Minutes for CS Undergrad Recruiting

CS Undergraduate Recruiting Committee Minutes

Wednesday, September 19, 2007
9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
DC 2102


Committee Members:Committee Members: Ashraf Aboulnaga, Dan Brown (ex officio, Director of First Year Studies), Khuzaima Daudjee, Chrysanne DiMarco, Sandy Graham, Mark Giesbrecht (Chair), Tian Kou, Ian McKillop, Tamer Özsu (ex officio, Director of School), Frank Tompa (ex officio, Director of Undergraduate Studies), Troy Vasiga, Justin Wan (ex officio, Undergraduate Admission).

Present: Ashraf Aboulnaga, Dan Brown, Khuzaima Daudjee, Sandy Graham, Mark Giesbrecht, Tian Kou, Ian McKillop, Frank Tompa, Justin Wan.

  1. Welcome, overview and goals.
  • Mark presented a summary of the usual Fall events.
  • Dan noted that we should be collecting email addresses of contacts for various events.
  • We will work with Math to get CS involvement in high school visits.

  • Ontario University Fair (September 28-30, 2007).
    • Volunteer status - healthy.
    • Should advertise Fall Open House at the University Fair:
      • provide an invitation
      • the "40 Years of Computer Science" invitation is a good model
      • Put on a slogan: "be part of the next 40 years"
      • Get web pages up soon, and web address selected
    • Ian commented that security at the University Fair Web site will be very high.

  • Fall Open House (Nov. 3)
    • Will be held in DC (not MC as last year).
    • Lab tours are useful as a way to give a sense of what CS is about, spark an interest from students in other areas (of Math).
    • Need to designate people to handle different aspects of event (lab tours, presentations, lunch).
    • We should put something engaging in the great hall:
      • video of projects for graphs (on big screen or screens)
      • touch screens/tablet where results are on large screen
      • interesting gizmos
      • pen demo on big screen
      • run movies
      • clips of CS students from Math videos
      • get some CS4U people from last year to do short presentations (Anna, Ed, Jeff)

  • CS4U (Nov. 17 - Saturday) Preparation
    • Feedback from last year was very positive.
    • Important to track these students into university (already being done with first year web survey).
    • Soliciting talks:
      • need to be different from Fall 2006 talks (could be same people)
      • need to get moving on this now!
      • assign someone to handle organizing speakers, organizing hands-on event
      • need ideas for new speakers
        • Frank can speak on OED
        • Ask Ian Goldberg, Michael Terry
        • Industrial speaker.
    • Send a followup email.
    • Need to get poster development started:
      • Had discussed a poster series, but time and budget preclude this now.
      • Ian suggests there may be cheaper alternatives for photo rights through bulk purchases from companies.
    • One question that has come up previously is doing this on a weekday in addition to or instead of a Saturday. The advantage is it brings in classes as field trips from schools.
    • Have sent posters to GVMA addresses. Do this again, plus collected addresses.
    • Deliver posters/invitations in person to local high schools.
    • Sandy has high-school CS list with Toronto District School Board.
    • Sandy runs ACE conference a week before, will distribute posters there too (timing tight, but everything helps).
    • Ian suggests we talk to Waterloo Unlimited to encourage CS professor involvement.

  • Regular meeting time for 2007/2008
    • Every two weeks for 1.5 hours
    • Will post agenda well in advance, minutes afterwards