Academic Affairs, woot woot

Hey all, this is Chelsea, the VP for Academic Affairs. I'll try to keep you updated on all of the things the AA Senators and I are doing to try to make academics at Duke better for students. Please comment or send me an email, though, if you have any ideas or need help with an academic problem--we're here to help you.

This week, we chose our new at large senators (Michael Mandl, Michelle Sohn, Andrew Schreiber, and Ben Getson) and had our first full committee meeting. We decided to send out a how-to guide to everyone before class registration to make sure that people can navigate the new ACES (I know-yikes!). We're also still working with the people in OIT to try to fix the problems with the new system. We gave them a big list at our first focus group, including making one menu that will be on every page and making the bursar's bill easier to read. I just emailed Kathy Pfeiffer, the head of the project, about setting a date for our next meeting: hopefully we'll fix the rest of the problems soon.

We've also been working with Portia, a student affairs senator, to set up a new focus program about Africa and Africans. Dean Baker was really excited about the idea, and suggested that we link the project to Duke Engage. Harrison, Portia, and I are now talking to professors to see if they would be interested. Let us know if you have any tips!

My pet project right now is working with the library, OIT, and the Career Center to set up career-focused research and software training workshops. These would be offered through the career center on topics like 'Researching Equities' or 'Learning Microsoft Excel'. It's still in the planning phases, so we'd love feedback on topics, etc.

One of our big three projects is on the table right now: changing the underload policy to be more flexible for all students. I have to stay mum on the details because it's in a private committee right now, but I feel good about the progress. It would be awesome if we got it passed, so watch out for it at the end of this semester!

I've got three midterms on Monday and Tuesday, so I better stop blogging and start studying. Leave a comment or shoot me an email with any questions--cpg5@duke.edu.

~Chelsea