Faculty Meeting

Faculty meeting
Body

The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Statistics was held on Zoom at 12:30pm, May 2, 2022. Abel Rodriguez, Department Chair, presided at the meeting. Kristine Chan was recording secretary. 

Announcements 

Statistics Graduation Ceremony: The graduation ceremony will be in hybrid via in the Husky Union Building (HUB), room 250 on Friday, June 10 at 11:00am – 1:00pm, followed by a reception. This year’s Alumni guest speakers will be Laina Mercer and William Borom. There will be three reflections from a students from each program – Undergraduate level, Masters level, and the Ph.D. level. 

Chair Remarks 

Graduation recognition awards: The possibility of skipping undergraduate student achievement awards for the year was discussed. After the discussion, a vote was held and the faculty agreed to retain the student achievements awards along with the student service wards as in previous years. Voting results (13 of 15 eligible voting faculty present voted): Yes = 13, No = 0, Abstain = 0  

Committee Reports 

PhD Program Updates: 

  • PhD admissions: The Graduate Program Coordinator (GPC), Elena Erosheva, thanked the PhD committee for completing the admission process. The committee members are: A. Luedtke (Chair), Y. Chen, C. Cinelli, E. Erosheva, F. Han, Z. Harchaoui, M. Meila, and A. Taeb. 

  • Waivers for MS Theory Exam: The GPC thanked Y. Chen and F. Han for their contributions on helping with the waivers. 

  • Graduate Student Seminars: Graduate student, Anupreet Porwal, has began a student seminar series this quarter – this seminar happens on Mondays at 2:00pm – 3:00pm via hybrid in PDL C-301 and Zoom (Meeting ID 949 003 08183). 

  • Incoming PhD Students: The incoming PhD students will be sent welcome emails for onboarding some point soon. The GPC wanted to let faculty know that as academic advisors, those students will be reaching out to them. 

  • Pre-Application Review Service (PARS): The GPC wants to get feedback on how to improve the process. 

New Business 

Roles of GRE in admission to graduate programs: An article was shared with the faculty. The Chair opened the floor for discussion on whether the GRE should be dropped or kept optional for the graduate program. It was clarified that current departmental policy is that General GREs are not required, and that Math GREs are optional. It was agreed that this policy should be more clearly explained in the department website, and that the department should work with the graduate school to ensure that it is implemented.  After much discussion, the faculty determined that they could not formalize a decision without input from the Chair of the PhD admissions committee, A. Luedtke, who was absent. As a result, further discussion has been deferred to a future faculty meeting.  

Travel support proposal to diversity-focused conferences for PhD students: Documents were shared with the faculty. DICE produced a charge for the department to support students participating in diversity-focused conferences. The eligibility and stipulations are laid out in the proposal. No major concerns were raised and the proposal will be implemented starting next academic year. 

Moderation policies for department mailing lists: The moderators for department mailing lists are clarified here.  No changes were agreed upon. 

Executive Session 

The eligible voting faculty discussed the graduate faculty appointments for Prince Allotey, Emanuela Furfaro, and Armeen Taeb. 

Adjournment 

There being no other items to discuss the meeting moved on to an Executive Session at 1:47pm and then was later adjourned at 2:00pm.