[Bgsa] Things from faculty meeting: Dept. has some money; taking attendance at Thurs seminars?; is TA workload increasing?

[bharr002 at student.ucr.edu]

Purchase Suggestion:
Not sure how appropriate this is to suggest, but i want an ice machine in the viviarium (or it we can't put it in there at least downstairs by Laurie's shop). Wonder if the department would buy one?

Seminar Attendance: 
I'm fine with them taking attendance, but does that mean they will see if the faculty have attended too? Last week there were 4 faculty present (and one of them was hosting the speaker).

~bre
***************************************
Breanna Harris
PhD Student
Department of Biology
University of California, Riverside
Lab/cell:(951) 827-5929,(330) 322-5282 
Email:  bharr002 at student.ucr.edu

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---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 18:55:08 -0700
>From: bgsa-bounces at lists.ucr.edu (on behalf of Carla Essenberg <cesse001 at student.ucr.edu>)
>Subject: [Bgsa] Things from faculty meeting: Dept. has some money; taking attendance 	at Thurs seminars?; is TA workload increasing?  
>To: bgsa at lists.ucr.edu
>
>Dear fellow graduate students,
>
>There was a Biology faculty meeting today and a few things came up
>that may be of interest to you:
>
>1. Money: The department has accumulated a bunch of money (tens of
>thousands of dollars) somehow and Rich wants to spend it before the
>university notices and tries to take it back from us.  He has asked
>the faculty to think about what they would like it spent on and was at
>least willing to hear what we think as well.  Please let me know if
>there are things you would like us to ask him for.  Some ideas I have
>had: a refrigerator in the Moore room (we keep asking for this and not
>getting it - but perhaps now is the time?) and, if getting all our
>computers hooked to the photocopier isn't practical, a departmental
>computer to use for that purpose.
>
>2. Attendance at seminars:  The faculty are considering taking
>attendance at Thursday seminars, as they have started to do at Lunch
>Bunch.  If you have strong feelings about this, let me know.  Reasoned
>arguments would be most useful (i.e., if I just tell Rich people don't
>like the idea, I don't think that will make much difference).
>
>3.  TA workload:  In view of increased class sizes associated with the
>university's budget cuts, Len has asked that people pay attention to
>their workload and let him know if it appears to be increasing.  I
>would like to second that - this is something I hoped we would have
>time to talk about at the meeting.  Our contract sets strict limits on
>the amount we are supposed to work (average of 20 hours/week for a 50%
>position, 10 hours per week for a 25% position), so if you are working
>more than that, the university is supposed to do something to address
>the problem - either pay you more, assign another TA to the course, or
>in some other way reduce the workload.  I know many people may be
>worried about being seen as trouble-makers, and many of us may feel
>that we maybe we could work faster so it's not the university's
>problem that we are working too much - but I don't think that way of
>looking at things does anyone (except penny-pinchers who don't care
>about the quality of public education) any good - if we are letting
>ourselves get overworked or trying to speed through our teaching
>responsibilities, we're not going to be teaching as well, and the
>situation will also be detracting from our research, causing us to
>take longer to finish, and pulling down the quality of the graduate
>program.  So, please do keep track of how much time you are putting
>into your teaching, and let Len, your course instructor, and (if you
>don't mind) me know if it is taking longer than it should.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Carla
>
>-- 
>Carla Essenberg
>PhD Candidate and EEOBGSA President
>Department of Biology
>University of California, Riverside
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