24 April 2006

PSANA EXCO Meeting
Monday 24 April 2006
FABI Square Auditorium

Disclaimer: Please note: the matters discussed herein are the personal views and opinions of the members present at the meeting. They are therefore not the views or policies of PSANA or the University of Pretoria and PSANA and the University of Pretoria therefore do not accept liability for any damages or implications arising from the correctness of the facts stated in these minutes, unless specifically stated.

Present:

• James Mehl
• Werner Barnard
• Inger Plaskitt
• Nadina Vasileva
• Marelize van Wyk

Apologies:

• Liesl Els
• David Kock

1. Approval of previous minutes (James)
- The minutes were approved with the corrections added in the email sent out after the last meeting.

2. Report back on progress of Postgraduate Student Survey (Werner, James)
- The IT people were first approached and were not helpful at all.
- Quality Assurance and Telematics were subsequently approached. They were already planning a campus wide survey concerning general affairs of postgraduate students but this had been rejected. They then used our survey as a model and there were several discussions in which their original survey was shortened and made more postgraduate relevant.
- They plan to have their pilot study done by 14 May, however last week a pilot email sent out on the postgrad@kendy listserver turned out to be disastrous. Recipients replied to the listserver instead of following the instructions and replying to the sender. This was a fault in the listserver settings and has now been fixed. They will send out an apology with regards to this as well as the survey today.
- They plan to send out the pilot survey today (Tuesday). This survey will identify problem areas and then they plan to approach and assess the various faculties individually, using our student survey and our Faculty as a “guinea pig”. Their survey consists of 59 questions. Although we think this is too long, they say it will take 10-20 minutes maximum to complete. They plan for around 80% (5% initially) response rate, using email, SMS and paper copies to get the postgraduates to complete the survey and submit it.
- Werner and James met with Prof. Stroh to discuss the planning of the survey. He wanted the survey to be approved through the usual channels but this would take far too long. Taking it via QA and Telematics means that Prof. Crewe, in the position of Top Management, has approved it all, bypassing the Ethics Committee, Faculty Executive Committee and the Registrar.
- Our survey asking students to identify and comment on Faculty-specific problems will probably go out in June/July, however our listserver (biolpost) must be updated and we should meet with each Departmental Representative before the survey goes out to make sure that all the students in the respective department do the survey.
- There was a suggestion that the students in the Faculty be used in a pilot trial to assess the response rate of the survey. This is unlikely as Telematics is working on a very strict schedule and they need to the data as quickly as possible.

3. Progress on NRF Funding Issues (James and Werner)
- An email concerning ‘Report on meeting with CSC on how UP handles postgraduate bursaries’ was sent out on 29 March to the biolpost listserver. Issues addressed were that messages to supervisors are sent to the students too. There will be a 3-day Indaba at Unisa to raise issues with NRF (a workshop) at the end of April or beginning of May. They want student representation from all the Faculties. PSANA is the only student association we know of, although there might also be a student body at Groenkloof Education Campus. In our capacity to represent the students of the University of Pretoria, we will attend the workshop and raise the issues mentioned in the email.
- Grant holder link bursaries are out. We are still waiting for confirmation on Faculty/Postgraduate bursaries. Perhaps the option of monthly payouts from bursaries will be useful to certain students.
- Not all supervisors can lend students money due to the fact that the money to support the students would come out of grant-holder linked funding that is not guaranteed to the personnel that apply for it. But there again, certain supervisors that know they will receive funding help their students financially while others simply don’t care. This is an issue that will be taken higher.
- Where does the NRF money go that doesn’t earn interest? The CSC says that the University does not earn interest on it but it has to go into a University bank account somewhere where it does earn interest.
- Sorting out the bursary details will help us gain student support so this is an important issue.

4. Election of new PSANA Marketing/Social Representative (James)
- James handed out a flow chart listing people on the current committee as well as indicating the nominees of the departments. There is a definite lack of response from most of the departments. The Dean will be advised in this regard.
- Nominees have to send a short description of why they think they are the best choice for the position as well as a photo of themselves.
- None of the departments in the school of Mathematical Sciences have responded with potential nominees. Also, as Inger indicated, maths students do not know of PSANA.
- Initially it was suggested that a database/document of the Faculty’s postgraduate email addresses could be obtained from administration. We found out that Telematics obtained their data regarding email addresses from central administration. Faculty administration, if they supplied us with the postgraduate email addresses, would also obtain the data from central administration i.e. the same source.
- We need to tackle this so there are several options: – we could harvest the data from Telematics, - we could approach the library as they also have a database of students with email addresses and this database is possibly separate from the one that central administration has, or – we can approach the individual departmental secretaries and ask them to supply the email addresses of all the postgraduate students registered in the department. All these options will be investigated.

5. General
- James handed out a list of contact numbers for the Marketing Committee of the Faculty.
- Departmental reps on the web need to be updated. James will contact the secretaries of each department to sort this out.
- Committee members need to become more active! James and Werner can’t do all the work. We need to know what progress committee members have made, if any, in their allotted duties.
- NATHOUSE: Have sent out flyers to let students know of their office times. They however are struggling since only a handful of members are active. It was suggested that they incorporate the student reps from the various departments. Also, they cannot get hold of information regarding class representatives. James will follow up this with the Dean.
- Open Day: We have a stand and will display the PSANA banner. We will supply the little pamphlets giving details on the committee members, their portfolios and contact details.