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Miscellaneous
There are a few other responsibilities that all grads share which don't
fit nicely into the four categories above. They are listed below, in random
order.
- Colloquium ``Privilege'': The department runs a weekly colloquium in the
conference room on Mondays. At the beginning of each year, the grad rep
(see Section 3) will make up a randomly ordered list of
all the grads and post it on the grad bulletin board. This is the
Colloquium ``Privilege'' list. Colloquium duty involves:2
- Tidying up the conference room to make sure it is ready for the talk, including
arranging the chairs nicely, pulling the screen down, turning on/off
appropriate lights, erasing the chalkboard,
and making sure the pointer is available.
- Seek out the
speaker for the day to determine whether they have any special media
needs (e.g. slide projector or connection for a PowerPoint presentation).
- Make sure the audio system is ready
and help the speaker with the microphone.
- After the talk, make sure all media items are put away and secured.
- Colloquia: Between NRAO and UVa, there are usually two Astronomy
colloquia every
week in Charlottesville. In addition, there are less formal TUNA talks
at NRAO. Grad students are expected to attend the majority of the
colloquia. You should at least attend all of the UVa colloquia that you
can, and as many NRAO colloquia as possible. The faculty will notice if
attendance is consistently poor at colloquia, and have been known to put
questions taken directly from colloquia on the qualifiers if attendance
is bad. TUNA talks are viewed as more optional, but still very useful.
At first, you will probably have a hard time following these various
talks. This is normal. Don't get discouraged. Keep going, and over
time, you will absorb more and more of the material covered.
- Public Night: The first and third Friday of each month, there is a
Public Night at McCormick Observatory, plus one Friday in October and
one in April when the Fan Mountain Observatory is open to the public.
In general, each grad student will have to work at one public night each
semester. A schedule is created at the beginning of each semester, and
you will be given the opportunity to request specific dates. The
details about how public night works will be discussed elsewhere,
probably in a meeting with Ed Murphy sometime early in the semester.
- All grads are required to submit progress reports at the end of
each semester. These should detail your research progress, committee
work, conferences attended, papers published, and anything else of
note. Copies should go to the Chair, Grad advisor, your research
adviser, your mentor adviser (first- and second-years), and each
member of your committee (third-years and beyond). Also, give one
copy to Jackie so she can put it in your department file. The grad
rep should remind people about these as each semester comes to a
close. As an example, take a look at a senior grad's progress report
from a previous semester.
Next: Other Recommendations
Up: Grad Responsibilities
Previous: The (dreaded) Qualifier
Paul Ries
2009-08-24