I. INTRODUCTIONS

Bill Williams, Acting Dean of MCS attended this week's meeting, along with John Woolford, a professor from the Department of Biological Sciences. General introductions were made.

II. CAREER DEVELOPMENT

John Woolford has organized career seminars for the department of Biological Sciences in previous years and presented some background information about this process to the GSAC. The seminars, intended to offer students some insight into career options outside of academia, featured speakers with positions in a variety of companies. Speakers would typically spend an entire day at Carnegie Mellon.

Presentations were held on Thursday mornings, at the same time as undergraduate colloquia, in order to accommodate more students. Videotapes were also available so that students who were unable to attend could view the presentations. Speakers would then be available to meet with smaller groups of students for questions in a more informal setting. Lunch would be available for the entire department, and then a small group of students would have dinner with the speaker. Science magazine's web site has a section that profiles careers in the sciences, which might be a good place to identify potential speakers - http://nextwave.sciencemag.org/.

GSAC members were interested in arranging these types of seminars again. Consideration will be given to whether seminars should be college-wide or departmental. In either case, existing colloquium time spots could be used to accommodate the presentations. Members will survey the students in their departments to see if they would be genuinely interested in attending this type of seminar. Responses should be e-mailed to David Owen at do04@andrew.cmu.edu or Katya Malkin at kd24@andrew.cmu.edu by Monday, October 30 - one week before the next GSAC meeting.

III. POSTER SESSION/SOCIAL EVENT

The GSA wine tasting party is also being held on the evening of November 17. Members felt t hat this would draw a significant number of students who would then not attend the poster session/social event. Katya will contact the University Center to see if there are alternate dates available. It was decided that a week night (as opposed to a Friday or Saturday) would be best and that dates through the first week of December would be acceptable. Members will receive an e-mail listing alternate dates as soon as they are available.

Arindam Chowdhury did some preliminary research and planning for the poster session/social event. He presented his findings to the group:

1. Schatz Dining Room
The dining room should accommodate 100 people and will allow for approximate 20 - 25 posters. Members should try to get five or six students from their departments to present posters. Members should poll students in their departments and get an estimate of how many would be willing to present posters.

2. Publicity & Organization
At least one member from each department will be needed to assist with publicity for the event.

3. Funding Sources
David Owen will most likely be funding the event. Expenses thus far are as follows:
Room Rental $0
Security Guard $150
Food/Alcohol $1200

Total: $1350

There was a $250 charge associated with moving the salad bar to allow more room for posters and guests, but the group decided that the salad bar could remain in place.

4. Flyers The group should consider whether to post separate flyers to announce the event and to request presenters, or combine the information on one flyer. The issue of providing a "traveling stipend" of $50 - $100 to encourage students to present posters was also raised. This option will be revisited when estimates of the number of presenters are available.

The following members from each department volunteered to assist with set up and clean up:

Kate Trapp (MSC) - to be contacted
Marc Fasnacht (PHY)
Ayse Celil (BSC)
Arindam Chowdhury (CMY)

IV.PILOT TA EVALUATIONS

Members were asked to give their opinions on whether it is best distribute both FCEs and pilot evaluation forms to students on the same day. The general consensus was that two forms on the same day would result in poorer quality responses from students. Members were in favor of distributing pilot forms only.