Flu Clinics - link
Early Voting location - Wed, Oct 31 – Fri, Nov 2: 10 am-5 pm, University of Chicago, Reynolds Club, 5706 S University Ave, link
Surprised not so much grad student growth since 2016 as might be expected, but the number of Postdocs has grown considerably
PhD students: 117 in 2018 (104 in 2016, 27 in 2011)
14 PhDs awarded this last year
116 MSs and MPSCs awarded this lay year
80 BSs awarded, 241 undergrad majors
Lots of new faculty
Trying to cover more areas of CS research.
Lots of new grad students & post-docs
We have a grad student leadership structure
Actually moved into new space on time!
EPiQC Expedition award for quantum computing (we are leading it!)
Another hiring push (4-6 new tenure-track faculty). Focus on "AI"/ML, Data Science, Security, HCI
Center for Data and Applied Computing will launch on the north end of the building. Interdisciplinary projects and symposia for the entire campus. A director for it is hired and starts in Nov.
First floor will have: CSIL 5, "Media Arts Data and Design Center", Vis + GIS labs.
Café was not quite built to code for food prep and needs to be reworked a bit. (Student asks: Student run café? Mike: vendor is not finalized)
Things we did:
- Grad student organization ("The Ministry")
- Funding for grad student events
- Changes to PhD requirements and course structure
- Particularly around discrete maths so we made changes there.
- Not everything on the website is correct here just yet, partially due to the new website and changing their minds.
- Machine Learning courses were also considered to be tweaked since they're highly mathematical etc. There's a new course being offered by Rebecca Willet in the winter that will require less math background.
- Grad student lounge
- Height-Adjustable Desks for All (ask for by Kartik, paid for by department not the univ)
Things yet to be done:
- TA Policies
- We're suppose to work on it the last time, and still suppose to now (and will).
- RA/TA Pay
- In terms of peers, we're in line with midwest top schools.
- In relation to top-20 CS schools, we're not there.
- Pre-existing MS Condition
- We will make it more explicit that we don't want people to get a masters from us nessecarily. Try to rewrite so not all courses from us are needed ?? Someone who has already written a Master's Paper will not need to write another one. Some variant of this will be added as we decide.
- TTIC Transportation
- Less Pizza (obviously)
PhD course requirements is a bit fluid. Discrete Math can be negotiated now. Website should be up to date by the winter quarter. For the overly mathematical ML requirement, Rebecca Willet will offer an ML course in the winter with less math prereq needed. For those incoming with an MS, they will be able to get more credit for prior courses and if they have already produced a MS paper they will not have to do another MS paper.
The Graduate Matters committee will be splitting into an admissions committee and another committee concerned with the students present.
- Graduate committee needs to be public on the website.
The ministers represent the PhD's student interest.
FGL is responsible for interfacing between faculty and grad students. Reach out if you have concerns not represented by other ministers.
Helped organize orientation. Discussed agenda for town hall. Helped with WiCS
Talk to me about infrastructure. Got the adjustable desks and the grad student lounge and other details. I work with Kindlmann and Techstaff to resolve hardware issues. Advocating for better monitors. There may be a bike room on the first floor. I've also tried to help with the communications infrastructure (started Slack, experimenting with other systems). May share the Slack ownership with Borja and someone from Techstaff.
Pizza Seminar used to exist, and we are reviving it (as it is in the Math Dept). Will be every other Monday. May move beyond pizza too. Encourage you to give a talk, either to practice a talk or to present.
We went to an Arcade Bar, and there was also an event during orientation week. This quarter - it's coming. Two events winter quarter and two in spring quarter. Email us with suggestions.
Sent 2 students to Grace Hopper. Starting a new seminar series this year. Hank, Blase, and Jean have been working on an inclusion initiative. There will be a climate survey coming out.
Also involved with GRIT to recruit and retain STEM BSD-PSD of underrepresented groups. Would like more CS students in these other groups.
Talk to Jean about conference opportunities.
Goal is to reduce stigma around reaching out for help regarding mental wellness, which is a major issue in graduate school. Available for anyone who has questions regarding this process and what Student Counseling Services have available for all students in the department.
Representative for int'l students. Can offer help!
Coordinate between students and faculty concerning curriculum issues and changes. There's a bit in flux. The theory and machine learning requirements are changing. Rebecca Willet's ML class will count.
Talk to your advisor if you have questions. Your advisor also is the main arbiter whether a course outside the dept is relevant and should count. Janos also has experience answering these questions.
Would be good to have a way for students to propose courses or topic seminars. Janos: two ways to get these topics course to happen: (1) get a faculty member really excited to teach the course, (2) teach it yourself informally and get a faculty member to sit in, the theory group folks have been doing something like this, though you may not be able to make it count for credit if you still need that. We may be able to put on the curriculum.
Nathan Mull - Minister of Web. Worked with Adam Shaw to clarify the course listing, particularly for topic seminars.
Andrew McNutt - Minister of Caffeine. Plan is to host weekly tea or coffee in the Grad Student lounge. Informal.
If you want to help with one of these areas, we don't need just one person on each. Or if you have ideas for a new area.
Contact for existing ministers is on the website.
There are two spots for CS on the committee. Topics covered: faculty hiring, inclusion initiatives. Two meetings per quarter. We send emails asking for feedback, plan to send more updates. Let us know if you have PSD or University-wide issues. For example: where is information about all the health services? Where do we find about UChicago Grad funding for travel etc.? Funding for interdisciplinary projects? Can also discuss CS department problems at a higher level.
Faculty committee worked for a year and half with the architects. Wanted to encourage collaboration and increase the energy level.
Current question: is the influx of students keeping you from collaborating?
The Skype rooms are supposed to be locked to only CS grad students.
Main stairwell doors should stay closed after hours. (Hours: 8am-8pm M-F)
Campus security is checking on keycard access for the freight elevator.
Common areas are collaboration areas.
First floor is going to be comfortable.
A student asks: Is there a way to find out what I can get into with my keycard?
Shut the door on conference rooms and Skype rooms.
Janos: It would be nice to have a directory.
There's some signage coming.
Tom is programming a reservation system. Maybe a month away. (Talk to Tom about constraint programming.)
Report door issues etc to Nita. (These things are under warranty!)
Student notes: Room usage policies should be documented on the website.
Disappearing markers. Probably going to give markers to each lab.
Students suggests: Stock the PhD printing rooms with markers.
Student concern: Some office hours are overflowing into the hallways.
If something is keeping you from collaborating in the building, bring it up.
Optimistic that the first floor will move some students back downstairs.
Student: Postdocs are surprised by things—make sure they are included on things.
We need a minister for postdocs.
Important that grad students are considered workers. Trying to get the university to bargain, particularly over expectations around employment and compensation. Feel free to talk to me. The more people involved, the better things work.
Mike: Just on balance, having worked at a university where students were unionized, my experience is that it prevented me from doing thing for my students that other professors weren't able to do for theirs.
Public committee list.
Dept level social events (holiday party?)
Student mentions: Maybe student involvement in faculty hiring…the bio dept has a template we might follow.
Diversity in Faculty hiring: Hank is giving a second look at all applicants since hiring is usually by focus area.
Janos: University has a program the tries to place underrepresented minority into postdocs so they might be hired as faculty later. However, in many areas of CS the market is very competitive (lots of positions, small applicant pool). It's a pipeline problem. Talk to people earlier in the pipeline and encourage them to continue their studies.
Hank & Mike: offering a post-doc position for people applying as faculty is not very nice for them.
Student asks: What if we want a course in an unusual area and we don't know what faculty would want to teach it? (Ask Mike.)
Janos: It's best to collect papers etc and start a reading group where faculty and students can discuss them together (Theory group does this). There isn't really a need to go through the overhead of assigning class credit since this falls under Reading & Research.
Student: Can we buy more GPUs? Hank: Are you aware of RCC on campus? they have lots of GPUs. Someone: It's not so easy to access. Mike: How about the Chamelian system at Argonne we have access to. There's also Amazon. In general we don't have funding for shared compute resource. Student: Midway 2 has like 6 nodes etc. Sometimes long queues. Mike: TTI has also built a GPU cluster. Student: Can we limit how much GPU time is used by the 4 GPUs in the department? Some Professor: There will always be resource issues with shared GPUs because of paper deadlines etc. Mike: I'm on the RCC committee so maybe I can ask about something. For a specific research project, you should go to the faculty member first for this type of issue. If we pool our resources, we could maybe go to AWS or something. They usually only sponsor specific projects.