Opening:
The meeting of the BPKSA was called to order at 1:00pm by Megan in the BPK Graduate Students Lounge.
In Attendance:
Megan, Jordan, Emily C, Katie, Omid, Arash, Darleen, Jaskarn, Brian, Erina, Crystal
Open Issues:
1) Kin Cup Debrief
-65 attended
-Faculty won
-Raised ~ $90 for Jump Start
-Next year have everything by donation, rather than some things free, some things paid
2) Core Account
-Possible uses:
-Use more core account money, don’t need to ask for as much in grant
-Buy prizes for Year End Party and future events
-Look into buying pinnies for future Kin Cup events
-Check when fiscal year ends
-Omid will look into prices
-Reversible?
2) Trivia Night
-Advertisements
-On monitors in hallway
-Facebook event
-Advertise to grad students
-Currently 8 confirmed, 17 interested
-OzTrekk will provide some funding for prizes
-Brainstorm intermission games
-Brainstorm questions
-Check with Collin’s grad pool trivia questions
-Send Jordan sample questions that can be answered with BPK 142 knowledge (jordano@sfu.ca)
-Trivia question feedback
-More open ended questions
-Consider including more questions from BPK 142
-Make questions a bit more inclusive to first and second years who haven’t taken 326 yet
-Don’t make it feel like less of a test
3) Mental Health Discussion
-Portion of departmental meetings dedicated to discuss broader topics – mental health topic of next month
-How the department and faculty can help students cope
-Bring back cohort program
-Career options to relieve stress about competitive GPAs
-Make school less academic-centric
-Have profs advertise social events, not just academic
-Time management
-Acknowledgement from profs – knowing names of students, empathy towards students, recognize how hard students are working
-Being approachable
-Smaller first year lectures
-Main causes of mental illness and stress
-Social isolation
-Societal pressures to get a job
-Commuter campus – no sense of community
-Competition between students for jobs after graduation
-Overloaded and trying to do too many things to individualize and separate themselves from other students
-Don’t have time to do things you actually like anymore; prioritizing school over anything else
-Large first year classes
-More events
-BPK 101 was good
-Create sense of buy in during first year
-Pep rally
-More events for first years
-Weekly SFU wide movie night – Friday in RCB, hosted by a different department each week
-University/faculty wide events, rather than isolating departments
-Make events less formal
-Space
-Proper study spaces
-Social spaces for things other than studying and eating
Adjournment:
The meeting of the BPKSA was adjourned by Megan at 2:10pm in the BPK Graduate Students Lounge. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 1:00pm in the BPK Graduate Student Lounge.