in new hires
Discussion about how grad students should get more involved with the new hires. Grad students should go to the receptions and talk to the candidates. Faculty would like to have a higher grad students input during the meetings. Would like to have other alternatives for feedback about the candidates for the hires. BGSA started using google docs by using objective questions.
BGSA Elections
Secretary sends out a call for nominations. Voting is running for 2 weeks.Discussion about the amount of positions. Separate welcome committee into two groups and create new positions.
Nominations for grad-invited speaker will be opened.
Discussion about Bob Holt invited researchers.
Interactions with staff
A motion to write a document with the procedures for managing money from grants and reimbursements with the fiscal office.
URAP symposium
Changed to April 13. Two grants for undergrads will be announced during the symposium.
Webpage
Send and Email to Kyle Arola if you want a webpage linked to the Bio department web page.
Other Activities
There was a proposal to start a Bio department retreat, as a symposium in which grad students get to interact to each other and present their research.
BGSA meeting, 25 September 2014
Bank account and future fundraisers
Judit presented the bank statement. There is $1100 in the bank account. The welcome weekend was a success with $ 57 spent and then refunded by the department.
For future events, the museum secretary is the one to contact to reserve the courtyard. Also he should know about future events in the courtyard.
New Shirt
Kelly and Anya worked on the design of the new Biology department t-shirt. Contact Judit, Kelly or Anya if you want to see the logo but no changes can be done. The silhouette of the logo will be orange and the shirt will be blue. They got a quote from Dragon fly graphics which is ~$600 for 100 t-shirts of assorted sizes. There was a general consent for selling them for $20.
Pint Glasses
As there are pint glasses left, there where suggestions to encourage undergraduate students to buy them. There are ~50 pint glasses left, contact Richie Hodel or Barry Kaminsky for info on how to get one. There was a suggestion to bundle the shirts with the glass, so the combo will be $30.
There was a suggestion to advertise shirts and pint glasses in an annual alumni article.
BioGitHub
It is a space to resolve problems in programming in several languages. Ideally it would meet once a month to discuss/solve research related problems. There should be a google doc/account to which all Bio grad students will have access in which you can post your questions ahead of time so people that are able to help with such questions can show up.
Other ideas where to set up a google account in a repository style to post old problems that were already sold so that other people with similar question can search in it. Also would be a space to post workshop info, R groups or any other information related to the Bio Github that may be of interest to the group.
Contact George Tiley for more info about the Github or ideas/suggestions.
New Hires in the department
The department is in negotiations with Van Savage as the Big Data hire.The Brain and Behavior candidate is coming next week/soon.
Additional topics
Lianne suggested an outreach activity for people that might be interested in tutoring middle school kids for science fair projects. The Idea is to help the kids to develop the project that they will present in the local science fair. People interested in this topic should contact Lianne Jacobson.
Barry talked about the compost bins in the Bartram/Carr buildings. They haven’t been emptied in a while and he suggested two solutions.
- Throw the bins away
- Talk to UF garden facility to see if they are interested in the compost generated from the two buildings.
He also wants to organize a clean up tailgate. Contact him for more info about this.