MCS GSAC Meeting Minutes
January 17, 2002

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February 24, 2003

GSAC Meeting
Friday, February 24, 2003

In attendance:

Rajalaxmi Natarajan (Biological Sciences)
Violeta Marin (Chemistry)
Abie Flaxman (Mathematical Sciences)
Kate Trapp (Mathematical Sciences)
Abhijit Brahme (Physics)

Gregg Franklin
Katya Malkin

I. REVIEW OF POSTER SESSION
The majority of this meeting was devoted to review of this year's poster session.

Positive features:
  • The time was good - not too soon after return from winter break but not too far into the semester. Time of day also worked well.
  • Interaction between students was better in the Connan Room than in Schatz Dining Room and people seemed to focus more on the posters.
  • The prize choice was good. People preferred receiving a prize at the event to being reimbursed for later purchases.
Things that could be improved for next year:
  • Though the layout of the room was good, a larger one would be better. The options include Rangos 2 and 3 (though this would mean holding the event a week later, on February 13, 2004), or the Social or Conference Room in Mellon.
  • Distribution of prizes was a little unfair since some departments had a lot of presenters and other only had a few. For next year, we will require that each department submit at least four posters in order to be eligible for a prize. If a department does not meet the minimum number of posters required, the prize will go to someone drawn from among all of the remaining presenters.
  • We will consider inviting faculty next year.


II. HAPPY HOUR
The next Happy Hour will be held in Mellon Institute, since the last one was on campus. Everyone thought that the first Friday after Spring Break, April 4, would be a good time to hold it.

Each department will contribute one quarter of the cost for the Happy Hour, as we did last semester. We should order more food this time and have more of it available at the same time.

One issue that came up was what to do with left over beer. Since the Chemistry department has a lot of experience with Happy Hours, we asked that they let us know what is usually done in this situation.

Our next meeting will be scheduled for the Monday before the Happy Hour, March 31, so we can make any last minute plans.