University of
Wisconsin Platteville
Engineering
Mathematics & Science Alumni Chapter
Working
Meeting Minutes
Members attending: Laura
Fenley, Lori Grady, Rob Ehlers, Dan Kaul, Dave Kaul, Tammy Salmon-Stephens,
Diana Trendt
1.
Introductions
were made to new members.
2.
Nominations
for board members
·
Lori
Grady, Kim Houston, Mike Jansen, and Dave Kaul’s terms expire in the fall.
·
Lori
Grady expressed an interest in remaining on the board.
·
Dan
Kaul asked Laura Fenley if she’d be interested in the position of
President. She would. Dave Kaul may or may not be interested,
depending on the bylaws and the need to fill the past president slot on the board.
·
The
group brainstormed names of individuals who we should consider for open
positions: Rob Ehlers will ask Jeff Kronser if he is interested in President.
·
Alumni
office can give us a listing of possible people to consider. Theta Tau is another type of listing of
possible people to get from Joanne Wilson, the Co-advisor for Theta Tau. A list of paid members to the chapter may
also assist in getting a selection of people.
Diana will work on getting these lists.
Dan Kaul is chair of the nominating committee and will lead this
effort with the assistance of Diana Trendt. If anyone has ideas on who might like to serve on the board
contact Dan.
3.
Planning
for upcoming events
Pioneer
Student Center
·
Grand
opening coming up soon. The date of the
grand opening is Sunday, April 28-Saturday, May 4, 2002. A week full of dedications and activities
will take place.
Commencement
and Senior Salute
·
At
the senior salute, the order of engineer sign up is now placed next to alumni
office table. In the future, we should
look at having someone from the board to participate in the Senior Salute for
graduating students.
Fish
Fry & recognition dinner
·
The
group decided to keep the location at Ullsvik Center. It allows people to come to campus.
·
The board would like to recommend that the invitations for everyone be
given out 2nd week in August.
Bob, please take note of this.
Brat
bash
·
The
board discussed the possibility of a change of venue to the Pioneer Student
Center patio. Diana will talk with Deb
Putnam about the possibilities. The
idea of moving the gathering provides additional visibility. However, there are several issues to discuss
about the possible change. Again,
Diana will follow-up on these issues.
4.
Planning
for honors and awards
·
Photographs
in Ottensman Hall
o The wording has been
edited. The wording was passed around
to the rest of the members. Have
requested that the information on the plaque be placed onto the EMS Alumni
Chapter web page. To do yet: the plaque needs to be ordered; and a
listing of the current honorees needs to be placed onto the web. The Dean’s office should have a copy of the
list of people who are pictured. Laura
Fenley will be in contact with the EMS Dean’s office to finalize this project.
·
Emeriti
Faculty Honoree Program.
o A nomination form has been
created. The form was distributed among
the board members. The nomination form,
process and criteria will be placed onto the web page under the Awards and
Honors section. The board decided to
consider all of the nominees who were nominated for the previous program. Tammy will distribute information about
the nominees and have the board select before the fish fry – hopefully before
the invitations go out in August so that we can invite them to attend! To do yet: Order the plaque, select the
honorees, invite honorees to fish fry, add recipients to the plaque, and add
names to the EMS Alumni web page.
·
Outstanding
EMS Alumni Chapter Award
o There is already a process
and award system that was created as a proposal in April 2000. The proposal contains the administrative
responsibilities, nomination process, the selection process, restrictions, and
criteria with several different categories.
This information will be attached to these working meeting minutes. The board felt that we should move ahead
with this program since there was already considerable work done on this
program. To do yet: Please read over
the information about this program and we will look for any final
suggestions/corrections/modifications at the board meeting in the fall. This will also have to be approved by the
Dean. Once approved, we need to place
the nomination form, criteria, selection process, etc. on the web. A good goal for implementing this program is
next Spring (2003).
·
Recognition
of College Deans.
o The wording for the plaque
is complete. A copy of the wording for
the plaque was distributed among the board members. To do yet: A plaque
needs to be ordered and need a listing of the past college deans to be added to
the plaque. Tammy will inquire with the
Wisconsin Room librarians for assistance with this.
·
Geode
article
o An article was submitted to
the Geode about the Chapter award programs.
A copy of the article was passed around and minor corrections were
noted.
5.
Supporting
Members Survey Results/Discussion
·
What
are the benefits to supporting members?
The board has investigated offering a resume book from Chi Epsilon for
supporting members. Only ½ of supporting members said they’d be interested in
purchasing the resume book. Doesn’t seem to be that anyone is really “looking
for anything” from us. A brainstormed
list of ideas was discussed.
o List of alumni from the
university for supporting members to recruit potential hires. Are there some legal issues? May open a whole can of worms. May be able to purchase directory from
alumni office, updated every 5 years.
Cost for new directory is $30 for the new one, $10 for the old one.
o What about posting job
vacancies for alumni. Make available to
supporting members, paid members?
McCallum web page Wisconsin Jobs for Wisconsin Grads? Perhaps some sort of stand-alone online
bulletin board that does not need up keep?
Diana passed around email correspondence from the UWP Placement Office
with regard to job placement for alumni.
It seems the UWP Placement Office is not planning to act on this type of
service anytime soon.
o Past discussion yielded that
we meet the goals/benefits as listed in the brochure. Are we meeting these benefits?
A copy of the brochure is attached to these minutes; please review
them before the next meeting.
o Right now members are
getting name recognition in Geode. This
seems to be a good value to the members.
o How do our students know
about the supporting members? We need
to be able to attract students to this web page. The name on the web page needs to be more descriptive (Job Search)
and need to evaluate the location of the EMS Alumni web page. It is hidden. Tammy will look into moving the web page and highlighting the
Job Search option for the supporting members.
o How do we update supporting
members on what we’re doing? Dave Kaul
noted that there is an annual letter sent to members and any changes would be
noted in that letter
o We are accumulating money,
but it’s not being kept in a separate account.
o The board’s hope is to try
to expand supporting members beyond engineering. Perhaps getting the
brochure out at the employment fair, at the Placement Office employer lounge
area, the EMS Advisory Boards.
o Maybe we can set up the Supporting
Member board with all of the members listed at the employer fair, along with
brochures?
o Dave Kaul has some
suggestions for changes to the brochure – again, the current version is
attached to these working meeting minutes.
6.
Connecting
with UWP engineering alumni “at a distance.”
·
How
can we get these alum active in the alumni association, to be a member of the
alumni board or somehow to get them to want to be active alumni?
·
The
board should consider writing an article for the distance education newsletter.
·
For
the upcoming commencement in May, the Distance Ed group are looking at inviting
the distance-learning students to a reception. Perhaps having a board member
present would be a good idea. Looking to form a group similar to “Dane County
Connection”. Perhaps, through the distance learning process, it would be good
to have an electronic link in that particular environment.
·
Diana
asked if we’d like to have some photos of ourselves/the board on the web. Might
give others a way to make a connection with us.
·
Might
consider having a board member or group of board members attend the Fox Valley
commencements.
·
Gifts
to graduating seniors?
·
If
something “bubbles to the surface” as far as an idea…let Dave or Diana know.
·
Looking
to have honorary life alumni members invited to the full board meeting. We
might consider inviting an EMS honorary member to one of our meetings.
·
Perhaps
we should look into what other Universities do in this area
University of
Wisconsin Platteville
Engineering
Mathematics & Science Alumni Chapter
Meeting
Minutes
Saturday,
April 6, 2002, 10:00 AM, 149 Ottensman Hall
Members
Present: Members
Not Present: Guests Attending:
Rob
Ehlers John
Belken Jessica Devenish, Theta Tau
Laura
Fenley Kim Houston Mike Olinski, Theta Tau
Lori
Grady Mike
Jansen Phil Young
Dave
Kaul Jeff
Kronser
Dan
Kaul Bob
Schmitt
Tammy
Salmon-Stephens Rich Shultz
President
Kaul called the meeting to order at 10:00 am.
·
Honors
and Awards Report
·
Alumni
event for women in EMS
·
M-Ball.
The dance is tonight. There is a
special presentation for re-signing advisor John Krogman at 7:30 pm. It is a surprise.
·
Geode. Things seem to be moving forward. Mike Olinski reported that the publication
copies are up to about 2,000 people.
The cost may be $50-100 more than previous years. The first copy run was sent into the
publications office recently. One week
before graduation, the Geode should be mailed out. The board inquired about whether or not supporting members
receive copy of Geode?
·
Dr.
Phil Young from the Engineering Physics program reported for the Dean.
·
State Budget. UWP has already given back
$1,000,000 to the state. The cost
cutting hurts the university, but the loss will be fairly transparent to our
students. Right now, there are no job
losses or lay-offs; however, questions are still arising about next year.
·
Tenure track positions. Four of
the eleven positions are allowed to be filled, one in mathematics, one in
electrical engineering, one in civil engineering and one in mechanical
engineering. The vacant positions are
expected to be filled with academic staff positions.
·
Computer Science. The Computer Science program
will be joining the College of EMS as of July 1, 2002. The Software Engineering and Computer
Science Programs will be one department.
Ullrich Hall will house this department and is scheduled for a remodel
this summer and ready for operation in fall of 2003. The building will be a technology building with many
laboratories.
·
International Initiatives. Three
members from the Dean’s Office visited Germany and Sweden in January to
strengthen and build partnerships.
Jongkoping University in Sweden is a very close match to UWP and we are
looking for many exchanges to take place with Jongkoping. UWP representatives will be traveling to
Cork, Ireland in April to look at another new partnership. The Dean’s office is working on a $500 study
abroad scholarship for our students.
·
Chippewa Valley. The College was investigating
offering an electrical engineering degree in the Chippewa Valley. This requires partnerships with
UW-EauClaire, UW-River Falls, UW-Stout and the 2-year UW College in the
area. One benefit to this type of
arrangement is that currently there is already some infrastructure for offering
this type of degree. However, the
prospective partners in the area were not ready to move forward with this
venture.
·
Janesville area. A similar option is in
earlier stages of discussion for an electrical engineering degree in the Janesville
area.
·
Fox Valley initiative. Program
kicks off in the fall of 2002.
·
Joint International Masters (JIM) Degree. Another partnership between Darmstaedt, Germany; Moscow and UWP
to offer a Joint International Masters Degree in Computer Science and Informatics. Degree would require at least one semester
of study abroad and the first class is predicted to begin January of 2003.
·
Assistant
Alumni Director, Diana Trendt reported.
·
Alumni
Director, Anne Phillip will begin July 1, 2002 as the Alumni Director.
·
Additional
items are included in the working meeting minutes.
Bob
Schmitt was not present.
·
Supporting
members were updated on the web.
·
Additional
items included in the working meeting minutes.
Treasurer
Belken was unable to attend, but President Kaul will inquire about a written
report.
Covered
in working meeting minutes.
Covered
in working meeting minutes.
Covered
in working meeting minutes.
Ideas
about connections with these students were discussed in the working meeting
minutes.
No
discussion.
Tammy
discussed the possibility of having a special event for the 2003 Homecoming for
women who have graduated from EMS.
Events would of course be worked in with the current alumni events.
VI. Adjournment
·
President
Kaul adjourned the meeting at 12:06 PM.
·
The
next board meeting is Saturday, October 5, 2002 (Homecoming), 8:00 am,
Mississippi Room, Pioneer Student Center.
The Mississippi Room is located on the same level as the bookstore in
the North East Corner of Pioneer Student Center.