[Bgsa] a little news from last week's biology faculty meeting

[Carla Essenberg]

Hi Folks,

Nothing of earth-shattering importance came up, but there were a few
things you might want to know about:

Regarding teaching:
-It is still unclear to the faculty whether there are too many or too
few students wanting to TA for the number of TAships, and that
situation is expected to continue.  The pattern generally seems to be
that the faculty are told that there aren't enough TAships and then in
the end they have too many and not enough TAs.  So, expect to hear
worried comments about this in future, but chances are everyone who
wants them will get TAships pretty much all the time.
-There is a push to use learning outcomes more, so we might be seeing
more of that in the classes we TA

Semester system?
Some of the top administrators would really like UCR to switch to a
semester system in a few years.  The faculty think this would be a
very difficult and expensive transition, so I'm not sure it is very
likely, but who knows?

Other stuff
There may be some faculty searches in the future, but that won't be
decided for awhile yet.  There have also been some discussions amongst
the administration and faculty about a possible reorganization of our
college, but nothing at all concrete, so I imagine that will be a long
time coming if it happens.

That was about it.

Cheers,

Carla

-- 
Carla Essenberg
PhD Candidate and EEOBGSA President
Department of Biology
University of California, Riverside