5 March 2010

PSANA EXCO Meeting
Friday 5 March 2010

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

• Osmond Mlonyeni (Chairperson)
• James Mehl
• Tinashe Kapuya
• Johann
• Sergio

Apologies

• Ernest Rambau
• Camille Myburgh

Welcome Note:
Osmond welcomed everyone and briefly highlighted issues raised in the last meeting of the 5th February which form part of the issues on the agenda, namely:

Items on the Agenda

Departmental representatives: The new committee would now constitute student representatives from the various departments.
Revision of the constitution
Meeting with the Dean and Deputy Dean
Website upgrade
General matters arising
Closure

Departmental representatives
In the last meeting on the 5th February, it was resolved that student representatives from respective departments should be part of the proceedings in the PSANA executive meetings. This was the first meeting in which student reps were present and it is expected that every department provides a rep.

Revision of the constitution
The PSANA constitution is still under review and members are encouraged to provide comments and suggestions on how it may be improved. The constitution can be found on the UP website.

Meeting with the Dean
On the 12th February, the PSANA executive had a meeting with the Dean and Deputy Dean. In this meeting, a post-graduate research week was proposed as an initiative for the marketing of student research in conjunction with their Departments. To this end, a proposal is being drafted on how a post-graduate research week may be organised, an event in which various departments provide information on their respective departments, their research work and other initiatives. The general idea is that a public lecture of 10 minutes per lecture be held, and this is expected to last for approximately half an hour. This public lecture would then be followed by a period of about an 30minutes to an hour in which students may go on site to site visits on different Department stands.
Issues discussed in this meeting included how during last year, the proposed idea of a post graduate week had problems with some Departments whose pressing schedules were unremitting.

Review of Website
Under progress is an upgrade of the PSANA website. Views and comments on how the website may be more user-friendly are welcome. One concern is how to make post-graduate students more aware of the website, so that more suggestions and comments may be received.

General matters arising
Sergio raised two important issues namely; plagiarism, targeted advertising and lab safety.

• Plagiarism

The question is how PSANA can play a more crucial role in informing students, particularly those who have not been groomed from within the UP system, to issues of plagiarism.

• Targeted advertising

PSANA should embark on targeting post graduate students in raising awareness among post graduate students of its role and relevance to their academic life. Although e-mails are the most popular method, Department reps have to be the main sources of information on PSANA to the rest of the post-grad student body.

• Lab safety

Sergio has been dealing with several issues of lab safety in the Physics Department over the last couple of weeks. Perhaps PSANA can play a more active role in promoting lab safety.

Closure
Ending Note: Osmond thanked everyone present for attending the meeting and gave special mention to Sergio and Johann, representatives from the Physics Department