Student Senate Meeting Minutes
Excerpts from April 4th & March 27th, 2013
Senator Reports:
Daniel Meshoyrer, Biomedical Engineering
CS101 recognized as not very applicable to BME curriculum. Department has recognized this by having “BME301 and BME310 have more applications in MATLAB.”
Course MATH279 does not prepare BME undergraduates for the statistical analysis level they need in upper level BME courses. Department recommends students take the three credit course, MATH333, because of degree requirements and GURs students have the opinion of taking MATH279. BME383 and all of the higher BME labs starting next semester will require statistics as a prerequisite.
Issues with BME302 instructor and course work. Department says fluid dynamics and Mohr circle is taught on a basic level, however multiple weeks are spent on Mohr circle. These concepts are taught more in depth in the higher level courses.
My Response: Compared to last semester’s concerns, BME302 is heading in the correct direction.
BME372: Requires practical instruction to adequately prepare students in the field of circuit analysis and signal processing. Department will speak with the instructor of the course and see if adding a recitation is possible.
ANSYS: Possibly having more availability outside of the BME floor. Currently, NJIT has 50 licenses for the program; we share them equally between the mechanical engineering department. Both departments would be hesitant about putting a license on an outside computer (such as in the library). Because then possibly too many licenses would be used at once this would create issues with classed that need 25 licenses to function.
My Response: Licenses should stay on the floor because it confirms that only BME students will use them. However, professors that assign work on ANSYS, should allow time in class or give ample time to complete the assignment since licenses are limited.
Other:
Track Curriculum Changes:
Department is in process of changing order of track courses to better streamline the advising and create a common BME core for first two years.
Sarah Rizk, Law Technology & Culture
Discussed financial aid issues in regards to students whose parents are not legal citizens of the United States, but they themselves are citizens of the US.
Had to bring paperwork in very quickly, were not informed early enough
Discussed students being dropped from Moodle/Kicked out of class
I told them that the financial aid office is working to prevent this same problem from occurring again, by making payments due the first week of schools
Spoke about finals week and what to do if exams are conflicting
Trying to make our major more known outside of NJIT
Spoke about trying to make a general calendar with all the events going on at NJIT
Discussed concept of shared governance
In the department, people are generally satisfied
Kevin Chen, Resident
The package room is often not open during the hours it should be open according to the schedules posted.
The 2nd floor bathroom ceiling is dripping water and all bathrooms are not in good shape.
There are malfunctions with the fire alarm beeping, washers and dryers taking money without working, and the heaters leak hot air even when off.
People like the ice machines in the kitchen and the fact that the desk attendants are all very courteous.
It was suggested that we upgrade the kitchens and the ovens in particular.
Rajeet Das, Commuter
The residents want stronger Wi-Fi on the first floor as well as in their study lounges on each floor. They also asked for better Ethernet ports for wired connections.
For their study lounges, residents asked for better microwaves and an oven. Furthermore, there was much complaint about the heating in Cypress Hall, which will soon be changed to cooling after a vote has been taken by the Cypress Hall Council at their next meeting.
Complaints about GDS: need better food options on campus and better food for vegetarians. A resident asked for GDS to accept recipe suggestions from the students.
Request for the laundry card machine to accept $1.00 bills.
Each of these issues will be discussed with Lynn Riker, Director of Residence Life, and there will hopefully be changes to residence life in Cypress Hall and the UC.
Ayaz Uddin, Information Technology
CCS Feedback Session Report
Capstone (CS/IT 491):
Disorganized
CCNA: Instructor is in inefficient; can’t explain the material well
Companies come to the capstone and take advantage of students
Aljbari: drags on, inefficient, disorganized, impossible to get in touch with
IT 202 –
Rambles
Notes are not helpful
Has no control over class
Class room is too big
Pseudo code should be allowed
Syntax is harshly punished
CS435 – Pearl
Midterm was based on Chap 1-9. The teaching material including some hw’s were not available
Doesn’t post on Moodle. Doesn’t even update his website. Hard to check the due dates.
Alijbari seems to be a better professor for the course. Posts resources for students and gives proper feedback.
IT386 – Eric Nersean
Distance learning course
Has combined class with IT 485. Students have to do IT 485 advanced work. Doesn’t care or bother to ask the students from IT 386
Doesn’t teach well
CS 100 – Spriallari
Jumps too far ahead in curriculum
Barry Cohen is the coordinator for CS 100. All the professors have to keep up the pace according to him
IT 465 –
Not punctual. Usually 30 minutes late to class. Extended the class till 9:30 – 10Pm
Chapters don’t match with the notes
Office Hours are not reasonable. Hard to get in touch with.
IT 340 –
Great personality!
Language barrier. Poor English Skills. Unable to get his point across.
A student failed midterm because of above stated reasons.
CS 113 – Questel
Talks about non-class related topics
Not good with students with no programming background. Skips explanation.
Students prefer him for higher level courses
CS 280 & 288: No Object oriented programming anymore
Software design courses need to be taught
Keith Williams:
Great teacher!
Can be biased and unorganized at times
Solutions:
A meeting will be held with Dean Geller sometime this week or next week to discuss some solutions to the students feedback
Advisors have been notified about Capstone and various courses
Victor Razuk, Chemical Engineering
The department needs more professors to accommodate increasing class sizes and as well professors that are proficient at teaching.
Department is currently evaluating six candidates for possibly one to two teaching positions. Backgrounds of the professors include University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Cooper Union, Stanford, and North Carolina State. New professors would be required to take a workshop course during one semester for teaching prior to instructing a course.
The curriculum should include a mathematical modeling course since this subject is heavily used in many industries involving chemical engineering.
Concerns about the course STS being offered as a freshman course, since it does not allow variation in terms of picking which social science students want to select.
Students had concerns about the reasoning behind taking Mech 320 as a required course since the material does not relate to chemical engineering.
Students had concerns about the Separations 1 since the course does not seem to be structured and there is very little progression in the course.
Students has concerns about ChE Lab I due to lab manual being vague, poor class structure, a lot of down time when starting labs, lack of knowledgeable teacher assistant, and need for more teaching assistants.
There should be NJIT wireless internet setup throughout all floors of Tiernan particularly the ChE labs where there is no wifi and the ChE computer lab.
The syllabus for many courses is not updated every semester for the classes in ChE.
Post old exams on Moodle so professors do not give out the same questions during exams.
Sarika Munir, Chemistry
Faculty and administrators in the department were fairly helpful and friendly, most questions were answered.
The chemistry learning center is a very helpful resource for the students, and they wish there were more tutoring centers available, such as tutoring available for environmental science courses.
It would be more helpful to the students if the environmental/chemistry advisor could advise students on career options.
Most of the upper level chemistry lab professors require specific information and specific format for writing a lab report that most of the students are not aware of. It would be helpful for students if there was an extra lab course offered on how to write the lab reports according to professor expectations.
Professor Petrova’s common exams were much easier than other professor’s common exams. Therefore the students found it very difficult to answer the questions during the final exam because every chemistry class takes the same final exam. However, the common exams are usually made by the professors themselves for their classes specifically.
Murat Duru, Mechanical Engineering
A Professor in the ME Department is a poor teacher and should work on his teaching styles. Furthermore, he is an extremely harsh and unfair grader.
The computer lab in the ME building does not have sufficient operating hours. This lab is the only one with SolidWorks and ANSYS licenses. Because classes are held in that lab there are short windows where students can access the lab to do their homework.
The department will either open the lab on weekends and/or later during the days or buy a network license so students can access the software from anywhere (via VPN).
The math and physics departments have tutors for their courses. The students would like the ME department to hire or organize a volunteer network of tutors for ME courses.
The department was already considering creating a ME tutoring center. In the meanwhile they are looking for students who would like to be volunteer tutors.
The ME Student Lounge is very small, considering the amount of students accessing the lounge. Furthermore, although the computers are relatively new, they are incapable of running some the software the ME students use, thus would like the computer in the lounge to be upgraded or updated and the number of computers to increase.
The department has, recently, worked lounge and increased its size. However, there is very little room for further expansion.
For thermo classes, the students suggest the department needs new professors. Furthermore, Prof. Florio needs to work on his voice projection. Also, the students request that he hands out the formula sheets for the exams earlier than he usually does.
A possible speaker and microphone system was discussed, among the students and I, but the issue remains open ended as of now.
Room arrangement in GITC 1205 is terrible. There is a wall in the way of the board and certain seats in the room. Furthermore, MECH 221 and MECH 224 have poor lighting – this makes it harder for the students to read what is written on the board.
Students request that the department opens another section for MECH 441 – for Prof. Hurley’s class. So Prof. Hurley would teach another section.
Senior Design projects aren’t given enough time. Currently you have one semester to work on it. Moreover, you do not have the resources to build whatever it is that you are designing. Students are disallowed from using the 3D printer and other machines and tools due to insurance restrictions. Furthermore, students do not have any funding to have outside sources to build whatever it is that they design and must pay out of pocket if they wish to have working model.
A new color printer has been installed for the use of the students; however, it is malfunctioning and is not connected to all the computers in the room.
Those students who are pursuing a minor in math have to take MATH 333. Students who are majoring in ME have to take MATH 279. MATH 333 covers more material and goes deeper into the material thus covers all of MATH 279 and more. However, the students are not allowed to use MATH 333 in place of MATH 279 thus must take both although they already know the material. Students argue this is a waste of money and time. Department states that students cannot ‘double dip’ in classes.
For the MECH 215 lab classes, students state that the TA’s do not know what they are doing and they end up helping them.
The ME FED sections all have different syllabi thus everyone learns something different. Students would like unity and harmony in these sections so everyone is up at the same level and for higher level classes, the professors know what the students have learned and what they haven’t and better prepare their syllabi.
Department is looking to hire more professors with research backgrounds.
Labs will be updated over the summer.
Students have praised Prof. Mani for his FED classes and availability & willingness to help students.
Kareem Fayek, Freshmen Commuter
Due to a heavy student demand, new weekend library hours are
Saturday: 10:00AM – 8:45PM
Sunday:1:00PM-11:45PM.
Library is in the process of requesting more computers for the computer lab due to the inability to find an open computer during student rush hour.
Over Spring Break, the first floor of the library was successfully re-carpeted. They aim to re-carpet the second and third floors around graduation time(May 21-May 23).
Shared Governance:
MOTION (Jake Campbell, Kareem Fayek): To approve the Constitution of The University Shared Governance. MOTION PASSES