Present: Derrick Parkhurst, ChiuShui Chan, Steve Herrnstadt, Tony Townsend sitting in for Brian Mennecke, Pam Shill. Absent: Jim Oliver, Julie Dickerson, Matt Heying, Brian Mennecke
Derrick reported that he and Pam met with most of the HCI students in November to check in with them to see if they were all on track. There were a few funding issues.
Derrick, Jim Oliver, and Pam met with Dave Holger, at his request, so that he could better understand how the new budget model will affect the program. Some budget issues are not resolved yet to determine exactly how HCI will be funded in the future.
Service Requirement: Discussion determined that the service requirement should be kept broad. It should be independent of the student’s research and should be a benefit to society. Examples of service include, but are not limited to, work on the demo team, work on the student kiosk project, participation in demo days, and mentoring. Students will be asked to propose their service project to their POS committee for feedback or approval. A description and details of their service project will be recorded in their eportfolio. This information will be shared with students to get their feedback.
ArtGR 672 substitution request for HCI 575X: Steve Herrnstadt requested that ArtGR 672 is allowed as a substitute for HCI 575X on the Program of Studies for three HCI students in Art and Design. The ArtGR course is more in line with these students’ professional goals. The course is offered with three different perspectives depending on the instructor, but all three perspectives are project based courses where students use some type of programming skills to create a project. This request was approved for these three students. Discussion was also held about making this an alternative required course to HCI 575X. More discussion about the HCI curriculum will need to occur and ArtGR 672 would need to be offered to off-campus students before this could be implemented. Steve will discuss the distance education option with his department.
Research and Evaluation 552 substitution request for Stat 401: A letter from Mack Shelley in Statistics requested that Research and Evaluation 552 is used as a substitute for Stat 401 on one HCI student’s POS. Mack Shelley teaches both courses and sees substantial overlap between the courses. This request was approved.
Discussion was held about diluting the original intent of the program by constantly allowing substitutions for core courses. The cohort that develops when students take three core courses together is also important. The curriculum discussion will continue and will be a focus of the HCI faculty retreat in May.
Game Developer’s Conference: Derrick would like input on sending some HCI students to the Game Developer’s Conference in March to recruit, make our program more visible, and for students to get training. The cost would be approximately $15,000. If this were to happen, the suggestion was made to include cool, portable technology so that we draw a crowd around our booth for maximum exposure.
Other ideas for recruiting included the following:
Since a publication in Wired would reach more people than attending a conference, Derrick will investigate the costs of an ad in Wired.
Derrick suggested that we extend the Fall 2007 application deadline to March 1 since we only have 30 applicants for fall at this time. If we do put an ad in Wired, we would advertise the extended deadline. We could call the January deadline the Early Application Deadline.
ChiuShui announced that Debra Sattersfield, an Art and Design faculty member, is interested in HCI faculty membership. Derrick will follow up with Debra.
ChiuShui brought up the HCI faculty awards for discussion. The group discussed making several awards in the areas of Research, Teaching, and Service available. ChiuShui will poll the HCI faculty to get their input and will report back.
Next meeting is Wednesday, January 10 at 9 am in the VRAC Allbaugh Conference Room.
Submitted by Pam Shill