Staff Student Liaison Committee - Meeting Notes

Notes from Department of Civil Engineering Student Staff Liaison Committee Meeting Tuesday 10 May 2005 1 pm

Present

Students
Patrick Bilan BE 4th Year:
Sean Porter BE 2nd Year:
Tim Suttie BE 2nd Year:

Staff
Kim Rasmussen 1st year advisor & HOD
Abbas El-Zein 2nd year advisor
David Airey 3rd Year Advisor & Director of L&T
Tim Wilkinson 4th Year Advisor
Li Liu PEM Advisor

Apologies
Michelle Englert BE 4th Year

1. Welcome: The Pro-HOD (Undergraduate), David Airey, welcomed all members. It was possible there was some communication problem that prevented all the student members from attending.

David Airey mentioned that some type of elections for student representatives would need to take place soon.

2. Matters arising from last meeting in 2004

The notes from the last meeting were not available, however the two main issues from the last meeting were discussed.

Thesis. In 2004 thesis topic for 2005 were announced late in the year to give students more time to chose.

Software/Hawkins lab - Most of the issues relating to geotechnical software not working properly in the Hawkins lab had been sorted out.

3. Student issues

Patrick Bilan - there was concerned raised about PEM students that they felt they were perhaps under-resourced in terms of low numbers of staff, lack of subject choice and lack of thesis topics (some of which were taken by "normal" civil students). Kim Rasmussen mentioned that he had asked additional adjunct staff to supervise PM theses (Chaaya and Weber). Also, the PEM degree is still an engineering degree accredited by Engineers Australia. It was acknowledged that some PEM 4th year students would have a limited elective choice this year - but this was a result of the course changes started in 2004. This situation would improve for later years.

Patrick Bilan - The Civil Engineering Drawing Office was a poor room for lectures. Kim Rasmussen mentioned that Lecture Room 1, 2, & 3 had received recent upgrades, and some plans were being made to see what upgrades could be done to Lecture Rooms 4 & 5 and the Drawing Office - but this would take some time.

Patrick Bilan - There were limited computers in the Hawkins Lab for Autocad and MS Project. Tim Wilkinson mentioned that these programs were quite expensive and that the department had tried to purchase as mention licences as possible within budget and based on the requests of the lecturers concerned.

Tim Suttie - there was concern over the quality of handouts given in Materials, with a suggestion being that they could be bound and available for purchase at the bookshop, rather than distributed every lecture.

Sean Porter - use of smaller groups in large tutorials (eg in Structural Mechanics) seemed beneficial.

Sean Porter - there was some concerns over the equipment in Surveying and that large groups of 8 meant that students didnt get much use of the equipment.

Sean Porter - availability of worked examples from exams would be desirable.

4. Work Experience

David Airey noted that work experience should be done after 3rd year, and a prerequisite was the completion of a certain number of 3rd year subjects. Some employers had specifically said they did not feel that 2nd year students had the required experience, and there was some concern that 2nd year work experience students take the places from 3rd year students - who need to do it.

5. Student from Uganda

David Airey would forward an email to members of the SSLC concerning a request for help from engineering students in Uganda.

7. AOB

Tim Wilkinson mentioned that the Department had sort to improve communication with students, and had already commenced an email bulletin that would be sent out once (or most twice) per semester, outlining key news and issues for all students.

Tim Wilkinson mentioned that the civil engineering website was about to undergo a major revamp and student input was requested. The students present mentioned that they didnt look at the whole website too much, and the main source of information was going specifically to the unit of study page (which might be housed on WebCT or the Civil site). Any other comments are welcome.

Meeting closed at 2 pm