Committee Reports (11/7/2009)
Executive Committee Report:
Scott Heerman and Paul Gibson
As of November 5, 2009 the Executive Committee has had three meetings addressing the following matters:
1) A meeting about an internal review of the department and the budget. Compliant with University Policy, the Executive Committee is reviewing the department’s performance. This will examine not only our size, effectiveness, ranking, time to degree etc. but also how we compare with peer institutions in terms of space allocated, size of department, level of pay etc. This will require input from the entire department in the forms of surveys and questionnaires that all are encouraged to fill out.
2) The budget news is dire. However, the Chair is committed to repairing the damage done to the department’s funding as best as he can.
3) Admissions will necessarily be bleak. We will only admit those who can compete for funding from the graduate school and will not offer 5 years packages for the time being. Students who can win support from the University or other agents will have preference in our department.
4) Faculty grant proposals for RASA grants were evaluated. It was agreed that all were strong grant applications and will be endorsed by the chair to the graduate review board. The deliberations of this meeting are to remain confidential.
Undergrad Committee Report:
Steph Hinnershitz-Reichelderfer
I have taken over the position of HGSA Undergraduate Committee Representative when Josh Furman resigned earlier this semester. So far, I have met with Dr. Soergel (Director of Undergraduate Studies) and there are no major developments to report.
Appointments, Promotion, and Tenure Committee Report:
Steve Scala and Sherry Myers
The APT Committee has convened twice since the start of the semester. The first meeting took place 19 October 2009 and discussed the promotion of Lisa Mar and David Freund to the position of associate professor. The second meeting took place 26 October 2009 and discussed the promotion of Julie Greene and Madeline Zilfi to the position of (full) professor. The graduate representatives on the APT committee, just like all the regular faculty members of the committee, are not permitted to discuss the content of the committee’s deliberations on tenure review.
Graduate Committee Report:
Megan Coplen and Reid Gustafson
Meeting Date: 16 October 2009
Those Present: Coplen, Megan; Greene, Julie; Gustafson, Reid; Lampe, John; Lyons, Claire; Milan, Erika; Price, Richard; Sicilia, David; Vaughan, Mary Kay; Veen, Peter
1.) The UMD, as everyone knows, is experiencing severe funding difficulties. The department will not be able to fund any incoming graduate students next year (they took in six with departmental funding). Therefore, for next year the department will be very limited in the number of graduate students it can accept. Funding for those incoming students will have to come from other sources such as the graduate school.
2.) Those present discussed how to effectively communicate this information to those who wished to apply to the program. We discussed how to phrase a message on the departmental website that was both substantive but would not discourage applicants.
3.) The committee wanted Megan and me to inform graduate students that if this funding situation does not improve in the long term, the department’s graduate student population will have to shrink. Therefore the university will no longer be able to allow each caucus (U.S., Europe, middle east, women & gender, ancient Mediterranean, Science and Technology, East Asian, diplomacy, and Latin America) to receive a portion of the incoming graduate students. Instead the department would have to pick three to five caucuses that would regularly accept something like one or two graduate students a year and the other caucus professors would not get to train graduate students. Such a decision would, of course, be made over the long term. However, each graduate student should discuss the future of their respective caucuses with their professors and, if relevant, ensure that their professors advocate for their caucus. Of course, with fewer graduate teaching assistants, the department will either have to reduce the number of 100 and 200 classes or professors will have to begin doing more of the grading
4.) The consortium does not work. It is very difficult for UMD graduate students to take classes at other universities. No solution is in sight for this problem. If you want to take a class at another university, sign up for an independent study with a UMD professor and have your professor at the other university e-mail your UMD professor your grade at the end of the term.
5.) The department is considering two future changes: increasing the scope of its transnational professors and classes and increasing its number of MA in history students.
Fall 2009
October 19, 2009
Holiday Party: Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 8:00
Harrison will be in charge of food and drinks
Katie will be in charge of decorations
Reid will be in charge of clean-up
Volunteers for any of these committees are appreciated
Workshops – after a meeting with Julie Greene and David Sicilia the workshop schedule will be as follows:
Thursday, Nov. 12th at 3:30: Prospectus development workshop
Thursday, Dec. 3rd at 3:30: Grant writing workshop
Prof. Eckstein is giving his Distinguished Scholar/Teacher presentation this Wednesday, October 21, at 4:00 in Key 106. The talk is entitled: “Creating the Roman Juggernaut: How Rome broke free of the Ancient City-State Pack.” There will be a reception in the Merrill room afterwords.
Finances: Co-op has achieved at least self-sufficiency, and our finances are in good order.
Book sale – we have found a potential buyer for our first crop of books, and that person will be in on Friday around 1pm to look at them. She is offering to buy them at a dollar a book. Whoever wants to help organize the books Friday morning around 11 am will be welcome.
Committee reports:
Finance: at this moment and time there are will be no offers of money to incoming grad students. Any applicants wishing to receive money will have to compete for university wide scholarships. This information will be posted on the History department website for applicants. That being admitted, nothing is for certain, the department cannot know where it will stand in March; these findings are based on current budget projects. Things could get better, or worse. The financial crisis has caused the department to start a self-evaluation in terms of what it wants to be as a grad program, where it wants to focus, what programs can be eliminated/reduced, etc, etc.
Executive: same as finance – no offers of money will be sent out; also the department is about to initiate an 18 month review (which has been postponed twice in the past few years) – this should not affect graduate students.
Undergrad: has not met
Apt: at a meeting to vote on tenure for David Freund and Lisa Mar
Rock Climbing: Mike Soracoe is organizing an excursion to try out the rec center’s climbing wall on Thursday, October 29th at 6:00 pm. Please email Mike at MSoracoe@hotmail.comif you are interested.
Student interest liaison: Reid has settled into his position as student interest liason and is ready to fight for you! – if you have complaints about the department, either personal or systemic, feel free to contact him and he will work with you and Jon to sort out the difficulties. He has also been talking with Todd to move the unionization forward. To that end, Jon and Reid are doing department visits to Poly Sci and Sociology this Wednesday with Todd. If anyone would like to join, please contact Reid rgustafs@umd.edu (or ambush him at 10:45 on Wednesday)
On union efforts – Todd is working to get the History grad students a secured seat on the GSG board. If this happened there will be an election to fill said seat.
For anyone looking for some side cash, there is an opening in the GSG for someone to review funding request forms. The pay is 16 dollars an hour for approx. 10 hours a week.
21 September 2009
1) No intro Barbeque this year due to lack of time; there will be a welcome back event on Monday, September 28 – except there is a conflict with Yom Kippur
2) Amendment – voted on and passed by a unanimous decision of those present. Final wording:
The Student Interest Liaison (SIL) is to act as a representative on behalf of graduate student concerns regarding the history department, specifically as regards our labor as TAs, GAs, readers, lecturers, students, and those on fellowship. The SIL will be tasked with facilitating actions to address concerns of the graduate community, coordinating with HGSA members and other departments when appropriate. The SIL shall be assisted by an open committee consisting of any interested HGSA member. The SIL will be elected by the members of HGSA and is answerable to the President and Vice Presidents.
3) Call for ideas for professional development workshops: like the Comps Colloquium, if anyone has an idea of workshops that they would like either the department or the HGSA to run (or if you would like to run any) please see either Will or Katie by the end of this week with your idea.
4) Grad colloquium: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 @1:00 pm Lejnar Mitrojorgji will present his paper on “Borders of Identity: the Greek-Albanian Union of 1907 and Epirote Question in the Late Ottoman Period,” in Key 2120 (the Merrill Room). Stephan Papaioannou will be commenting. Please bring your lunch and join the discussion; copies of the paper are available online at: http://www.history.umd.edu/Histgrad/academics/colloquium.html
5) PAY YOUR DUES ($5), if you have not already
14 September 2009
intro – items of interest if you are interested in attending the Maryland Ren. Festival on Saturday, September 14, 2009, please contact Chris Mielke (cmielke@umd.edu)
Please keep the lounge area clean, we have had a problem with ants and other undesirable pests
The website is functioning, and is there to distribute HGSA information, the address is: http://www.history.umd.edu/Histgrad/
Over the summer: desk assignments and mailboxes have been worked out; there are still one or two open desks in the ballroom, email Jon if you are interested.
Budget:
We have money to survive this year, with about 400-500 for next; this is not enough to pay for all HGSA activities. We do not know how much book sales will bring in, so two suggestions for raising capitol: raising dues or charging for the holiday party.
The vote was in favor of charging at least five dollars for the holiday party; dues remained five dollars
Please pay dues to Will in a timely fashion.
Co-op:
Ran large deficits last year due to lack of oversight, and this problem will be amended by better scrutiny by Will.
Reforms:
As voted on, will work on a hundred dollar rolling budget; this means that after an initial investment of one hundred dollars, the only money spent on the co-op will come from co-op earnings. If the co-op makes more than one hundred dollars, then more items will be bought; if less than a hundred dollars is spent, then less will be bought. If the co-op returns more than $200 dollars, the excess goes to HGSA general fund.
Selling books: best venue for selling books will be determined at a later time
Grievance officer:
discussed the creation of a grievance officer, essentially a person who will act as a recorder of grievances and who might act as an intermediary, given the consent of the HGSA as a whole (powers TBD)
discussion over whether this function was already handled by the HGSA officers and would create confusion
determined HGSA officer, especially president has too much to deal with
debated whether office should be a committee or individual – end result it will be a person who forms a committee
voted to put amendment, with revised language, to a vote next week, September 21, 2009
Proposed amendment reads (on the duties of the proposed officer): The Student Interest Liaison is to act as a representative on behalf of graduate student concerns regarding the history department, specifically as regards our labor as TAs, GAs, readers, lecturers, and those on fellowship. The Student Interest Liaison shall be assisted by an open committee consisting of any interested HGSA member. The Student Interest Liaison will be elected by the members of HGSA and answerable to the President and Vice Presidents.
(the language is as close to the changes discussed at the meeting as poissible).
Grad colloquium:
run by Paul Gibson and Stephan Papaioannou
first one will be Thursday (the 24th?) at noon, presenter is Lejnar Mitrojorgji
If you would like to sign up for spring semester, either as a presenter or commentator, see either Paul or Stephan
Grad Conference:
Will be February 4-5 (Thursday-Friday), 2010
Call for papers will be sent out shortly
Still need plenty of volunteers – be on a committee, be a commentator, submit a paper or even be part of the audience
Thursday night will be a movie night and Keynote address will be Friday afternoon
Comps Colloquium:
This Thursday, September 17, TLF 2110, 3:30; an open forum in which to talk about comps with a panel of students/professors who have been there
Attempts at non-profit status
tried to make HGSA a 501c(3) non-profit tax entity – do not have the $300 necessary
would be good in later years as a way of raising money
Spring 2007
16 April 2007
Fall 2006
16 October 2006
11 September 2006
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