Staff Student Liaison Committee - Meeting Notes

Notes from Department of Civil Engineering Student Staff Liaison Committee Meeting Tuesday 15 October 2002 1 pm

Present

Students
Andrew Reeves BE/BCom 4th Year
Nathan Clarke BE 3rd year
Brendan Walsh BE 3rd year
Jerome Johnson BE 2nd Year
Mahala McLindin BE 2nd Year
Emily Burton BE 1st Year

Staff
Rob Wheen 1st advisor & Rob Wheen (HOD)
Noel Ings 2nd Year Advisor
David Airey 3rd Year Advisor
Kim Rasmussen 4th Year Advisor
Tim Wilkinson Civil Engineering Webmaster
Tmne Blair

Apologies
George Slack Civil Engineering Foundation Officer
Drew Woodhouse BE/BCom 4th Year
Josh Baker BE 1st Year

1. Welcome: The Head of Department, Rob Wheen, welcomed all members. 2nd year havent had elections, so the previous reps, Mahala and Jerome maintained their membership.

2. Matters arising from last meeting August 2002

Private tutoring by later year students: A system had been set up in the SUCE common room, but there had been little interest shown to date by students - perhaps closer to the exams?

Paddle Pop Bridge Comp - Rob Wheen reported that VUT had won the contest, with a USyd student 4th.

4th year elective sessions - The department had organised information sessions for current 3rd years about 4th year electives. It was a little disappointing that SUCE had arranged a BBQ for one of those days.

3. Focus Groups
David Airey spoke of the formation of focus groups as part of the course review. Two groups were to be formed - 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th, each with about 10 students, with as wide range of representation as possible, to be held in the next couple of weeks, for about an hour at lunchtime. The student reps would be involved in helping organise the groups. There was a brief discussion on how the uni email system could be used to ask for volunteers, given privacy requirements.

4. AOB

There was discussion on the low turnout at the elective information sessions. Many of the 3rd years were busy doing assignments.

The issue of some first year civil lectures running overtime (past 5 minutes to the hour) when students need to get over the other side of uni for the next lecture.

There were some problems with unlockable cubicles in the male toilets near the engineering shop.

There was some difficulty in the access computer labs in that MATLAB was not always working on every PC.

It was announced that Drew Woodhouse had been awarded the Phil Jones award at the Engineering Ball.


5. Next meeting - 2003

Meeting closed at 2 pm