The Student-Faculty Exchange

Purpose:  to relate ideas at the student held meetings (conferred by the student leader) to the faculty and provide a means for feedback.  Maybe later, this will be formatted as a discussion group, but for now it is just a report from the student leader and replies by the co-directors.  We started this in year 3, should have done it sooner. 

Meeting of Friday, September 12, 2003 (Matt Balhoff, student leader)

Student Issue or Development PI response or Commentary (Russo)
Individual websites. We will establish these.  They will be something like http://macro.lsu.edu/macrostudentweb/yourname

Look for them soon.  A Front Page starter session will be offered, so you can maintain your own. 

Meeting about professional resume' preparation. I have contacted Larry Friedman and Mark DeLong for help on this.  Matt and I discussed getting individual resume's from each of you, checking for absence of typos first, then sending them to the expert, if he or she agrees to work in this manner. 
Monthly meetings. Yes!  Absolutely, the only way to do it is hold meetings on a regular basis.  Please advise Florence if you need food $$$ (or bowling $$$ or movie $$$).  Sometimes, but not always, we will be able to help with those social expenses.  I would suggest that you include some of the non-IGERT students in the fun parts (obviously, they don't have to be at the bitch and moan session). 
Can students in ChE or Biological Sciences get away from boring, badly prepared chalktalks in the Chemistry seminar series?  1.  A new course, Speaking of Macromolecules, will be added that will cross department lines. 

2.  Students should design a constructively critical mechanism to help new students know they are giving boring, badly prepared talks.  Students teaching other students is a big objective in our IGERT and others. 

3.  Some faculty here are approaching 40 years of badly prepared talks. 

4.  ChE's and Biological Sciences people should work harder to attract more students to the program.  This will produce a better balance.

5.  Making time for seminars is worth it.  They are often bad, even sometimes by Nobel Prize winners, but at worst it is quiet time to think--away from e-mail, phone, etc.  Personally, I think the Catholic mass has never been the same since they started saying it in English.  When it was in Latin, you could have private time for thought.  At best, good seminars can be a truly religious experience...so go. 

6.  We'd have to work very hard at LSU to match the number and variety of seminars of the Macro programs with which we hope to compete.  At UMASS, you can do one seminar per day, every day.  This is how you get smart and broad-based. 

7.  So the short answer is:  no--it goes against the grain of interdisciplinary activities.   

When students are "gapped" and fall way back to normal pay levels, perhaps IGERT can make up the difference. I will discuss it with the other co-directors.  I suspect their answer might depend on the reason for the student being gapped.  Sometimes it is just fiduciary--to satisfy NSF, which wants 2-3 years of support, total.  Other times, a main advisor comes to me and says, "No way, now how can this student make this much money for the little amount of work I have been seeing.  It will demoralize the hard-working students who are not IGERT.  Give that student some time in the teaching labs and see if they develop a more intense interest in science." 
We need advanced notice--more than two months--when we are to be "gapped".  Yeah, I know.  We will try.  We had some VERY BAD miscommunications this time.  Again and again, I must advise you:  plan like you will make the money in the offer letter provided by your HOME department.  DO NOT rely on any extra difference from IGERT.  Instead, BANK THAT MONEY.  You will thank me (and yourself) later. 
Maybe pre-schedule the gaps. Yes!  I like this idea, more for new students tahn existing ones but we can try that too.  It will let you know what you can expect (if performance is good) and you can play to get creative about funding, internships, etc. for the planned gap periods.  Thanks for this suggestion, which I will discuss with the co-Directors. 
Community Service projects:  some like the Mardi Gras parade idea, others think something else is more their style. 1.  Jason Campbell is in charge of Mardi Gras parade idea.  I take a special interest in this,  because it is unique to Louisiana and might do some serious education in the process....and it adds  visibility, which translates to money eventually. 

2.  Others should pursue other ideas.  We discussed helping high-school or middle-school kids.  A contact on the chemistry side is Barbara Decuir (bdecuir@lsu.edu).  She knows many people in high schools and middle schools.  Contacts on the engineering side can be found at Scotlandville Magnet High. 

3.  No idea is mutually exclusive of the Mardi Gras parade.  For example, the parade can be a Mardi Gras celebration of ALL the education/outreach projects we devise.  This way, we might involve industrial sponsors.  (Example:  someone to pay for polyethylene cups with "Top ten reasons that polymers save the environment" printed on them. 

4.  Dr. Spivak knows how to get the "Krewe of Goo" into a parade.