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12/1/16

Posted by entomology.office | December 12, 2016

EGSA Meeting Minutes – December 1st, 2016

4:00pm, Dec 1, 2016. EGSA meeting

AMS dial-in: 5704921.Phone dial-in: passcode: (509) 335-9445. When prompted, enter the meeting ID 04921.

Moved to approve minutes

  • Unanimous approval
  • Next time briefly list bullet points, only relevant items.

Treasurer Updates:

31 bottles left for honey. Net profit of $600 on honey sales after cost of speaker. Set aside honey as a gift for Dave C. (advisor) and Mary B. (SCS)

Honey Update:

Eli sold some honey to pesticide office, seems our marketing did not reach them. Honey is starting to crystallize, may need to sell soon or warm it in a nice hot bath.

Committee Updates:

Socialization (Olivia):

  • Went to Rico’s got free fries! Donuts and coffee tomorrow (Dec. 2). December happy hour? Potentially organize social hours in upcoming Herma memorial area.

BUGSS (Abigail):

  • No organization of UI students. Asked for a list of their names, and have been in communication with a few students from plant insect interactions.
    • Plan for now is we each pick a couple names and then we have a vote on the final person.
    • Final choice will be given to UI students for them to host.

Merchandise:

  • Calendar almost done, finalizing captions, should be to the printers soon. Printing at CougPrints

Herma memorial:

  • Presented two options to faculty. They will support either! Gave preferences to faculty based on committee.

Options:

  •  Memorial either be on a hall corner on the second floor
  • have it on the ground floor in atrium with Ferdinand bull memorial. Told faculty we want it on the ground floor due to being open. Things are progressing!

Faculty meeting (Emily):

  • Have not addressed pioneer symposium contributions due to lack of time.
  • Very large pot of money in GPSA for professional development events, over budgeted by about $30k could potentially use for Pioneer Symposium funding.

Linnaean Games (Alix)

  • Had our first meeting Monday, discussed general rules
  • Have 9 students interested in participating!!
  • Had our first practice Wednesday,
  • Last practice of semester next Wednesday. We will be meeting once/week next semester

GPSA (Emily+Joseph): Applications to be a senator due Jan 13th

  • Special election which opened today, there are still 20 seats GPSA needs to fill
  • Preference for seats go to departments which don’t have representatives yet
  • If you are really interested in completing the entomology overtaking of GPSA please apply.
  • Excellence award nominations are accepted until Feb 15th, teacher, research assistant, graduate student RSO, and academic advisor.
  • CougDay at the capitol application is open, due Dec 9th, event Feb 19-20th.
  • Ice Cream Dec. 7th @ Ferdinands, 1-3pm
  • Writing workshop: reference management software Dec. 8th 1-3:00pm
  • GPSA winter social Dec 16th 1:00pm at Banyans
  • Maybe reworking SCS to make it more professional development themed to get some of the GPSA over budgeted $30k. This would include more events besides the talk. Perhaps teaching short workshops?
    • Could be used for another event, need to know more details on when money can be used. May have to be used by May. Perhaps invite someone else as a PDI worker. Robert will email Pioneer about this opportunity.

Outreach (Rachel): Sold enough honey to not do another honey sale (~20 bottles left). Door to door business sales potentially.

Event updates:

  • Insect Expo will be March 18, 10AM-2PM, in Emsinger. Reserved ensminger pavilion for insect expo. Currently day after spring break, need to change the date!
  • GPSA research expo March 31st and PBESA April 2-6th
  • Pioneer symposium: No Updates

Discussion items:

  • Dave Crowder requests student feedback on PhD prelim exam expectations. Faculty idea is to have a rubric with different categories to make decisions more objective and have clearer expectations. (Robert explain)
    • Categories such as statistics, ecology, etc that they can give a rating to.

Discussion:

  • The way the prelims work right now is that questions are asked based on specialties of committee and nature of your research. This change would be dramatic.
  • Prelims are supposed to encompass all of entomology and not just your specialties.
  • Prelim is supposed to show other departments that the current student knows enough of broad entomology. It’s not supposed to be defense.
  • Right now the questions are very inconsistent, this would help categorize what students are expected to know.
  • Main change should follow graduate school policies- Only committee members can ask questions and vote. Should be brought up to faculty meeting.
  • Dave should send out an email looking for feedback to include students who aren’t here.
  • Anonymous feedback can go through Robert

ICCC plan for next semester (Robert): It is in our best interest to have Robert contact Dr. Sheppard to begin planning as soon as possible.

Final meeting of 2016?

Last day of classes is Dec 9, finals ends Dec 16, next EGSA would be Dec 15. This will be the last meeting of the semester, discuss and decide yes/no

  • Discussion: Probably fine if we don’t have a final meeting.
  • Decision: No need for a meeting, people who need to communicate can do so outside of a meeting.

Upcoming events/reminders

  • Honey to buy (20 bottles left)
  • CAHNRS Holiday Party! Dec. 8th, 4-6pm. Foods, drinks, and prizes (random)!
  • Register for GPSA student showcase (win monies)! Google it.
  • Register for PB-ESA (let’s sell merch there? Have more merch by April? Merch needs to think about it).
  • Perhaps have a few extra calendars, patches, drink cozies, master seed mix, etc.
  • Robert will reserve a table for our club.