Below is the wikified version of gradrep-manual.pdf

Being a Graduate Student Representative or There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

First Edition: March 1988, author unknown

Current Edition: April 3, 2010

Introduction

The duties of a grad rep are not well-defined, and this handbook does not purport to define them all: that's up to you. The job can be as difficult and as fun as you want it to be.

One major thing that grad reps do is act as a repository of wisdom. They're supposed to know how the department wags and what wags it. But, since you're new to this, how are you supposed to know these things? We'll tell you, that's how. This handbook was written mostly as a way of passing on the knowledge we've accumulated. We hope you'll keep it up to date and pass it on to the next grad reps, and so on into the mists of time.

By the way, since there is nothing like a CMPSCI constitution, you are free to change any policy and set any precedent you want.

What Do Grad Reps Do?

Remember, this handbook doesn't define your job; /you/ do that. However, in the interests of helping you figure everything out, and in the interests of continuity, this section gives a brief description of what some of your predecessors have done. Each of the major items is then discussed in more detail later in the document.

• Representation of student body: This is one of the primary duties of the grad reps. We listen to gripes and praise from the students and act as intermediaries with the faculty, etc.

• Participation in faculty meetings: This includes the right to vote. Previous gradreps have either taken minutes of the meetings and posted them to cmpsci.grads or reported relevant results to the students.

• Faculty candidates: As gradreps, we interview and evaluate each of the faculty candidates and share two votes at the faculty meeting for each candidate.

• Organize departmental parties: We typically plan and organize the Fall Departmental Potluck, the Fall Foliage Frolic, and the Spring Potluck Picnic. Some years the gradreps have also run anti-fragmentation parties. Of course other parties are welcomed and encouraged!

• Elections: Elections are held within the first week (or two) of the semester. We organize the party and the elections, make sure the difficult slots are filled, and make sure that people attend!

• Orientation: We typically run a panel session entitled ``Life in the Happy Valley'' at the end of the orientation day. In the past, we have also run a session called ``How to be a successful grad student''.

• Lab Description Series: We run a semester long series in the Fall of each year where each faculty member gets 30 minutes over free food to describe their research and lab to any interested graduate students (particularly aimed at the new students). Each lunch has two faculty and has food funded by the department.

• New students: Although meeting with new students is largely the job of the New Student Committee, the gradreps are welcome to participate in this task.

• Distinguished lecturers: The department feels that the gradreps should have a 30 minute timeslot with the distinguished lecturers. Typically only one of us actually knows anything about the person's work. Instead of floundering for something to say, we have opened this timeslot up to the graduate student population as whole. Anyone who wants to meet with the visitors can then join us.

• Monitor graduate positions: Make sure that the other volunteers are doing all right and serve as conduit to the faculty and staff in case of misunderstandings (such as inappropriate levels of cleanup).

• Health insurance reminders: Previous gradreps have taken upon themselves to remind the graduate students taking less than 5 credits a semester that they need to sign up for health insurance at the UHS. This is now done by the front office.

The position of grad rep has evolved over the years, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. Please keep this document up-to-date as the position changes!

Term of Office

In the past, the grad reps served for as long as they wanted to, and elections were held when someone got tired and wanted to quit. This had a couple of problems. First, sometimes all of them would get tired at once and then three new people would be thrown into the office without any continuity. Second, fewer people got a chance to be grad rep, a position that, believe it or not, does have some rewards. Hence, the present system is to have a term of office of one year but with staggered elections. We elect two new gradreps each semester. By staggering the elections, there are always ``senior'' grad reps who can help the new grad reps get oriented. Also, the faculty feel more comforable when there is some continuity of the grad reps. The elections are usually held at the beginning of the semester, but in real life they happen when the grad reps get around to it. The electorate is whoever shows up at the election meeting; there is no such thing as a quorum.

After the election, the senior grad reps (the ones whose position were not up for election) should introduce the new grad reps to the job. Part of that is passing on this document (assuming it stands the test of time), but it's also introducing the new grad reps to the faculty and staff. Since not all the grad students will have been at elections, you should announce all the election results to grads@csNOSPAM. Be sure to let Sharon Mallory know all election results since she contacts these people frequently.

The Gradrep Account

The gradreps have an account at cs.umass.edu. Faculty, staff, and students who want to reach the gradreps send mail gradrep@csNOSPAM. As a grad rep, you can send mail from this account (or you can use your own account and clearly sign it as a grad rep).

After elections, the senior gradreps should do the following account updating:

• Edit .procmailrc to add new rep addresses at bottom

• Modify the .sig file to include the new reps

• Update the webpage/Wiki to include the new reps

• Update the Wiki to list the graduate positions and archive the old positions

Things we no longer do:

• Add the new reps' machines to the .rhosts file (no longer doing this as of 2010)
• Edit the .forward file to include the new reps (switched to procmail in 2010 to reduce spam)
• Modify the .plan file to include the new reps

Faculty Meetings

One of the priveleges and responsibilities of being a grad rep is attending faculty meetings. Faculty meetings are like most other meetings: sometimes they are interesting, but they are often boring and filled with details that you couldn't care less about. C'est la vie. When it is interesting, it tends to be /very/ interesting, so it all balances out in the end.

There are two types of faculty meetings: `open' and `closed'. An open meeting is open to faculty, postdocs, and grad reps. A closed meeting is open only to faculty. Most meetings are open. Faculty meetings are usually only closed for personnel issues, i.e. when someone's fate is being decided. For example, meetings to discuss the results of portfolios or meetings to discuss faculty promotions are closed. Once in awhile, the first half of a meeting is open and the second half is closed. In those cases, we attend the open half, and leave when the chair closes the meeting.

Roughly every other faculty meeting takes place at lunch, which is provided by the department. There are also Wednesday afternoon (3:30) meetings that you should attend. These are more likely to go into closed session, but you can provide input until then.

As a grad rep, you are entitled to vote at open faculty meetings. It is traditional for the grad reps to abstain on issues that do not directly affect students; however, it is /your/ decision about when to vote.

Grad reps are /not/ entitled to vote on personnel issues with one exception. Most personnel issues are handled in `closed' meetings, so it is not normally an issue. However, the consideration of faculty candidates, both research and tenure track is a personnel issue that takes place in open meetings. Our votes for faculty candidates do count. This is a change in 1993. Below is the approved motion from the 29 Nov 93 meeting:

/ All research- and tenure- track faculty candidates will be discussed in an OPEN meeting. The meeting can be CLOSED* by a majority vote of the voting faculty present. If a vote on a faculty offer is taken in an OPEN meeting, then the Graduate Representatives will have the right to cast a SINGLE note on behalf of the graduate students. If a note is taken in a CLOSED meeting, the Graduate Representatives may give their proxy to a voting faculty member. Offers including tenure or at a rank higher than (research) assistant professor must also be approved by the appropriate subset of the Personnel Committee.. Other than this, only voting faculty may vote on faculty offers. A vote to make a faculty offer requires that a 2/3 majority of the votes cast. [*CLOSED meetings are closed to all but voting faculty.]/

/Determination of a change in status for any faculty member (promotion, tenure, reappointment, voting status, etc.) is to be carried out in a CLOSED meeting of the appropriate subset of the Personnel Committee (i.e. voting faculty at an equal or higher rank)./

Fall 2004 note: it was decided sometime after 1993 to give the gradreps 2 votes!

Faculty Committees

Most of the faculty committees are not interesting to the students. However, a few warrant student involvement. Those are given below:

• Building Committee:

• Informational Outreach: Informational Outreach provides input and faculty oversight of the departmental newsletter (Significant Bits), website (cs.umass.edu), and other means of informing the CS professional community, state legislators, and others about the department.

• Campaign:

• Space: The space committee deals with various issues having to do with physical space for departmental people and objects. For example, it is the space committee that approves various uses of department space. We find space for new students, visitors, etc. We also formulate policies having to do with space and security issues. Graduate student input would be very helpful.

• Curriculum: The curriculum committee would consider changes to the undergrad and grad curriculum if we were contemplating any, which we currently aren't. The curriculum chair reviews proposals for new courses, seminars, and independent study courses - this is currently the "committee"'s only activity as it seems to have no other members.

• Special Events/Colloquia: The special events committee is primarily the DLS and colloquia committee. We think it would be good to have a graduate student involved in a primarily advisorial role. Soliciting possible speakers from students, helping find ways to encourage students to attend the talks, etc.

Undergrad Program:

Faculty Candidates

One of the other perks of being a grad rep is the opportunity to interview, discuss, and vote on the faculty candidates. If you are thinking of going into Academia as a career, this side of the job gives valuable insight into interview dos and don'ts. This can be valuable for industry careers also.

Unless a grad rep runs for a second year, the interviewers are new every year. We know that you will want to come up with your own list of questions for the candidate but in case you are at a loss, we have included some questions that we have asked in the past.

RESEARCH:

• What are your research interests?
• How can you contribute to the faculty here (e.g. in terms of research collaborations)?
• Would you start your own lab right away or would you work with current faculty? If the latter, who?

TEACHING:

• What would you see yourself teaching? Do you have any previous teaching experience (e.g. TA, lecturer)

ADVISING:

• What is your advising style?
• What makes a good student? How would you help a student to become the best researcher he/she can be?

SERVICE:

• Do you have any experience with departmental service? Have you participated in any committees? Do you have any thoughts on how you can be a "good citizen" in our department?

MISCELLANEOUS:

• Why do you want to be a faculty member at UMass?

• If the faculty is leaving another university, why are you leaving University X? Would you bring your current graduate students with you?

• What can we tell you about UMass or Amherst? (They often want to know our opinion of the portfolio and the synthesis project.)

If the candidate asks you hard questions (``Name one thing about your advisor that you would change and why''), answer them honestly. But keep in mind that this is not an opportunity to complain about your latest gripe with UMass. The candidate doesn't care about parking services right now - they want to be convinced to come to UMass. Don't lie - just don't spend your 30 minutes complaining about some odd red tape that you are currently entagled in.

After the interview process, you get to discuss the faculty candidates in an open faculty meeting. Although you have only two votes for the 4 grad reps, be assured that the faculty listen VERY carefully to what you have to say about the candidates. If you have concerns or strong feelings for or against a candidate, the faculty will listen to you. Listening to their conerns and having them listen to yours is one of the better learning experiences of being a grad rep. Quite instructive for your future careers!

Elections

The grad reps organize the elections party each semester. This party is typically held on the first or second friday of the semester in a conference room in our building. The department will buy food and drink for us provided that we clean up after ourselves. In the past, they've also sponsored alcohol for the party, but that has been discontinued.

The following positions are up for election in both Fall and Spring. Detailed descriptions of each position are given here.

• 2 Grad Reps

• Monday Morning Coffee Collective:
  • 2 Coffee Czar/Tsarinas
  • 1 Bagel Baron/Baroness
  • 1 Donut Duke/Duchess
  • 1 Bean Burgher + Milk Marquis

• 1 Message Meister

• 2-3 Tea Totallers

• GEO Stewards

• 1-2 Machine Learning Lunch

• 2-3 Women's Lunch and Undergraduate Mentoring

• 1-2 Movie Night

• Social Committee

The following positions are elected in the Fall semester only:

• Grad Student Senators

• 1 Librarian

• 1 Media Mogul

• New Student Committee members

• 1 Treasurer

• Style-file maintainer

Because the coffee czar position is hard to fill, the grad reps should work extra hard to ensure that the postion is filled BEFORE the meeting. At some point in 1998 or so, the students split the coffee czar position into 2 to facilitate sharing (and to make it easier to find coffee czars).

Some grad reps feel that the imbibing of the alcohol should not take place until the elections are finished (with exceptions for the coffee czars). However, this tradition is not widely respected among the attendees of the party and certain grad reps feel the alcohol should be freely available throughout the party. Since you are the grad rep, you choose!

Also, it has been somewhat regular practice to award the outgoing Coffee Czars with a six pack of beer or a bottle of wine for their hard work.

Make sure, when the party is over, to wipe down the tables, brush off the chairs, and vacuum the room. If the room does not have a carpet, then sweeping the room with a broom is sufficient. Also, all trash should be thrown out and not just left for the cleaning staff. This brings us to our next point.

Cleanup

Cleanup can be a touchy subject between the grad students and the staff. The staff feel (rightly) that they were not hired to cleanup after the grad students and the grad students feel (rightly) that they were not hired to vacuum, mop, and scrub. The grad reps in Spring of 2000 came to a compromise where each elected position has a list of what is expected for cleanup and this list should be passed on to each new volunteer each semester. This list is included in the description for each of the positions. For grad reps, it reads as follows:

/After parties and grad rep run events, the gradreps will take away the food trash, wipe the tables, and vacuum the floor. If the floor is not a carpet, then sweeping with a broom is sufficient./

Remember, you aren't paid to be a janitor but your life as a grad student is a LOT easier and more pleasant if the staff do not hate you. Smile. Clean up after yourself. Encourage others to do the same. You'll be glad you did.

Portfolios

The graduate program director (GPD) is in charge of the rules and regulations governing the degree programs, and that includes the candidate admissions process. You don't need to know all the intricacies of the process, but (1) people will ask you how it works, and you don't want to seem too ignorant, and (2) revising the process is a perennial item on the faculty agenda, and you'll want to be able to follow the discussion and make suggestions.

We suggest familiarizing yourself with the process by reading the information available on the web. If this is not sufficient, talk to the current GPD and your advisor until you are familar with the process. This will help you to represent your fellow students better and help you to answer their questions.

Social List Monitoring

The department maintains a list ( social@cs) that has been used and abused in the past for all sorts of announcements that concern events/items that are interesting and open to a wider audience, but do not warrant a posting to broadcast@cs (because it isn't applicable to everybody in CompSci). Typical postings include announcements of a pub-crawl, an upcoming movie festival or concert and the like.

Everybody in the department can subscribe to the list, and there has been one incident in the past, that included a onesided political comment, which sparked big controversy and public ``bullying'' of the person that had posted the original message. Because of the big debate about what is acceptable on social@cs, the grad reps have taken on the responsibility of monitoring the list. It is your task to intervene and make sure discussions are taken offline if there are heated exchanges. In the interest of allowing postings of a great variety, there are no actual limits as to what can be posted to the list, but as a general rule announcements should not offend anyone. Bottom line - most likely nothing will happen, but you never know.

Rules Changes

Occasionally, the faculty will make a decision that immediately affects the grad students. For instance, in a faculty meeting Fall 1987, they changed the requirements about the number of courses from CMPSCI 530, 535, and 545 that could be counted toward the Ph.D. and also changed the number of core courses that could be counted towards the Ph.D. if a student entered with a Master's degree. The grad reps listened, voted, and assumed that a general announcement would be forthcoming. Naturally, we forgot all about it.

Several weeks later, we got a complaint from a student that he hadn't been informed about the change. He'd heard about it from his faculty advisor and the advisor had said that they thought it was the grad reps job to publicize changes of that sort.

Feeling abashed, we drafted a write-up of the change and sent it to the GPD to make sure we'd gotten it right. The GPD responded: ``I don't think that you are the right person for this information to come from,'' and then sent out an announcement soon afterwards. (I was amused that the wording of the announcement was exactly what we had composed, but, then again, there was no reason to improve on the prose. The issue was the /source/ of the information.)

The point of this anecdote is just this: the grad reps are representatives /to/ the faculty /from/ the students, and not vice versa. If there is a rules change, it is the responsibility of the faculty to publicize it. However, that doesn't mean you should just forget about it, since the faculty may forget as well. It matters to your constituency. Remind the GPD or the chair to publish important results of faculty meetings.

Orientation

As you probably remember from your first day here, orientation is a day-long event designed to introduce you to our department and the area. The gradreps typically run a panel session comprised of gradreps or other student volunteers (perhaps from the new student committee) where we cover ``Life in the Happy Valley''.

We have also run a panel session called ``How to be a successful grad student'' which focuses on strategies to get the most out of your graduate career (and talks about graduating!). This has not happened for a few years but feel free to restart it any time.

Lab Description Series

In the past, the faculty have tried to squeeze an introduction to the research in the department into one day of orientation. However, this was not a successful event as too much information was crammed into too small of a time to make it useful. Starting in 1997, the gradreps and the faculty started a lunchtime lab description series. The department buys a free lunch (almost exclusively pizza) for the students who attend. The gradreps need to organize this by letting Leeanne Leclerc know 24-48 hours in advance what food/pizzas they want to order, and she will call in the order, arrange for delivery and payment, and provide plates, cups and soda. You need to reserve a projector and room, and provide a sign-in sheet (name/lab) that the department needs for bookkeeping. After the event, you need to clean up the room and take out the trash, so it doesn't start smelling over the weekend (LDSs are mostly on Fridays). Also take the leftover pizza into the main office.

For your reference, here are the pizzas we've ordered in the past:

• 2 sausage

• 2 pepperoni

• 1 cheese

• 1 veggie delight

• 1 pesto veggie (no cheese)

• 1 Athena's favorite

The LDSs typically run from noon until 1pm in the Fall semester. Pizza is delivered at 11:30, and students can come around 11:45 to eat. If there is enough interest and faculty who wish to speak, it can run into the spring semester. The lunch time is split equally between two members who should describe their research and/or lab and answer any questions that the students have. The series is open to any graduate student in the department but the first and second year students are particularly encouraged to attend.

Send out a reminder email to the faculty speakers on the Tuesday before they speak. That email should also include instructions about what they should cover (look in the fils/lds folder). Faculty are very thankful for that. Send out a message to students one day before the LDS and another reminder on the day of the LDS. Make sure you cc Leeanne Leclerc on at least one announcement email, so she can add it to her records.

If you are the gradrep in charge of the series, do not be insulted or worried if the faculty do not answer your requests to speak over email. Past experience has shown that personally knocking on the faculty doors and requesting that they speak at the series yields almost all positive results.

Money

There are three sources of money: the Grad Senate, the coffee fund, and the department. The Grad Senate will be covered in the discussion of the treasurer and the senators. This section discusses the other two sources.

Getting money from the department means talking to the chair, currently Bruce Croft , and getting the money from him. He or she is usually willing to help, but previous chairs have said that they don't want to make specific commitments of money, probably because they need to maintain flexibility in their budgets. However, there are several precedents of which you should be aware. One is that the department pays for the Fall ``meet the new students'' party. Another is that the department previously contributed to, but did not fully fund, the Spring picnic. The department previously also contributed to the ``anti-fragmentation'' parties, and has paid for an occasional afternoon party. In general, if you have a worthy cause, ask the Chair; he/she may say yes, or he/she may say no, but it never hurts to ask.

The coffee fund is maintained by the treasurer and the coffee czar/inas and is primarily intended for buying coffee, donuts, bagels and the like. The coffee czar/inas normally try to run this little business on a non-profit basis. However, prices /are/ slightly higher than costs, based on everyone's desire to avoid prices with pennies in them, and based on the need to pay for the occasional uneaten donut. As a result, small surpluses do accrue over time. (They accrue even faster when we can persuade people to make muffins, which happens from time to time.) In general, the grad reps have avoided raiding the coffee fund. However, it /is/ available in times of crisis or for a worthy cause.

Keeping Grad Students Informed

File of Minutes

Because of the ``sunshine'' laws in Massachusetts, the minutes of the faculty meetings are a matter of public record, but because things of a somewhat touchy nature are sometimes discussed, such as faculty candidates, the minutes are not publicly posted. Instead, after the minutes are approved at the /following/ meeting, they are put in a manila folder on a shelf in the main office.

Digests of the Faculty Meetings

The grad reps have adopted a policy of mailing descriptions of each faculty meeting to the Grads distribution list and potentially posting to the cmpsci.grads newsgroup (93). This has proven to be a much more effective means of communication than a file of the minutes since /everyone/ reads e-mail and/or news. Writing the messages is not much work, because the typical faculty meeting doesn't involve many issues. On the plus side, this is your chance to display your wit and wisdom before the entire body of graduate students.

We have found that it is best to send out the minutes immediately (i.e. within a day); the longer you wait, the less likely you are to do it. Old minutes can be found in ~gradrep/files/facmtgs/.

Getting Information from the Students

Previously we've noticed that asking for input on matters of vital importance produce little response (88-91). More recently, we've gotten better responses (92-93). Usually, we simply try to bring up the subjects when we chat with people, as a small measure of the grad student pulse. Of course, this is biased by what our circle of friends and research associates are.

Unsurprisingly, the best response we get to a general poll is when it's made very easy. For instance, when asking about student interest in topics for a panel discussion, we made up a short electronic mail message with multiple choice answers. We got over /fifty/ responses. I suggest making polls multiple choice whenever possible - people will respond with paragraphs if they care.

As an additional aid to getting input from people, we've set up two newsgroups (cmpsci.grads and cmpsci.grads.announce) and a mailing list, Gradreps. These will help people contact you without having to remember your names. I've also found it convenient myself, for communicating with the other grad reps. The mailing list should be updated when there are elections, and people should be reminded of its existence. Cmpsci.grads is primarily intended as a general discussion forum, place to announce books for sale, etc. Any mail message sent to Grads is automatically posted to cmpsci.grads.announce; this is to allow people the freedom to choose between immediately reading a message via a mail, or waiting until they check news. Grads can remove themselves from the Grads mailing list via Majordomo. However, there is a master grads mailing list from which they cannot be removed. Sharon Mallory and a few privileged others are the only ones to use this list. Its purpose is to let grads know that the building is burning, grants are available, etc.

Parties

As we said in the beginning, several years ago the grad reps decided to start throwing parties, to try to enhance the comraderie and conviviality in the department. We've tried many different things, such as:

• Afternoon beer parties: These are a lot more involved than the now-obsolete afternoon tea parties (from before we had regular afternoon teas by the tea totallers), since not only is there beer and wine to get, but soft drinks and juice (you have to have alternative beverages), and munchies and so forth. They're a lot more expensive, depending on the quality of beer. Popcorn is pretty popular as a munchie, and, if you pop it yourself, is so cheap you can consider it free. That trades hassle for cost. My sense is that the turnout for these is about the same as a tea party; however, we get compliments for beer parties (in direct proportion to the cost of the beer) that we don't get for tea parties, so people probably enjoy these more. We've tried to have these often, funds permitting.

• Pot-luck dinners: These are very popular, but a lot more work because, on top of everything else, you have to worry about getting someone to volunteer their house, getting people to bring things (and trying to ensure that not everyone brings rolls or whatever), distributing directions and matching people who need rides with those who can offer them. We have had great success lately with offering a (good) bottle of wine as prize for best dish; the dishes are really improving! Some suggestions: posting a map and directions near the main office seems to work - people can either copy it down or go photocopy the map. Having a sign-up sheet for both people offering and needing rides has never made any sense to me - who matches them up? I've had a sign-up sheet of those offering rides and suggested that people who need rides contact them. Doing it the other way around would probably work, too, but I think one set needs to seek the other. The advantage of a pot-luck dinner is that spouses and SOs can come too, which isn't really possible with the parties in CMPSCI. The disadvantage is that I think a lot of students who don't have cars (particularly foreign students) don't come to these parties, regardless of ride-boards. These parties are usually once a semester. We used to have a Fall party, a Christmas party, and a Spring picnic as the major wing-dings of the year, but here's been a lot of support for changing the Christmas party into a Spring party which, like the Fall party, would be at the beginning of the semester.

• Picnics: Boy, these are a lot of work. Still, they're also a lot of fun. You have to reserve the park in advance (or beg for a faculty to offer it at their house) and worry about rain, in addition to all the usual worries about how people are getting there and so forth. You have to line up people with grills, unless the park already has them. Picnics are nice because spouses and families can come, and you can get volleyball games and such going (instead of people standing around talking about computers). These also tend to be long compared to other parties - at least four hours. Typically, we have a picnic at the end of the Spring semester, but we've yet to decide whether it's best to have it (1) during exams, which loses the students who have tests to study for, (2) after exams, which loses everyone who takes off immediately after the semester, (3) on Memorial Day weekend, which loses everyone who takes off for the long weekend, or (4) after Memorial Day, which starts to get into conference season, when you never know who'll be missing. Obviously, these are once a year. In recent years (90-93) these have been held at someone's home.

Note 2004: afternoon beer parties haven't happened in a long time and pot-luck dinners are quite infrequent now.

Party Locations

Getting conference rooms (CS 150/151, 203, 303) for a department party is usually pretty easy, and cleaning it up afterwards is not a big hassle. (If it is during the work day, remember to send a message to the folks in the adjacent offices so that they know there will be noise that day.) Getting a place for the bigger parties is a bit harder. Most of the faculty are not eager to have a department party in their houses, just because it's a lot of people (sometimes over 100, with spouses and such). Some are more willing than others: Andrew Barto, Rod Grupen, Dave Stemple, Arny Rosenberg, Eliot Moss, Rick Adrion, Krithi Ramamrithim, and Paul Cohen have all hosted parties. We usually get volunteers by sending mail to Facpd or by making an announcement in the faculty meeting. Occasionally a grad student will host the spring picnic.

We've looked into renting a place on campus to have the party, since that would have the advantage of being a nice place, on a weekend (so we could get families to come), and central and easy to get to for everyone. Alas, UMass is not so helpful. You can't bring food into the Campus Center: you must use the Campus Catering service. Memorial Hall is not only very expensive (they require you to retain the services of a janitor for the whole time), but it does not allow anything which is of a social nature; you can rent it for a talk, but not a party. We haven't looked into anyplace else on campus, such as the Newman Center.

The location of the spring picnic is crucial, since you want someplace nearby. Mill River, where we had the 1987 picnic, worked pretty well, since it's near campus. One disadvantage is that it doesn't have any grills. You have to call Amherst Leisure Services to reserve part of the area, and there tend to be conflicts with baseball/softball league practices and games, so call well in advance.

Probably the best place to have the picnic is someplace we've never had it because we never called early enough. It turns out that near Southwest at UMass, across from the high rise dorms and across from the athletic fields are a bunch of barbecue pits and playing fields. There's even lots of parking. Obviously, this looks real good, but you've got to call real early in order to reserve them. March is not too soon. You have to call someone at Boyden.

Supplies

Ask previous party throwers how much of each item to get. In general you might want to consult the treasurer on what past parties have cost. Keep in mind that costs are reduced by whatever salvagable leftovers we had from the previous party, so you might want to look at several parties.