According to the Boston Globe, it is a waste of our time and doesn’t do anything to improve security. Can someone please tell the Computing Center to stop asking us to change our passwords every few months or so?

Something that caught my eye recently was this post over at one of the many Google blogs, outlining a new tool Google developed to migrate email, calendar, and contact data from Exchange to Google Apps. In the library’s recent 14 Days comment system, I left a note mentioning how I would like to see the college transition from an email system based around Microsoft Exchange to one based on Google Apps. This new tool seems like the perfect way to do that. Google Apps is free and I believe a superior product. The Computing Center ought to look immediately into making this transition, especially with all of the other cost-saving measures the Administration has enacted or is considering.

Hello Trinity students,

The Academic Affairs committee of the SGA has been very active this year making Trin better with the course evaluations, the registrar’s forms in Mather, and ISBN numbers.  We would to continue to make academics fun and exciting by organizing Interdepartmental Trivia night among different departments.  This would mean that different majors would form teams and compete in a trivia competition.  We are thinking that it would be an evening affair and that professors would also be part of the game.

However,  we would like to know if students would be interested in something like this before going through with concrete plans.  We welcome all feedback, comments, concerns, questions, and ideas for a Trivia Night.  Please let us know so that we can make this happen for you!

Hello All–

Quick update on what I’ve been working on as apart of the Academic Affairs committee.  After going to the First Year Orientation Debrief, an idea was introduced to have a student on the committee that selects the book that First Years read over the summer before school starts.  I met with Dean Lindsey who welcomed it as a good idea.  Last night, I brought it to the SGA body, and we elected Alison Ford as our student representative to the Reading Initiative Committee. So Congrats to her!

Along with Terry, we have worked very hard with the Registrar’s Office to get a cabinet that would have some popular registrar forms placed in Mather.  Hopefully, it will be by the post office so that students can drop off the forms at the post office and send it through inter-campus mail.  Thanks to Patricia McGregor for working with us to make this possible.

If anyone would like to have more forms other than the ones that are already online to be online, please email me or straight to the registrar, Patricia McGregor, with your suggestion.  She is very open to uploading most forms that can be put online on the registrar’s website.

Hello All,

For those not in the SGA loop, I wanted to give the campus an update on my new long-term brainchild for the year (and into next year). I’m putting together a January Term at Trinity to be held yearly starting in January 2011. If you haven’t heard of similar programs at other colleges, January Term exists to offer 1-credit courses outside of the regular academic year. Besides regular courses here at Trinity, here’s how you could earn that credit:

• Intensive programs offered at Global Learning Sites. Study abroad in this manner would be less disruptive than normal study abroad, and could be an easier path to academic enrichment. Plus, it would be cool, or rather, warm! Why spend January in snow when you could complete a month-long theater program in Trinidad?
• Classes taught by students. While it is currently rare, junior and seniors can design their own pass/fail courses, obtain faculty sponsorship, and then teach those courses. A month-long course would offer far less stressful commitment on part of the student teacher, but would still provide a valuable experience. The courses could be designed around any subject – obscure academia, practical hobbies – it just needs to be approved by the Curriculum Committee.
• Focused, meaningful internships. With academic internships soon moving over to Career Services’ responsibility and the economy bust, January would be the perfect time to step out of one’s normal semester commitments and intern in Hartford for a month. Students would work one-on-one with Career Services advisors to develop a concentrated intern experience that is more than a job-shadow or reception duties.
• Community service campaigns. Trinity students could design and lead their own community service projects within the city of Hartford. In a time when it is difficult for the college to focus as much attention on community outreach, students could be ambassadors for the school doing work that has direct impact on the surrounding community.
• Research projects for one’s major. Is there a burning question related to your field of study that hasn’t even been asked yet? Commission a study, design a course of experimentation, and answer it. There’s no better time to do original student research than in January without the pressures of a regular semester.

As you might have noticed, the focus of this program is to offer a meaningful experience during a time that otherwise might not be. I’m sure there are some enterprising students who accomplish amazing things during winter break, but I know that many, including myself, take most of the month as vacation. While I’m sure some students would continue to do so, I know many others want choice. A Trinity January Term would empower, engage, and challenge students to lead, take initiative, and design an amazing January for themselves that gets back to the core of the Trinity experience – intellectual curiosity.

While costs have not been fully determined, preliminary estimation would set tuition, room and board near $2500, with financial aid offered. January Term would be completely optional. I want to know how this program could serve you. Are there components you would add, modify, or scrap all together? What are the best ways to get students engaged? Please comment below, or email me at william.yale@trincoll.edu.

Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to hearing from you,

Will Yale

Senator at Large

Academic Affairs Committee

Interested in Academics? Do you love the SGA? Well, luckily for you we will take all of your old gold jewelry at Good Ol’ Tom…just kidding…but the Academic Affairs Committee is working hard daily for all your academic needs this year (which is like getting money in the mail). If you would like to see the daily musings of the committee, please visit the Academic Affairs Committee’s page (http://bit.ly/3RWZuO) and click VIEW UPDATES.Happy stalking fellow SGA fanboys and fangirls.

I am pleased to announce that nearly all of the original regulations concerning After Office Hours have been removed, for the sake of attracting more students to the program. Students can now take out to dinner any professor, with any number of students, any number of times. Listening to people interested in the program, I realized that there were interactions between students and faculty that AOH needed to better promote, such as in language classes, between advisers and advisees, and in small classes such as senior seminars. The revamped rules pare it down to the basics: meals with up to $20 per person off-campus and $10 on-campus, with a faculty member present. You can still get the reimbursement form at the Dean of Students Office or under the Services tab on this website.

~ Will Yale

Class ‘12 Senator and Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee

After meeting with Kathleen Mcglew in late February, I was able to extend the Registrars office hours to 5:30 PM in for the add/drop period, starting with the first day of classes.  Ms. Mcglew agreed to this proposal and will experiment with it for the upcoming semester in order to make sure that students, especially freshmen receive the assistance they need to settle all questions and concerns regarding classes.  With this extra hour, students will not have to rush from the conclusion of 2:40 PM classes that end at 3:55 PM.  The registra’s office will not have to deal with as many late add/drop requests, so at the end of the day the registra’s office has less questions to deal with later in the semester and students will have all their questions answered regarding classes.  In the meantime the academic affairs committee is working on making the entire system paperless so that students will be able to access all academic information online.

Fabio Botarelli (Academic Affairs Committee)

The SGA is pleased to announce the beginning of a new program, After Office Hours, to be co-funded with President Jones. Here’s how it works:

1. 2-5 students in a particular class get together for an off-campus dinner with their professor OR a larger group (perhaps the entire class) gets together for an on-campus event involving food, with their professor.
2. Pick up a reimbursement form from Dean Alford’s office, fill it out, and return it with an original receipt.
3. Free meals! (up to $20 off campus and $10 on campus per student, with one dinner per class and three per semester per student; transportation not funded – go local!)

And that’s it. Be bold! With After Office Hours, the entire impetus to hold these dinners and events is on the individual student. The variations in ideas on how to use this money and the program itself can only grow exponentially from here. Particularly with the on-campus component, an infinite number of gatherings are possible – the food is what brings people to the the table.

If you have any questions, please email me at William DOT Yale AT trinity DOT edu. The original resolution that created After Office Hours is attached below, in case you want to look at the original source material. Look out for soon-to-come advertisements!

~ Will Yale

After Office Hours Resolution

As a dove-tail to Eamon’s post last week, I’m working on setting up a pilot program for next semester for student-professor dinners. Dinners would be student-initiated, and would help build personal relationships with professors. Although faculty can currently receive reimbursement for meals with students, field-trips, and meetings over coffee, there is no institutionalized program so that a small group of students themselves can organize a dinner with a professor. My plan would build such a program.

As I’ve written it thus far, the program would be a simple system of reimbursement at any restaurant up to $15 per student; any fraud would be accounted for by trust in the form of signatures and acknowledgment from professors that each dinner did take place. The as-yet-unnamed program would be integrated with the Dean of Students Office’s system of faculty reimbursement mentioned above.

I am looking for student input as to how such a program would best serve you. What should it be called? How would it best be advertised? Is the system of reimbursement as outlined fair? What, if any, set limit should be imposed on the number of students participating in any particular dinner? What are your thoughts? Thanks for your input!

~ Will Yale

Class ‘12 Senator

Academic Affairs Committee

Just in case you haven’t had a chance to check out our page recently these are some of the things we’ve been up to:

Current Issues:

1. Working to provide more services to students with learning disabilities
2. Proposing one day a week where faculty are strongly encouraged to eat in Mather with students
3. Reflecting on use of common hour and schedule changes
4. Establish blackboard “how-to” seminars for freshman
5. Investigate number of 101 Art classes

we are meeting with Deans and faculty to further understand these issues and handle them accordingly. If you have any information or would like to know more about these issues please feel free to drop me an email!

A goal of the mine in relation to my work for Academic Affairs is to encourage the school to hire a learning specialist this semester. I have done a lot of work to focus the attention of the college to this issue during my time here. If you have a learning disability / would like to get involved in advocating for learning services / are interested – please email me to get involved. The more people involved the better!! sophia.simpson@trincoll.edu

My name is Verdell Walker and I am the 2007-2008 Academic Affairs Committee Chair. The purpose of my committee is to oversee all affairs related to the academic life of this college.

I became the chair of this committee because I am concerned with the academic climate of this campus. I firmly believe that we attend one of the premier institutions of education in the world. I want the academic power of Trinity to be a prime focus of the way we present ourselves to the world, especially prospective applicants. While our athletic and other non-academic achievements are important and laudable, the most important part of Trinity transpires within its classrooms. But I want to see that academic excellence and engagement expand beyond the classrooms and library. I want to see students take it to their dorms, to the dinner table in Mather, to the couches in Gallows Hill.

Read the rest of this entry »