Council meeting minutes from 2025-03-06

minutes of the students' representative council for study programs of computer science

Council Elections

Last week, We had 3 people that were yet to accept their admittance into the student council. By know, Tehran has accepted his election. We did not get a response from Owen yet. As per David (AStA referee for student council), there is no timeout until when people can reply and give their acceptance. The final person that is left, is Kamila. As per our knowledge, she first accepted the position via email and then proceeded to step out. A few days later, she hung up a letter onto our pinboard containing another resignation. David was requested by many, privately, on what the current status of the resignation is. As per David, an official poster on the Student Council board doesn't count as an offical step back. David then took this up to the Council of Eldest. The council of eldest are at a position higher than other bodies such as the AsTa, FSK, and so on. The Council of eldest requested an official letter by the student council to investigate whether the resignation is valid. The topic today is to get an account of the events, when it took place, who is involved and who isn't. The draft letter is unfortunately in German. Our letter essentially covered the events that took place leading to the possible quitting of Kamila from the Student Council. David informs us that Clemens (election officer) is responsible for the acceptance into the council, not quitting. Simon says that there is our official stamp on Kamilas resignation letter. Since the letter had the offical council stamp on it, it means that it was officially reviewed by a member of the council and then put up on the board.

Anton asks everyone if they are okay with the contents of our letter to the Council of Eldest or if they would like to have anything added or removed from it.
David recounts the timeline of events, first Kamilas letter being put up on the board, followed by it posted onto our instagram. Mona adds that the letter is not directly addressed to anyone but it should be - to the remaining council members.

Anton takes a vote on publishing our letter after final review
YES - 10 in favour
NO - 0
ABSTAIN - 1

Discrimination Reports

There have been multiple reports about discrimination. People felt that they did not have a person from the council to reach out to about it.

After a detailed discussion, the council has reached a consensus that there needs to be improvements, especially in terms of proper communication channels to handle such incidents and reports as well education to create awareness. However, not all the reports have been completely resolved.

We took a vote on getting the reports investigated by a third party.

TaskForce - Who for What?

We alloted members to the task forces. They are as follows -

Moderator - Ferdinand (?), Anton,
Minute-taker + topic board printout - Abigail, Kamila, lizzie (backup)
SysAdmin - Max, Harry, Alex, Kevin
Mailing lists and Snail Mail - Jan-Philipp
Design - Jonas, daniel, abigail, steve
Busy Beaver - Ferdinand, Harry, Daniel
Social Media and PR - Steve, Yagmur, Abigail, Lizzie
Anti-Discrimation - Yagmur, Kamila, lizzie, Anton
Thought Protocols - harry, Daniel, simon
Online Support - Kamila, Alex, Max
cleaning - Abigail, Daniel, Anton
Mampfkasse - Lizzie, Jan-Philipp, Nico
Student seminar rooms - JP, Alex, Jonas
Printer - Alex, Ferdinand, Max, Harry
Social Events - Kamila, Jonas, Daniel, Anton, Yagmur, Lizzie, Steve, Manuel
StEP - Harry, Abi, lizzie, Anton, Steve, Alex, Max, yagmur, Manuel
breakfasts - abigail, Steve, Yagmur, JP, Nico, lizzie, max
Summer BBQ - Steve, Jonas, Harry, JP, Anton, Daniel, Lizzie
New Profs. - Ferdinand, Anton, Alex
Rentals - Abigail
Sponsoring - Ferdinand, Alex, Lukas, Manuel
Repetitorial- Jonas, Kamila, Simon
Facility management - Harry, JP

Busy Beaver Award

We give our teaching award (Busy Beaver) at the beginning of a semester to courses from the previous semester. However,there was a proposal to move this back by one semester for the courses held. for e.g WiSe subjects will be awarded in the next Winter Semester. The motivation for this is to help students better select courses for themselves. Also, the QUALIS data is a lot to collate in such a short period of time, as well as block courses can now be respected.

We proceeded to vote on this -
YES - 7 in favour
No - 0
Abstain - 1
Thus, the proposal has been accepted.

MfCS Repetitorial

The MfCS1 repetitorial is a revision course organised by us (Simon). It is supposed to prepare students a little bit better for the MfCS1 reexam. This is taking place from 17th march to 19th with a mock exam on 18th. Simon needs helps with this. There are some members who have volunteered already for this. His concern is that only 10 students have registered out of the 120 that are present.

For context, 2 years ago, there were 70 people who were part of this followed by 60 people last year. There is also concern that a lot of efforts will be put and there won't be enough students attending it. An awareness has been created in terms of a questionnaire among the students. Now, there will be some more advertisments to bring more attention to this. Jonas raises concerns about how useful would physical posters be as not many are present on campus. Simon adds that a formal email has already been sent to the students, so they may already be aware of this taking place.

Day of the Open Campus

Previously known as the Day of the open Door, on the day of open campus opens its doors to visitors. Usually, on this day, we also organised some activity at our booth, together with a students perspective on studying CS at SIC.
A lot of people visit the campus in hope to see something interesting. In previous years, we offered some activities. We recieved an email from Erich who is collecting all the activities that will possibly take place and so the question remains - Do we want to do something? This would mean that we would need people to be present on the booth and take charge of it.

Daniel recounts previous iterations where having goodies really made a lasting effect. Also food was very much sought for. He also says that it isn't much work as you just have to talk to interested people. Simon has opinions, strong ones.

We vote on this, cause we always vote on things -
Yes - 6 in favour
No - 1
Abstain - 1

So, we will organise something. The deadline for informing our choice of activity is 21st March. We will ask for opinions from faculties as to what should be showcased. Also, research on our own about what is do-able.

Renovation

Natalia had earlier contacted us regarding renovation of room 103 and 104. So we came up with some plans.
For 103:
This is a silent room; not meant for group work. People voiced that they don't like their monitors being visible to people seated behind them. Keeping this in mind, a layout has been come up with.

For 104:
This is a huge room (120 sq. m). So, our plan is to put in an actual wall in there. This idea was not met with excitement by Erich. A suggestion by Erich was to instead use the dividers.
Our proposed layout would offer space for online meetings. We also thinks this would be good for courses like SE-Lab.

Jonas says that not many know about what those rooms are for and so we should work on making students aware of this renovation and urge them towards its usage. Daniel says that colourful posters will gather more attention, as compared to the currently created posters by Kevin. Nic urges that introducing students to these rooms should ideally also take place during our introductory events.

Jan-Philip shared with us the expenses that would be taking place and the prospective things that will be purchased. Capabilities such as camera and mic were discussed. A potential issue is that mics could go missing. Jonas asks if providing a keyboard and mouse was taken into consideration. Nic adds that keyboards have been slowly being taken out, as not many students presented with a need for it. Kevin points out that we do have keyboards that students can borrow if they need it.

AND ONCE AGAIN, WE VOTE:
YES - 9 in favour
NO - 0
ABSTAIN - 0

Thus, the renovation plans have found our approval.

Bio-informatics Grad School

The lectures offered for bioinformatics grad school students are not very fitting and masters students have a more broader selection for students.
The grad school is fast track prep program into PhD. it has a lecture phase. You don't actually have a masters thesis, but just directly go into PhD. Everyone who wants the PhD needs to have been part of the grad school.

Lizzie says that the courses on a masters level are very interdisciplinary. However, there are courses that are not focused on biology, chemistry. There is also a need to be proficient with Programming.

Anton takes her points into consideration, but points the discussion back towards courses for the grad school.

Lukas looked into the regulations and states that the layout of the grad school is to mimic a masters level. This works in the sense that the paper that you publish can potentially count as a masters thesis. There are two blocks of lectures that need to be completed. The first category has subjects that could fit with the computer science masters. but the secondary category does not. This could be because the grad school is much older than the masters program.

To offer wider course availability, this topic can be pushed to the Dean's lunch. Lukas points out that if this does reach that point, representatives from the grad school and ZBI should also be present to present their case. Lukas has agreed that he will also be present.

StEP 2025/2026

Rooms are difficult to get. So, we should be fixing dates quickly, even of the winter semester. It's better that we have some rooms as we can always return them back if we don't require them.

The WiSe lectures begin from 13th Oct. So we decided to reserve the week before that, i.e. 6th Oct to 10th Oct for reservation of rooms.