Nov meeting Minutes

The minutes from the November 26, 2015, meeting are available at http://www.sfu.ca/biology2/grad_caucus/Business/Minutes/Files/2015-11-26.pdf

An archive of all past meeting meetings can be found at http://biscgrads.blogspot.ca/p/meeting-minutes.html

Note that there will be no December 2015 meeting.  See you all in 2016!

Grad student - supervisor expectations

For more information about grad student - supervisor expectations, the following documents are useful resources:

Understanding the graduate student - supervisor relationship: A guide for graduate students in Biological Sciences

Graduate Student and Supervisor Expectations, Dept. of Biological Sciences, SFU Revised Summer 2012

Biology T-Shirt Design Winners!

Thank you to everyone who voted in our Biology T-Shirt Design competition, and especially to those who submitted a design!

It sure was hard to pick the best design, but the results are in!

Congratulations to our first prize winner Simon Valdez, who not only wowed us with diversity of life, but also nicely highlighted how statistical tools are a big part of biological research.

Congratulations are also in order for our second prize winner Laura Ulrich, who cleverly sneaked in a famous someone into her design!

Both will be receiving a $50 MEC gift card, courtesy of the Biology Grad Caucus as well as the Biology department.

Details on how to purchase our lovely t-shirts will follow soon!

T-Shirt Competition-Voting opens November 2nd!

The Biology T-shirt Design Competition is now closed! Thank you to everyone who sent in a design. If you didn't get a chance to put in a design, don't despair! You can still participate by voting for your favourite design! Voting opens November 2nd and closes November 6th, so remember to get your votes in!

Design 1 by Sally Kwon
What a hunk that mitochondria is!

Design 2 by Sasha Makhneva
Sasha's design is based on a cross section of a blade of grass. Who knew grass cross sections could look so happy!

Design 3 by Jessica Leung

Us biologists do live a double-life, as captured by Jessica's design

 Design 4 by Simon Valdez
Front logo (SFU Biology) and back. All the images are from pictures taken either by Simon or his wife. Check out his amazing photographs at https://www.flickr.com/photos/69390893@N05/

Design 5 by Colin Bailey

Can you find all the creatures hidden in Colin's design?

Design 6 by Laura Ulrich

It's impossible to fit all of life's diversity into one design, but Laura sure tried!

Design 7 by Marinde Out

Marinde has offered this versatile design, which she has kindly offered to switch the toes up with other pictures if requested. 

Got a question? Contact Joyce at jpl15@sfu.ca or Dan at dgreenbe@sfu.ca

October Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the October 22, 2015 meeting are now available here. 

September Meeting Minutes

September Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the September 24, 2015 meeting are now available here. 

Highlights include: 

- The Halloween party will be held on Thursday, October 29th at 3pm (and onwards!)

- The Brackendale retreat will be held in Squamish on November 13-15th, 2015

Grad Hosted Speaker Announcement

We officially have our 2016 Grad Hosted Speaker: 

Dr. Jeff Hutchings from Dalhousie University.

The Caucus is excited to announce that Dr. Hutchings (http://myweb.dal.ca/jhutch/) will be visiting for a few days on the week of March 7 - 11, 2016, and will be giving, in addition to a departmental seminar, a workshop on communicating science to society and policy makers. Certainly this should be relevant to all of us in the department.

Stay tuned as details emerge, mark your calendars, and cancel all those conflicting appointments...

2015 Biology T-shirt Design Contest

Do you have a creative side, as well as pride for Biology? Then we need you!

The two best designs will receive a $50 MEC gift cards as well as the newly designed T-shirt.

Submit a .JPEG to .PNG file to Joyce at jpl15@sfu.ca. Images must be 300dpi or higher, and one color only. Scanned sketches are also welcomed. Deadline to submit a design is October 30^th.

Art not your thing? Be involved by voting for the best designs!

Online voting for best designs are November 2^nd-13^th, so be sure to keep an eye out for an email from us!

Get creating!

Joyce and Dan

August Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the August 18, 2015 meeting are now available here. 

July Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the July 21, 2015 meeting are now available here. 

Grad Hosted Speaker 2016 - List of Nominees

Hi Grads,

Thanks to everyone who submitted a nomination for our 2016 Grad Hosted Speaker. We have a really outstanding list of candidates for Grad Hosted Speaker. I encourage everyone to carefully read through the summary for each nominated speaker, as well as visit their websites for more information.

Voting will commence from July 3 to July 17, after which we will rank the speakers based on your votes. The top ranked nominated speaker will then be contacted to gauge their interest and availability, in the event they are unable or unwilling we will proceed to the second ranked candidate, and so forth.

2016 Grad Hosted Speaker Nominees:

Dr. Elizabeth Adkins-Regan (http://reganlab.cornell.edu/elizabeth-adkins-regan/)

Dr. May R. Berenbaum (http://www.life.illinois.edu/entomology/faculty/berenbaum.html)

Dr. Jeff Hutchings (http://myweb.dal.ca/jhutch/)

Dr. Ellen Ketterson (http://www.bio.indiana.edu/faculty/directory/profile.php?person=ketterso)

Dr. Jane Lubchenco (http://gordon.science.oregonstate.edu/lubchenco/)

Dr. Forest Rohwer (http://coralandphage.org/people_forest.php)

Make sure you vote...

Cheers,

Dan

June Meeting Minutes

The minutes from the June 23rd, 2015 meeting are now available here. 

TSSU Strike Update

On Wednesday, June 17th, the TSSU escalated its job action and stated that grade withholding will commence on Friday, June 19th at 11:59pm.

Graduate student TAs can find more information about how this affects them here: http://strike.tssu.ca/marking-for-education/

General grade withholding FAQ can be found here: http://support.tssu.ca/grade-withholding-faq/

Anyone with questions or concerns can contact the TSSU by the following means:

email: tssu@tssu.ca 

helpline: 604.652.6202

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TSSU.ca

Or you can contact your Biology TSSU Stewards below: 

Adrienne Berchtold: aberchto@sfu.ca

Leon Li: leonl@sfu.ca

Fauve Strachan: fstracha@sfu.ca

Josh Pol: jpol@sfu.ca

Nominations for 2016 Grad Hosted Speaker

The time has come for nominations for the 2016 grad hosted speaker!

Suggestions are welcome for both academic and non-academic speakers. Speakers may discuss their research or career and teach skills/share wisdom in workshops on topics broadly relevant to grad students, including science communication/journalism, project management, career advice, science policy/advocacy, etc.

To give you an idea of the speakers chosen in the past here is a list from recent years:

2015 - Tyrone Hayes
2014 - Marc Mangel
2013 - Nancy Baron
2012 - Daniel Pauly

Nominations will be open until July 1, 2015, followed by a vote on the nominees.

If you wish to nominate someone, please email Dan Greenberg with a brief synopsis of your nominee in .pdf form; being sure to include their name, contact information, and a brief paragraph on what they do, their interests, and why you think they would be a good speaker for the grad students in the department.

Bear in mind that if you do choose to nominate a speaker, you will be expected to serve on the grad hosted speaker committee.

May 2015 Update

Minutes

The most recent minutes (May 19, 2015) are available here.

Results of Caucus Elections

The results of the 2015 SFU Biology Grad Student Caucus elections can be found here. 

February 2015 Update

Minutes

The most recent minutes (Jan 20 2015) are available here.

Caucus Handbook

The Caucus Handbook from the GSS is now downloadable from the right hand menu (or click here).

Publishing Demystified Workshop handouts

You can still download all the handouts from this workshop here.