Attendance: Nick Spooner, Matt Shepherd, Vivian Hwang, Gerald Penn, Steve Cook, Ioan Stefanovici, Allan Jepson (Chair)
Regrets: Tom Fairgrieve, Mahtab Sabet, Christina Christara

#5. [Sponsor ML] The ML faculty would like to cross-list their intro to ML course, CSC2515H, with the UG course CSC 411.

Due to a deadline at SGS, we considered this item first.

This was approved, but it should be reviewed in the spring of 2017 after running the cross-listed course.  

Concerns were raised about both accessibility and the graduate course culture. 

For accessibility it was noted that separate waiting lists were needed for undergraduates and graduate students.  Our undertanding is that this is already the case.

It was also noted that cross-listing the course may be detrimental to the graduate culture within CSC2515 alone.  Therefore this decision should be re-evaluated in the Spring of 2017 after running the cross-listed course for a year.

ACTION ITEM: Grad Office to submit the necessary paperwork to cross-list CSC411/2515. 

ACTION ITEM: Grad Office should remind the GAC to revisit this decision in the spring of 2017.

#1. [Sponsor CSGSBS]. Assign each grad student a faculty member as a mentor (in addition to a supervisor).

Last spring there was a significant push for having a second research faculty member assigned to each incoming MSc/PhD students.  The assigned mentor would be in addition to the new student's initial supervisor assignment and should be in a different research area from the student's initial supervisor or group.  The expectation is that the mentor could significantly assist the mentee's transition to graduate studies in DCS.

Concerns about additional demands on the time of research faculty were raised as well as the additional bureaucracy that is seemingly required.

The approved proposal is to both ask and encourage research faculty members to volunteer to serve in this role.  The time committment per faculty volunteer is expected to be about one meeting per mentee per term for the first year of the mentee's studies.  New MSc/PhD students could be offered a mentor while the mentorship within current the MScAC program was seen as sufficient.  

It was also noted that the new student rotation program within the theory group could be seen as serving a similar purpose, by providing a new theory student with a face to face introduction to several different faculty members. The difference of not being assigned a mentor outside the research area is possibly significant.  However, it was agreed that research faculty time committed to such a rotation program could be informally seen as similar to time spent mentoring students from other areas.  Such research faculty may thereby feel more comfortable opting out of departmental wide mentorship.


ACTION ITEM.  This proposal should be brought forward to a faculty meeting (by the Associate Chair, Graduate, and the Chair of the GAC) for final approval.

ACTION ITEM. Given such broader faculty approval, the Associate Chair , the Graduate Office, and CSGSBS executive will determine how this to be launched, and whether it is feasible to do this for this year's incoming students, or be put into place beginning next September.

#2. [Sponsors CSGSBS and ACG] Make the Grad Skills seminar mandatory for our MSc/PhD students to take.  An additional option would also be to beef up Grad Skills with mandatory attendance (say, at a minimum number of distinguished lecture series (DLS) talks, and grad student meetings with these speakers).

It was noted that if something like this was to be made a program requirement then it would require SGS approval, which in turn would require clear deliverables from the students taking the Grad Skills for credit..   Attendance (only) would not be sufficient.

At this point there was insufficient backing for making Grad Skills seminar a formal program requirement.

It was then discussed how to encourage attendance without making it a formal program requirement.  Attendance of the Grad Skills seminars and DLS could be noted. For PhD students such attendance could be reviewed at the supervisory committee meetings.  The lack of attendance could perhaps impact the decision of whether a PhD's student is making satisfactory progress, and this in turn could impact scholarship and award decisions. It is unclear how MSc students would be reviewed.

A distaste for attendance-only criteria was voiced by some attendees (AJ, for one.  Disclaimer: AJ wrote these minutes.)

ACTION ITEM. This proposal is being pushed back to the ACG and CSGSBS for further clarification of: a) the requirements (e.g., attendance only); b) the intended consequences of failing the requirements; and c) the mechanism for implementing these consequences. 

Items #3 and 4 on the original agenda will be discussed in a subsequent GAC meeting.

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GAC mailing list:
I verified that the gac@cs.toronto.edu list includes the Grad Adminstrator.
I added Ioan Stefanovici as the President of CSGSBS as a courtesy.
I added Matt Medland to this mailing list, also as a courtesy.