Minutes of Meeting #1, September 28th 2007 14h00, room 5414
Agenda:
- committee reports
- allocation of our increased funding from the DSC
- discussion of the role/purpose of the ESA listserv
- (possible) financial aid/health care “survival guide” for students in the program
- our newly instituted “teaching support” group
- upcoming faculty membership talks/hires
- ESA website development
Were present: Jill Belli, Robert Machado, Simon Fortin, Amanda Springs, Allyson Foster, Rob Faunce, Emily Lauer, Balaka Basu, Linda Neiberg, Erin Lee Mock, Joost Burgers, Sari Altschuter.
Committee Reports:
Faculty Membership
Simon Fortin tells of his conversation with Carrie Shanafelt (who could not attend the meeting); she explained to him that the Faculty membership is about to vote on Nov. 2nd on Hildegaard Hoeller’s appointment; knowing that the appointment may be contentious, Carrie requests that students give prioritized feedback to her. Erin Lee Mock announced she initiated a letter campaign to support Prof. Hoeller’s appointment.
For a possible Latino/a studies appointment, Lyn Dilorio Sandin who spoke (Job talk) last year is being considered as is Carlos Hiraldo, who will speak on October 5th.
For a possible Early American (pre-1830) appointment, Betsy McCully (speaking on October 19th) and Duncan Faherty (speaking on October 26th) are in the run.
Balaka and Emily announce that they intend to create a guide for the Oral exams (in the same mode as the existing Comps guide) and that they will encourage the students to share with them the good and the bad experiences about the Orals. Interested in the statistics about the passing and failing rates of this exam, Emily will ask Prof, Kruger for the numbers.
Conference Committee
Linda announced the committee has received a number of proposals and that she will put an invitation to apply for the conference ‘TALKING THRASH” on the listserv. Rob will do the same on the DSC server. Hard copies can be found in the lounge.
Linda is also putting the posters on local campuses. Linda and Jason are working on a keynote speaker.
Website Committee
Hopefully the new department webside will be unveiled soon! In the meantime, the committee will update the ESA webpage, posting current committee members & fixing the link to sign-up for the ESA-Listserv.
Curriculum Committee
Robert speaks of a possible revising of the assessment sheet and possibly how these assessments could be done on line. A discussion on teachers who do not hand down assessment sheets ensues. It comes to our attention that some teachers did not submit assessments last semester. Linda will inquire. Robert will ask Julie for the list and for any missing course assessments.
Course Assessment Committee
anda explains the protocol of the upcoming department self-study; all agree that this self-study is welcome and could fortify our status within the graduate center.
Amanda announces that the admission process is going on line.
Rob suggests we use some of the English Student Association money to purchase a scanner for the department.
A discussion on the Revels ensues. We are planning to allocate a $600-$700 budget for each event, maybe more for the December one since it is better attended.
ESA LISTSERV
There is some concerns about Alumni (that is, not currently attending students) still having access to the listserv; there is also concern about students feeling silenced by the tone of certain exchanges on the listserv.
Discussion of funds for DSC
$200 will be held back in the spring for the conference in case it is needed (though Jason and Linda are trying to fund it through other sources). We thank the many people who posted thoughts on the list, but realized that these would not be accessible to everyone. The coffee machine is too expensive and environmentally unsound. Furniture (such as buying couches for the lounge) are not allowed because of building-wide fire codes. There was some interest in procuring better technology for people to work in the office. We believe that the IT department will be soon replacing the computers/printers in our lounge, so we thought that a productive way to spend our money would be a scanner in the lounge. Thoughts are welcome on this issue. Otherwise it was voted to devote the majority of the money again to the two Revels party (especially because the past co-chairs have often financed the parties out of their pockets to make up for the extra money.
The meeting breaks up at 15H05.
