BE Board:Meeting minutes/6/11/2007

Meeting Minutes - 06/11/07
Attendance
 * Kristen Bernick, Justin Buck, Sean Clarke, Ta-Chun Hang, Bonnie Huang, Hyung-Do Kim, Ranjani Krishnan, Brandon Kwong, Amy Nichols, Robin Prince, Mike Schmidt, Nidhi Shrivastav, Sonia Timberlake, Rachel Miller, Ranjani Krishnan, Lorenna Lee-Houghton, Shan Wu,

Coordinators
 * Update on BE undergraduate organization
 * One undergraduate event in past May, the event was successful. There will be one more in the fall.
 * Organizational structure: undergraduates will attend BE Board meetings for now until they are able to operate independently. Elections will occur in the fall.
 * Undergraduates will be invited to TGIF - BE Board members raised the issue that inviting undergraduates will cause administrative problems in planning social activities. We might have to resort to inviting undergraduates to only a few events.
 * Currently, there is no plan for integrating BMES or conflicting with BMES
 * Diversity Lunch
 * Sean is proposing to have an event to increase 'cultural' diversity - art, in this case. Sean's girlfriend is currently a Professor in art at University of Massachusetts and could be invited to give a talk about Neuroscience in art?  There would be no restrictions on food.
 * Renovations in 56-614/Undergraduate Lounge
 * There exists disparity between faculty and students about which chairs they prefer. Email Amy if you want to be involved in renovation process.
 * Undergraduate lounge will be in the basement of 56. Undergraduates will be contacted about renovation.

First-Year Rep
 * Qualifying exams
 * are over and results are in.

Treasurer
 * Budget cycle
 * End of budget cycle is approaching (although we are not sure when that is).

Academic representatives
 * Curriculum chat
 * Curriculum chat with Natalie went well, additional attendance by synthetic biology experts
 * Summer events
 * Stem cell process with Whitehead and Harvard - happy hour with experts in stem cell field?

Social chairs
 * TGIF
 * Last month: R&D pub
 * There will be four more TGIFs:
 * Sailing Pavillion, tentatively June 29
 * Softball BBQ at Kresge Pit, tentatively July 21 (Saturday)
 * Beach trip for July/August - budget is an issue.
 * BE-ChemE BBQ
 * Last year, we contributed $1000 to split the event with ChemE.
 * Need to check with ChemE since no budget has been allocated.

Athletic chairs
 * Current sports
 * Softball teams are in full gear
 * Inventory
 * List will be on wiki
 * Should locks be only open to captains?

GSC rep
 * GSC Meeting
 * $40 charge for students by DAPER for use of gym during the summer.

Other suggestions
 * Alumni and Graduation
 * Should we have alumni come to give us advices about how to get through Ph.D. program.
 * Email list for social events - for alumni.