BE Board:Coordinator

For current website see begradboard.mit.edu

Description

The Student Board Coordinators organize and run monthly BE board meetings. They ensure that BE board initiatives are carried out and serve as contacts between the students and the faculty/administration. For 2005/2006, the BE board coordinators are Diana Chai & Barry Canton.

Activities

This is an attempt to document some of the things that we do for future generations:) Hopefully it will serve as a description of the position and help make sure that future coordinators have an idea what events they need to think about.

August

• Handover of info. and activities from the previous years board.
• Put together panel for incoming class Q&A session.
• Check with the second-years to ensure the first year welcome party is organized, preferably before orientation. Traditionally the responsibility for organizing this party lies with the second year class, it shouldn't be a board run event.

September

• This year the major event in September/October has been the graduate program review.
  1. Feedback was solicited from the students directly via email.
  2. The survey was also used to collect feedback.
  3. We met with the graduate committee to report on interim feedback.
• The coordinators organize the first-year dinners. Groups of new and older students go for dinner to local restaurants with $10 subsidized per student.
• The coordinators should also check to make sure that the September TGIF is organized. This is often one of the bigger TGIFs and is more heavily funded than others.
• This year, we had to run a supplementary election to fill an additional academic rep. position.
• The first board meeting of the year is also in September. The coordinators should also try and choose a time for monthly meetings that will allow as many students as possible to attend. Best to wait until people's schedules have settled down a bit before doing this.
• The coordinators should ensure that all the new board members meet with their predecessors to ensure that all the right information is transferred.
• The coordinators can also assist the academic reps. in putting together and analysing the student survey. Critically important in this is encouraging all board members to make sure that people in their labs fill out the survey.

October

• This year the coordinators presented student feedback regarding the program at the faculty retreat. We were part of active discussions about how the program could be made better. The faculty are very receptive to the views of students on this issue.
• We are also planning to implement a student directory that would allow people to sort by class, by lab and see photos of their fellow BE students. This would help people to get to know the incoming class and it would also help those looking to join a lab to find out who would be good for them to talk to.

Ideas for the future

• In future years, the board could look at organizing season passes for skiing. This would take the responsibility off the shoulders of those who have been good enough to do it up until now.