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  News and Notes from the January 31, 2008 SPS meeting

Welcome back!!!

Announcements.
  Deadline for national SPS summer internships is TOMORROW (Feb. 1)
  Deadline for UWRF Scholarships is Feb 4
  Deadline for Falcon Grants:  Feb 6 and April 26 (check the website)
  Public observing and astronomy talk is set for the week of Feb 11
  Deadline for running for Associate Zone Councilor is Feb 15
  Deadline for national SPS scholarships is Feb 15
  More summer REU opportunities are being added to the folder!


Zone meeting planning.  (early April)  Cadie had a lot of the basics
planned out, but we need to help her!  We are aiming for a decent amount
of people to show up (+40 people).  We are almost sure to get Laurie Y
Carrillo, PE as our guest speaker, and NASA will be covering most of her
costs.  She is a materials engineer at NASA-Johnson Space Center.  She is
a first generation college student in her family, and is Latina.  She is
working on the project VIPR, which is a plasma drive for rockets, to be
used for interplanetary travel.  We are also looking for people who would
be willing to offer 'crash space' for travelers.  As for presentations,
should we do just posters, or speakers also?  And what for workshops? 
Much planning yet to do...


Sigma Pi Sigma banquet.  Will be held April 25.  18 students are eligible
for induction.  We are getting a guest speaker from the University of
Miami-Ohio to talk about nano wires and quantum dots.  We will probably
need to hold this off campus, as the University Center is all booked, so
if anybody has an idea of a decent (and not too expensive) restaurant that
could hold 60-80 people, send Dr. B  your ideas.


Meeting time.  There has been some grumbling about our noon Thursday
meeting times, so it was suggested to once a month have a pot-luck meeting
at...5-5:30ish?  Any ideas?


Fundraising.  Should we do it in February?  And should we do a walking
taco, bake sale, or book sale (or all in one)?  We need to stalk that
center lobby area to see which days of the week have higher foot traffic
through the area.


Spring Picnic.  Should we have our picnic the last week before finals? 
Look at schedules to see when works out best.


Women's conference at Michigan University.  Crystal, Cadie, and Kate went
(supported by Dr. Hardtke) for two days of exciting talks!   They learned a lot
about astronomy.  They also learned a lot of information about Grad
School.  They also found out that we have a much more difficult lab
department in comparison with other colleges.  (And that's a good thing.)


Pre-engineering.  There is a clipboard up in the seminar room for meeting
times!


Thank Bridget when you see her for cleaning our nasty microwave...so
clean up after yourselves!!!


Demo.  We watched a video on interleaved phone book pages.  Supposedly,
if you interleave the pages of two phone books, you can't pull them apart.
It seems to be true!  Fun to watch, anyway.  Watch it!


Minutes taken by Jen


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