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Meeting notes: March 2024

Place: Freja, Teknikringen 8.
Time: 2024-03-26, 16:00 - 17:00

Opening formalities

  1. Meeting opening at 16:11

  2. Choice of meeting chairperson: IB
  3. Choice of meeting secretary: EAC
  4. Minutes checker: CL
  5. Approval of agenda and meeting procedures.

Agenda and meeting procedures were approved

Reports & updates

FA-PA meeting (VB)

Victor attended the first FA-PA meeting of the year on March 12th. Issues that were discussed

  • PhD students teaching in the course that they are also attending as students. There was a consensus in the meeting that this was bad.
  • Onboarding: it is important to give proper information to the new students.
  • Quality system:
    • Introduction of doctoral thesis templates
    • Conflict of interests with committee and opponent
    • No committee members on zoom
  • There is a new PA for engineering mechanics
  • Similar to the research integrity seminar, a JML and sustainability seminar will be instated.
  • There exists a document on Guidelines for improving the quality of education in the SCI school. Followup: Can we get this document?
  • Language courses: EECS school gets 6 credits for language courses. Followup: Talk with EECS school to hear how it works (does Swedish for employees count?)

Next meeting will be on May 29th 10:00-12:00.

b. SACO Annual Meeting (VB).

Victor attended the SACO annual meeting on 19th of March. In the meeting a plan for 2024 was presented and a new board was elected. This year a PhD student is a member of the board, which is good representation for us. Improvement of the salary ladder was also discussed in the meeting.

c. Borelius medal (GMS – on behalf of Maria)

Maria attended the first meeting of the Borelius medal committee. It is possible to nominate anyone associated with the SCI school, including PhD students. The only rule is that the person needs to be employed fully at KTH. The form will be opened in a few days and the medal will be awarded during the doctoral ceremony.

d. PhD chapter meeting 20 March (IB)

Ibrahim attended the PhD chapter meeting on the 20th of March. In the meeting the upcoming elections were discussed, and the test-run of digital elections. The presidium will need to be nominated in advance. PhD chapter board member can only be member of the board for 2 years. Additionally, the meeting voted against having multiple chairpersons in a council.

Discussion points

a. Newsletter for PhD Chapter (Sai)

Newsletter information was sent to the PhD chapter.

b. Minutes/report from FF errands (IB).

Ibrahim attended a docent interview, and volunteered to write notes on how to do it and tips and tricks for people who are doing it for the first time. Charlie volunteered to do it for recruitment meetings. Anyone can add hints if they want to

c. Docent Interview April 9th, 10:00 – 12:00 on-site (CL)

Ibrahim will take this

Development of Current Events/Initiatives

a. Boule event on 5th April Friday, FREE (Ebba).

A boule event is happening on the 5th of April.

b. Machine learning and AI talk, popular Science + nibbles. (Ebba).

An event suggested by a PhD student is under planning.

c. Scientifika (IB)

Scitentifika is a recurring event organized by NORDITA. They consists of volunteer talks, like TED talks, with fika and food.

d. Upcoming events (Ebba)

No upcoming events are planned currently.

Additional issues and information

a. Meetings with Presidium for further discussions (GMS)

Everyone is always welcome to book more meetings with the Presidium if 1 hour council meetings are not enough.

b. Communication via Slack (GMS).

A lot of communication happen via Slack. Download to not miss anything!

c. SCI social page and social group (Sai).

d. Next meeting location, date and time (GMS).

23 April 15:30 in Freja, TR8.

Followup: No access for people. Check if we can get access.

e. Distribution of t-shirts and photoshoot (GMS).

T-shirts were distributed but no photo was taken

Other

a. PADS update:

Physics:

KTH central wants to introduce a new things: to use Canvas you need to take a course first.

Solid mecahnics.:

Compensation issues: Each division has their own utbildningsansvarig and different approaches for comepnsations for teaching and commission of trust. PADs can teach less, so that the total time compensation adds up to same as students without commission of trust. However, departmental duties and commission of trust should not be mixed. Suggestion from Sina: track how much time you spend on being a PAD.

b. APT meetings:

Heads of division should send invite to both Karl and PADs to the APT meetings to inform about the form for gathering cases on harassment. This is not how it is being done. Several departments have not invited PADs to APT meetings yet. Followup: Check which APT meetings Karl has already been invited to. Remind Head of division to invite PADs to APT and bring Karl.

c. PA meeting:

One of the Pas during their meeting with new students suggested that the typical timeline for students is to publish in the first couple of years. The thought is to motivate students to publish, but it might do the opposite. Should we discuss this with the PA? The PA is retiring anyways so no discussion necessary.

d. Student influence (Sina):

Guidelines say that each school should have a meeting with head of school about student influence. The head of school should call this meeting. Followup: share this document with council members. Sandra has been asked to have this meeting, but she has never initiated this meeting.

e. List of 3rd cycle courses

It has been discussed to gather a list of 3d cycle courses, but this has not been done yet. This is the job of PAs and the PAs should be pushed to do this every year by the council. A list of courses that will be given next semester could for example be included in the newsletter. FOSAM could maybe organize this?

Meeting closed

Meeting closed at 17.34