Meeting Minutes – Jan 26, 2015

Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology Students Association

Meeting Minutes

Monday January 26, 2015

 

Opening:

The meeting of the BPKSA was called to order by Loryn at 12:30 pm in the BPK Conference Room

 

In attendance:

Josh, Ian, Garveen, Ran, Megan, Erina, Loryn, Spencer, Steven O, Shaila, Sam, Matt, Garrett, Darleen, Sabrina, Kirstin, Bogdan

 

Career Event

-final attendance count: >150 people attended, not including exhibitors!

-we need to get thank you letters back to anyone who helped us plan BPK Career Night (i.e the Dean, SFSS, Dr. Tibbits (BPK Chair))

-Sabrina has uploaded the pictures and videos from the night onto the BPK webpage for viewing

Pros & Cons

-wraps and desserts went out at the same time, therefore not a lot of people got dessert; something to watch out for next time

-organization of the booths during the exhibit was well done

-with the grants, we can try to get different food for next year

-could also try to video tape the breakout sessions next time to put up on the BPK webpage

-this way those who weren’t able to attend can watch these videos

-OVERALL: JOB WELL DONE!

 

CCR:

Co-curricular record; essentially a record of volunteer hours dedicated by each individual in the BPKSA

-Need to make a list of events we’ve volunteered for since July 2014 (i.e peer mentorship, Terry Fox BBQ, BPK Kick-off); can also include any volunteering for Faculty of Sciences

-include who, when, what, how long and then send this to Darleen

-Darleen will then add it to myinvolvement.sfu to give each individual the appropriate credit

-descriptions of events, who was there, how many hours (set-up for the events

can count); meeting attendance will also count

-Sabrina will assist and Darleen will verify everything once its in

 

Meeting with Dr. Glen Tibbits

-Dr. Tibbits would like to come out to a BPKSA meeting to discuss things going on in BPK

-He wants to know what we like about the program, what we don’t, ideas for improvement, etc.

-Please come up with a list of topics you think should be addressed and email them to Loryn @ lbohne@sfu.ca

-try to focus on BOTH the positives and the negatives

Ideas that came up:

-BPK 201: not very applicable for Biomedical Physiology majors; maybe consider taking it out of the BP program?

-could be problematic for BP students who want to take 400 levels with this as a prerequisite

-the course should be more application based

-upper division wet-labs that are similar to upper division MBB labs and more practical would be a great addition to the program

-maybe talk to MBB and get prerequisites removed for BPK students so they can

take MBB 308 (MBB 331 is a prerequisite)

-but then they’ll have to make seats for BPK students, therefore its better to have

our own wet-lab

-but also can’t have identical courses in 2 different departments; need to be careful about the design of these courses

-maybe have a 4th year Neurophysiology course like BISC 405, courses more oriented towards research, how to communicate scientific research, how to read research papers

-allow students to have influence how a course is being made; this will allow for the inclusion of certain topics in the courses that students find super interesting

-USRAs:

-requirements could be changed to allow more students to hold a USRA (i.e

NSERCs are only given to people who have held one before, GPA etc)

-not enough opportunities which is why its super competitive (due to a lower number of research faculty in the department compared to the number of students)

-in addition, not having enough faculty causes a lot of problems with

enrollment too

-BISC 202 addition is good to the BP program; also, making BPK 207 a prerequisite to BPK 306 was a good idea; BPK 304W becoming a prerequisite for many courses was also a good idea

-could look into adding more focuses in the degrees; add streams in BP like KIN does

-have cardiovascular physiology streams, neurophysiology streams,

-this could work well when looking for jobs the future

-potentially remodel BPK 461

-need to address how any students are coming into the program and how many are transferring out

-help BPK get more funding (which would allow for more faculty to be hired)

-regulate sabbaticals taken by BPK faculty and also

-KIN has more choices for upper division electives; BP majors need more choices too since classes counting for their major are offered less frequently

-remove classes not offered anymore from the courses webpage

-more notice on when required courses wont be offered; i.e when they will be offered officially or when they are traditionally offered

 

Motions

-Erina made a motion to reminburse Sam for a gift to Ty for designing the BPK t-shirts. Matt seconded the motion. The motion was unanimously approved.

-Garveen made a motion to reimburse Loryn $54.84 for the pizza provided during the meeting. Matt seconded the motion. The motion as unanimously approved.

 

Adjournment:

The meeting was adjourned by Loryn at 1:20 pm at the BPK Conference Room. The next meeting of the BPKSA will be on Monday February 2nd 2015 at 12:30 pm in the BPK Conference Room.

 

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