UTMAGS Newsletter: March 2, 2012
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~Graduate Student & Faculty Research Night: Submission Deadline March 2nd!
~Contract Ratification Vote for CUPE 3902
~Time to Degree Completion Survey
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Graduate Student & Faculty Research Night
The deadline for confirming interest in presenting a poster at the Graduate Student & Faculty Research Night is ***Today, March 2nd***. To be included, e-mail Anna Reale at anna.reale@utoronto.ca or call 905-569-4432. Please include a title and short (200 word) abstract. Free poster printing will be provided by the library.
The event will be held on Wednesday, March 28th from 5:00-8:00pm at the Blind Duck Pub. All research stream and professional stream graduate students are encouraged to attend.
Psst….there will be a free dinner!
Contract Ratification Vote for CUPE 3902
Just a gentle reminder that the polls will be open to vote on ratifying the University of Toronto TA contract on Monday, March 5th and Tuesday, March 6th from 10:00-2:00pm in the Meeting Place. Various poll locations are also set up at the St. George Campus, see http://cupe3902.org/ for more details.
A copy of the contract is available at http://cupe3902.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Memorandum-of-Settlement1.pdf
A summary of the contract is available at http://cupe3902.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Summary-of-Tentative-Agreement.pdf
The ratification of this contract (a yes vote) has been recommended by the CUPE 3902 Bargaining Team.
Time to Degree Completion Survey
Across our University, the average time to completion of PhDs is above 5 years. While there are many reasons for this, some essentially intractable, the University administration has said that all students should be able to finish their degree within that time period if they wish to. A similar situation exists in some graduate masters degrees. To affect change, the University administration (including President Naylor) has asked members of the Graduate Student Union Executive to work with students to identify programs and Departments where time to completion might be improved and to work in concert to make those improvements.
Please contact jasonatlarge@utgsu.ca if you believe that time to completions could be improved in your Department or fill out the following survey (especially the comment section): http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C8P78TL
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Cheers!
UTMAGS
Fun fact: Today (March 2nd) is Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)’s birthday! Over his lifetime he published 46 children’s books, including Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who!, and The Lorax, of which a movie adaptation hits theatres today.
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple”. -Dr. Seuss