GESA Meeting Minutes, 10-2-07

Present: Amanda Sigler, President, Ken Price, Vice-President, Chris McVey, MA Representative, Kelly Chroninger, MA Representative, Britt Johnson, Treasurer, Ginny Weckstein, Secretary.

Attendance: 20

1. Welcome

Thanks to everyone who came to the picnic! It was a great success! Huge thanks to Sarah Bishop for hosting us!

2. Treasurer's report

• We're at about $500
• Pay dues!
• Book fair scheduled tentatively 10-26.
• If you're interested in volunteering, contact Britt
• Moving books there and back
• Manning the booth for a couple hours

3. MA matters

• We're working on a document to make 2^nd year options clear.
• It will go up on the GESA website when it's done.
• For those who weren't able to make the MA follow-up meeting with Susan Fraiman, if you have questions, talk to Susan or to Kelly and Chris.
• There are different ways of doing the 2^nd year – some are cheaper.
• Next week at this time will be the PhD orientation follow-up meeting.

4. GSAS announcements

• Grad school of arts and sciences grad committee
• Every department has one or more reps – we have three! Go us!
• They do things for graduate students (and get money to do so)
• If we can think of interdisciplinary events we'd like to (other than the conference), we can get fairly substantial funds
• Speakers that other departments might be interested in also, for instance.
• Sarah Bishop is the social chair for GSAS and will be sending out an e-mail about upcoming social events
• There will be a Mellow Mushroom happy hour this month for sure. Good opportunity to meet grads from other departments.
• Halloween party will be the Saturday before Halloween
• PhD students who are no longer taking classes and want to get into football games currently have to pay for tickets, but they're trying to fix that.
• GSAS conference: everyone is welcome to submit, although it's usually more science-focused. Information forthcoming. It doesn't conflict with our conference.

5. Class registration

• Shaun Cullen is trying to start a "task force" about registration, class size, class selection, etc. In the next month or two he would like to do a survey to find out how we feel about the current registration process – particularly first-year students.
• He'll also be looking at how other comparably-sized grad programs address this issue.
• E-mail Sean (shaun@Virginia.edu) if you want to get involved (he's looking for 3 or 4 dedicated people – MA, PhD, BA/MAs.
• Looking to gather evidence about what's working, what isn't.
• The faculty does want to be attentive to these concerns
• This semester there are 19 courses argued. Next semester there will be 23 courses offered, and fewer 500-levels.
• Considering shifting some of those courses to the fall in future years, so there's not so much of an imbalance between the semesters.

6. Graduate conference update

• Short-list of speakers is being compiled.
• Peter Teigland is drafting a letter to Bill Brown (Thing Theory) to see if he can come.
• Thursday's Theory Reading Group is about Thing Theory, so come if you're at all interested! (Since it is the subject of our conference.)
• There's a link to the readings in David Golumbia's e-mail about the group.

7. Announcements from area reps

• Early Modern group is having a lunch on the 12^th at 1 at the Biltmore
• First Americanist meeting coming soon – ASA address to be read.